Musical theater during the reign of Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740): the embodiment of ambitious plans and aesthetic preferences of the Empress

Kim Vita Myriam Georgievna PhD in Art History Teaching Assistant, Faculty of Arts, Department of Organ, Harpsichord and Carillon, St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, ul. Universitetskaya Nab., 7–9 vitamyr.kim@gmail.com

Throughout the XVIII century, the Romanov emperors influenced the formation of the Russian musical theater to one degree or another. Meanwhile, the contribution of the reigning personages to the development of the national opera is far from equivalent. For example, at the beginning of the century, Peter the Great played the role of initiator of cultural transformations. At the same time, the short-term rule of such monarchs as Catherine I (nee Marta Skavronskaya), Peter II Alekseevich, Peter III Fedorovich and Pavel I Petrovich for a number of reasons did not leave a deep mark in the history of music. In studies conducted mainly during the XX century, musicologists associate the formation of the Russian musical theater with three historical figures: Anna Ioannovna, Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great. There is little information about the musical tastes and abilities of the last two empresses found in various works. However, as for Anna Ioannovna's artistic inclinations and tastes, or rather her abilities to feel and perceive works of art and especially music, very little is known.

It should be noted that neither the theme of the development of the Russian opera theater in connection with Anna Ioannovna's aesthetic preferences, nor the question of revaluation of her role in the history of Russian music, have received worthy coverage in scientific works. Nevertheless, since the end of the last century, there has been a tendency in the works of foreign historians to revise the results of the rule of Russian monarchs. According to Western researchers, the contribution of some rulers was more significant for Russia than it has been considered to date ^[1]. As J. Bell notes, Anna Ioannovna is one of the most underrated crowned representatives of the Romanov dynasty of the intermediate period between Peter and Catherine the Great. The merit of Anna, who created new state institutions in Russia, was not how to begin or complete reforms, but rather how to continue, build and improve the process of change that began before her reign ^[2]. Bell gives an assessment of the Empress's activities from the perspective of a historian. In our opinion, this point of view is also true in relation to the musical theater of the 1730s?1740s, which Anna sought to develop with all her might. It is important to admit that Anna was not the first Russian monarch who dreamed of seeing performances ? l'europ?enne on the court stage. So, since the second half of the XVII century. her grandfather, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, arranged theatrical performances at the court, organized mainly with the help of invited Western European comedians. Long before the Russian court got acquainted with foreign stage art, there were other national-original theaters in Russia, the traditions of which went back to ancient times. As N. Evreinov points out, the ceremonial theater of peasant Russia and the church theater of Moscow Russia played an important role in the formation of Russian theatrical art. The first was based on folk rituals that arose in connection with pagan holidays, and the second – on the dramatization of some biblical stories in the conditions of Orthodox worship ^[3]. These spectacles, inseparable from the culture and life of the Russian people, represented earlier forms of theatrical life in Russia. To a certain extent, they prepared the ground for the emergence of the court theater, organized in the European manner under Anna Ioannovna. It is about this theater and will be discussed in this article.

In the conditions of autocracy, the choice and invitation of court composers, theater troupes and soloists, and in some cases the approval of the repertoire, reflected the will of the monarch. And this means that the theatrical policy of the tsar directly depended on his personal tastes and preferences. Since Anna Ioannovna was not only an empress with unlimited power, but above all a person with her own habits and interests, we set the task: to consider her role in the history of music in a new way, from a slightly different perspective. What factors influenced the formation of her tastes? Did she have musical abilities? How to explain her insistence on having an opera troupe at court, despite the enormous financial costs? Anna Ioannovna, who received news from Western Europe, primarily followed the example of influential royal houses. For Russia, which did not yet have its own court theater in those years, the experience of copying someone else's stage repertoire was very important. Therefore, the theatrical preferences of the niece of the Great Peter directly depended on what performances were given on the European court stages. At the same time, there is no doubt that the creative, and in particular, musical abilities of the said queen, due to the upbringing and individual traits of her character, also had a great influence on her policy in the field of opera theater. This is how V. Klyuchevsky describes the appearance of Anna Ioannovna, whose reign he described as one of the "dark pages of our history": "Tall and obese, with a face more masculine than feminine, callous by nature and even more hardened during early widowhood among diplomatic intrigues and court adventures in Courland, where she was pushed around like a Russian-Prussian-Polish toy, she, having already 37 years, brought to Moscow an evil and poorly educated mind with a fierce thirst for belated pleasures and rude entertainment" ^{[4, p. 564]} (hereafter the spelling and style of the sources of citation are preserved). Other researchers, taking into account the difficult fate of the Empress, are less critical of her personality traits. As S. Shubinsky writes, by the time of the coronation, Anna was already an adult, a formed person who had to go through a lot. "Empress Anna Ioannovna ascended the throne at an advanced age, having previously experienced a lot of grief, troubles and humiliations ^{[5, p. 336]}. In the Russian Biographical Dictionary, D. Korsakov gives the following description of Anna: "According to the reviews of all contemporaries who personally knew her, she was gifted by nature with a sound mind, and according to some of them her heart was not devoid of sensitivity, but the circumstances of her life were so unfortunate that these natural qualities not only did not receive proper development, but they were perverted, mutilated. Anna Ioannovna's childhood and youth were spent in such conditions under which it was impossible to strengthen the will, it was impossible to develop a character; her mind and heart were not ennobled by upbringing and education and from a young age did not receive the proper direction" ^{[6, p. 160]}.

As a child, Anna lacked the love of her parents. Her father John Alekseevich died when the girl was three years old. The young widow Praskovya Feodorovna, nee Saltykova, found herself under the protection of her husband's brother, Pyotr Alekseevich. Brought up in patriarchal traditions, she was forced to adapt to the morals and orders of her brother-in-law, whose example was the Western European way of life. "The pious and superstitious, peculiar and severe tsarina Boyaryna, the mother of Anna Ioannovna, was forced to divide her time between church services and assemblies, between foolishness and theatrical spectacles and change her late home Old Moscow clothes for figmas and robrons" ^{[6, p. 160]}. Out of a desire to please Peter, Anna's mother was forced to leave her usual Izmailovo and move to St. Petersburg. The future Empress lacked the attention of her mother, "she grew up in the hands of mothers, among dissolute servants and various kinds of hypocrites, fools and saints who constantly filled the house of Tsarina Praskovya Feodorovna" ^{[5, p. 336]}. According to D. Korsakov, "Anna Ioannovna's upbringing did not contribute to the development of her mind" ^{[7, p. 66]}. Praskovya Feodorovna's daughters were educated by teachers of German and French origin, but apparently the girls did not study too hard. "Although the tsarina hired foreign teachers for her daughters: the German John-Diedrich Osterman and the Frenchman Ramburch, but the teaching of these teachers did not bring any benefit to the princesses; at least, Anna Ioannovna, despite the fact that she later lived in Courland for a long time, surrounded by Germans, never learned to speak English.she could only understand German when she was spoken in this language" ^{[5, p. 336]}.

At the age of seventeen, married to the Duke of Courland, Anna was widowed before she had been married for three months. However, she could not return to St. Petersburg for political reasons of her uncle. As Peter hoped, pinning his hopes on this marriage, the presence of his niece was supposed to strengthen Russian influence in Courland. Life in a foreign land was not serene for Anna. She was forced to constantly ask her compatriots for money, since her monetary resources were very limited. "Anna Ioannovna's material means were small and in order to settle her affairs, she had to constantly ingratiate herself with not only her uncle Tsar Peter, his wife Ekaterina Alekseevna and Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, but also strong courtiers, especially Prince Menshikov and Vice-Chancellor Osterman. Anna Ioannovna's letters from Courland are filled with these ingratiations and complaints about her fate for the entire time of her stay there, both during the life of Peter the Great and during the subsequent reigns of Catherine I and Peter II" ^{[6, p. 162]}. Anna's long-term existence away from her family was more like exile. For a young woman who had "by nature a cruel, proud and power-hungry character" ^{[5, p. 337]}, such a situation in Courland was humiliating. This certainly left an imprint on her already difficult temper.

Having ascended to the throne, Anna began to arrange luxurious celebrations at the court. The latter made an indelible impression on European guests. For all that, as D. Korsakov writes, the Empress clearly lacked taste and a sense of proportion. "... Upon the accession of Anna Ioannovna, her Court was distinguished by unprecedented luxury and fun, striking even the familiar eye of the British and French. Balls, masquerades, courtages, routs, Italian opera, gala dinners, ceremonial receptions of ambassadors, military parades, weddings of "high persons", illuminations and fireworks replaced each other with a colorful kaleidoscope. In all this luxury there was no elegance, taste, but there was a lot of Old Moscow in a European way, reminiscent of the transitional life of Anna Ioannovna's mother, Tsarina Praskovya Feodorovna" ^{[6, p. 161]}.The spectacles that she arranged at court reflected not only the peculiarities of her personality, formed in childhood, but also the inclinations that she inherited. The very way of her life demonstrated the extreme inconsistency of her nature. "Anna Ioannovna, even in her youth, was distinguished by piety and, at the same time, obstinacy of disposition, and later she began to develop hereditary traits of her grandfather, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and mother Praskovya Feodorovna. She, like the "quietest" tsar and her mother, loved ceremonials and solemn exits, brocade, gold and precious jewelry and was distinguished by external ritual piety; just like them, she loved to listen to the soul-saving conversations of monks and pious people and, at the same time, like her grandfather, was passionately fond of hunting, kennels and menageries. But Anna Ioannovna's penchant for fun was expressed more strongly and more original than that of Tsar Alexei, approaching in character to the amusements and undertakings of Peter the Great: irony and humor, although in a rough, uncultivated form, often with a large tinge of cynicism, were manifested in Anna Ioannovna in her jokes and buffoonish processions" ^{[6, 160-161]}.

Anna willingly attended theatrical performances. It should be noted that with regard to spectacles, her tastes were not too whimsical. Surrounded by buffoons, she adored watching their brawls and verbal sparring, as well as arranging eccentric entertainments, like the wedding of buffoons in the Ice House. In addition, Anna Ioannovna had an unusual predilection for a reigning female person: she was fond of shooting. According to a contemporary, she had no equal in the art of shooting. It was a lifelong passion of hers. Meanwhile, she visited the theater with her retinue mainly in the cold season, when it was impossible to engage in shooting ^{[8, 326]}. Obviously, in the hierarchy of values, the theater was not in the first place for the Empress. According to Moser, the queen was burdened by the music that was created for her by some of the best composers and virtuosos of that time. At the same time, she found great pleasure in the artless Russian folk melodies, which she remembered from the cradle ^{[9, p. 36]}. Anna's interest in folk songs is confirmed by her personal correspondence. For example, in one of the letters, Anna asks her uncle Vasily Fedorovich Saltykov to send the text of a song she liked, which was sung by his serfs ^{[7, p. 62]}. These songs were performed for her by girls of noble origin. "Anna Ioannovna chose mainly such girls as had good voices for her ladies-in-waiting. On those evenings when no entertainment was scheduled at court, the ladies-in-waiting had to sit in the room next to the Empress's bedchamber and do various needlework, embroidery and knitting. Having amused herself with the jesters and hangers-on, Anna Ioannovna usually opened the door to the maid of honor's room and said: "Well, girls, sing!" and the girls sang until the empress shouted: "enough!". Sometimes Anna Ioannovna demanded guards soldiers with their wives and ordered them to dance in Russian and lead round dances, in which the nobles present and even members of the royal family often took part" ^{[5, p. 340]}.

The Empress's musical entertainments were often accompanied by physical abuse. One day, two ladies-in-waiting, who sang for the queen all evening and asked to be released because of fatigue, were beaten by her with her own hand, and then sent "for a whole week to wash clothes in the laundry yard" ^{[5, p. 341]}. "Another time, Anna Ioannovna, being out of sorts, decided to entertain herself with the spectacle of some kind of dance. She immediately sent for four St. Petersburg beauties, famous at that time, and ordered them to perform a dance in her presence. The ladies began to dance, but confused by the formidable appearance of the empress, they mixed up, confused the figures and stopped in indecision. The Empress silently got up from her chair, approached the dancers who were dead with fear, slapped each of them in the face and then, returning to her seat, ordered them to start dancing again" ^{[5, p. 341]}.Along with entertainment with the participation of courtiers, Anna arranged theatrical spectacles designed to demonstrate the luxury of the Russian court and strengthen its prestige abroad. "The Russian court, distinguished under Peter the Great by its small number and simplicity of customs, was completely transformed under Anna Ioannovna. The Empress certainly wanted her court not to be inferior in splendor and splendor to all other European courts" ^{[5, p. 338]}. Undoubtedly, Anna was aware that the life of the brilliant court should be inextricably linked with music and theater. In a certain sense, she was the first ruler from the house of Romanov who, out of ambitious motives, purposefully worked on the creation of a court theater. Since the beginning of her reign, Anna has set herself the task: to write out an Italian troupe from abroad. At the beginning of 1731, after lengthy negotiations related to the terms of the contract, the troupe arrived in Russia. According to L. Starikova, the first to arrive was "the troupe of Commedia dell'arte (and not opera, as it was thought for a long time) and it consisted of 9 singers and musicians who accompanied comedy performances, played "interludes on music" and gave chamber concerts" ^{[10, p. 24]}. A few months later, the troupe was replenished with new artists from Europe. It is important to note that the same comedians played not only in dramatic, but also in musical performances. On the stage of the court theater of the 1730s. "along with comedies, musical interludes were performed, alternating with "comedies on music", and sometimes performances ended with concerts of favorite arias and songs" ^{[11, p. 189]}. Later, professional opera singers appeared in St. Petersburg ^{[12, 13]}, including two generously paid castrato singers and one singer who "did not spare their money, but behaved like high gentlemen" ^{[8, 325]}. All conditions were created for a comfortable stay of Italian artists. "The Empress kept a troupe of about 70 Italian singers. They received a very large salary… These people staged an opera for every big holiday. In addition, twice a week they played a comedy and twice an interlude. The Opera or Comedy house was in the Winter Palace, it was built in a large oval with two galleries around the theater, one above the other. The theater, like the whole house, was decorated from the inside with all kinds of beautiful paintings and architectural decorations. The performance of [the actors] was accompanied by incomparable vocal and instrumental music" ^{[8, 325-326]}.

It should be emphasized that on the one hand, wanting to follow the European experience, the queen made great efforts to get the best musicians for her court theater. On the other hand, her education and upbringing did not allow her to fully appreciate the "learned" music. The fact that comedians from the Italian commedia dell'arte were the first to appear at court, and not singers from the grandiose productions of opera seria, to some extent can be explained by the preferences of the Empress herself. Serious theatrical genres did not attract her, as dramas and operas on biblical or mythological subjects seemed to her incomprehensible. She was drawn to comedy with uncomplicated jokes and antics of the characters, reminiscent of the performances of the national theater. Everything that suited her tastes, she found in the genre of interludes. Bored at the performances of the serious opera seria, she took great pleasure when the interludes were played out. In these interludes, she most appreciated not the music, not the brilliance of improvised dialogues in Italian, but what she thought was funny and witty: these were fights and slaps in the face of the characters. As one of Anna Ioannovna's contemporaries testifies, she liked Italian and German comedies endlessly, because they usually ended with stick blows ^{[14, p. 67]}.

In order for Anna Ioannovna and her courtiers to understand what was happening on stage, they were given the texts of interludes translated into Russian and printed in the printing house. If the interlude was based on improvisation, without a fixed text, the audience received a detailed script of the comedy ^[15-17]. With the end of Anna Ioannovna's reign, the interlude did not disappear from the court scene. According to Y. Keldysh, "if Italian commedia dell'arte did not gain a foothold in the repertoire of the Russian court theater, giving way to French comedy, then the interlude remained for many years one of the most beloved types of theatrical spectacle" ^{[18, p. 94]}. Despite the fact that comedy performances were successfully performed on the court stage, Anna, of course, realized that comedies alone, including her favorite interludes, were not enough. To maintain the prestige of the Russian Court, something more significant had to be played on stage, namely the Italian opera seria.According to R.?A. Moser, from the moment of his accession, opera seria dominated the court stage until the 1780s ^{[19, p. 287]}. According to some scientists, foreign opera productions delayed the development of Russian opera art. So, for example, according to Livanova, "the sprouts of their new were silenced in the time of Anna Ioannovna by a direct transfer of someone else's: the Italian opera troupe was entirely imported to St. Petersburg" ^{[20, p. 395]}. In our opinion, the point of view of the famous musicologist regarding the borrowing of Western European experience is stated quite categorically. During the reign of this Empress, the necessary resources for composing and staging opera performances on their own did not yet exist in Russia. At that time, the generation of Russian composers, playwrights, and musicians had not yet grown up. Therefore, the productions of the Italian opera seria played a key role in laying the foundations for musical theater. Later, under Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II, other opera genres were also popular, in particular the Italian opera buffa and the French l'op?ra-comique. Despite this, it was opera seria that was the official genre on the court stage for many years ^[21].

In 1735, Anna Ioannovna engaged another Italian troupe led by Francesco Araya. For more than twenty years, this Italian composer served as a court conductor in Russia ^[22]. It should be noted that under his leadership, the art of opera performance at the court reached a high level. In Russia, Araya composed and staged a number of his operas. Nevertheless, despite some success, these magnificent opera performances could not displace the memories of Italian comedies from the audience. According to Manstein, the first opera was staged in St. Petersburg in 1736, but, despite its good performance, it did not receive such recognition as, for example, a comedy or an Italian intermezzo ^{[14, p. 68]}. Manstein is referring to the production of the opera seria Francesco Arayi La forza dell'amore e dell'odio. The newspaper St. Petersburg Gazette wrote in January 1736: "On the 29th of this month, presented from the court Operas in the Imperial Winter House, a very fine and rich opera, under the titleThe power of love and hate, to the particular delight of Her Imperial Majesty, and with the universal praise of the audience" ^[23].During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, favorable conditions were created to attract artists from Europe. Some of them stay for a short time in a strange northern country for them. Others, like Francesco Araya, devote a good part of their lives to Russia, having made an important contribution to the development of its opera house. Jean-Baptiste Lande, who lived in St. Petersburg for about fifteen years, from the moment of his arrival until his death, also played an invaluable role in laying the foundations of the national musical theater. As I write . Stehlin, a skilled French dancer, "formerly danced on the stages of Paris and Dresden and at one time maintained a French stage in Stockholm ... was accepted into the imperial service as a court choreographer in 1738" ^{[24, p. 152]}. The activity of this outstanding artist contributed to the creation of the Imperial Ballet and the foundation of the Russian Ballet school.

According to the sources cited, Anna Ioannovna loved everything related to the theater: music, singing, dancing. At the same time, due to an insufficiently developed artistic taste ^{[6, p. 161]} and the habits of the royal court, which she had loved since her childhood in Izmailovo, she preferred uncomplicated spectacles and amusements, which sometimes took a rough form. In the theater, she liked mostly comedies, among which the interlude was in the first place. As mentioned earlier, she was not a fan of the big serious opera. Nevertheless, following the example of European royal houses, driven by ambitious aspirations, she made great efforts to stage opera seria in Russia. According to A. Evstratov, the birth of professional theater, which in Spain and England dates back to the XVI century, in France of the XVII century, in the Russian Empire occurred only in the XVIII century under Anna Ioannovna ^{[25, p. 28]}. Thanks to the engaged foreign troupes, a permanent theater appeared at the court. This was a fundamental step for the development of Russian opera. "Of particular importance ... was the constant, not episodic, activity of foreign professional artists on the Russian stage, which began in the era of Anna Ioannovna in 1731. (with the arrival of the first Italian troupe)" ^{[11, 183]}. According to a later study, a permanent court opera troupe called the Italian Campaign was founded by Anna Ioannovna later, in 1734. Before that, performances by foreign troupes were more like tours ^{[26, p. 33]}.

Thus, the process of formation of the national musical theater was largely initiated by Anna Ioannovna. After Francesco Araya, other court composers, mostly of Italian origin, were invited to Russia. Their fruitful activity, as well as the transfer of experience to students laid the foundation for future professionals. The upbringing of Russian composers and performing musicians prepared the conditions for the appearance in the last quarter of the XVIII century of the first musical comedies, which marked the birth of Russian opera with their appearance. It is important to note that in a short time, during the 1730s, the beginning was laid not only for the opera theater, but also for the national ballet school. Although the beginnings of the Empress were important for the formation of both opera and ballet in Russia, during her lifetime the theater took only the first steps. The rise in the development of musical theater occurred later, under Catherine the Second. However, the reasons for this rise, called the Russian Enlightenment, are largely due to the activities of Anna Ioannovna, who played one of the key roles in the preparation of this period.