Mamontov's Private Opera: The Search for Modernism in Russian Theater

6 From Meiningen to Mey

171 six From Meiningen to Meyerhold It is clear, I hope, from the discussion above that Mamontov’s enterprise was run in many ways like a drama theater, with acting and stage directing concerns being equal to and occasionally superseding purely musical , vocal considerations. Despite the fact that acting was Mamontov’s passion, and directing his favorite pastime, one cannot explain such a fundamental role of spoken drama practices at his company purely by the nostalgic desire to re-live the experiences of his youth. The uniqueness of the MPO among Russian opera houses of the 1890s, both stateowned and private, resulted partly from the influence of Western European drama troupes: never before had an opera theater been so inspired by its stage rival. Extant archival documents reveal that the implementation of spoken drama principles was a deliberate, openly acknowledged practice at the MPO. Mamontov loved the Maly Drama Theater and insisted that his singers attend it. He also held the French dramatic tradition in the highest regard: we have seen him offer the Comédie Française, and great French dramatic actors such as Sara Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and Jean Monet-Sully, as models for his young troupe. But arguably, the most significant impact on MPO operations and Mamontov’s own directing was created by an acclaimed German company that had made waves around Europe since the 1870s and toured Russia twice, in 1885 and 1890. This company was the Meiningen Court Theater, owned by Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen, and directed by the duke himself, his actress wife, and his assistant stage director Ludwig Chronegk. 172 · mamontov’s private opera According to Gozenpud, Mamontov attended performances of the Meiningen troupe during both of their tours.1 Stanislavsky in his memoirs also mentions attending Chronegk’s rehearsals, which indicates that visitors were allowed to be present. Knowing Mamontov, it is inconceivable that he would have missed such an opportunity. His correspondence reveals a detailed knowledge of the German troupe’s internal operations, making it evident that he was either personally present at rehearsals, and also probably talked to Chronegk, or at least received Stanislavsky’s detailed reports. Mamontov’s intimate acquaintance with the Meiningen Theater is equally evident in his own work as a stage director. Indeed, both the directing and the operational practices of the two companies were so similar that, considering Mamontov’s documented access to the Germans, it is unlikely this was coincidental. In fact, Mamontov and his associates were fully aware of the artistic and organizational correspondences between the troupes. While some of these may be described as parallel trends rather than direct influences, others were discussed by members of Mamontov’s team in terms of implementing, as Kruglikov once put it, “our Meiningen” on the MPO stage.2 This tantalizing Meiningen connection has so far attracted almost no scholarly interest.3 Such a gap in Mamontov scholarship may have been caused by a variety of factors, including an ideological one—a reluctance to acknowledge a foreign influence over a stage director portrayed as a Russian nationalist. More importantly, the lack of research on the subject may be attributed to the dearth of relevant primary sources. While the directing practices of the Meiningen troupe are detailed in the duke’s extensive diaries, no comparable material exists in Mamontov’s hand.4 Fortunately, I have discovered a previously untapped source of information on Mamontov’s stage directing: an expansive archive of research notes and rehearsal books belonging to Pyotr Melnikov, which is preserved at the Rainis Museum in Riga, Latvia. While most of these materials are related to the years of Melnikov’s work at the Imperial Theaters and the Riga National Opera, at least one set of documents can be dated earlier. These are the detailed director’s notes on Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, the work that Melnikov staged for Mamontov in the fall of 1898. While the materials on many other operas he first directed at the MPO and later recreated elsewhere cannot be incontrovertibly dated from the earlier time period, the Onegin notes correspond directly to from meiningen to meyerhold · 173 Melnikov’s letter to Mamontov dated summer 1899, which refers to the 1898 production (see below). The Onegin materials prove that Melnikov, a highly meticulous person , saved his research and staging notes made during his tenure with Mamontov, and used them in his later work at the Imperial Theaters...