Mir – teatr. Arkhitektura i stsenografiia v Rossii (The world is a theater: architecture and stage design in Russia)
Moscow: Muzei arkhitektury im. A.V. Shchuseva / Kuchkovo pole, 2017. Sewn cl. This catalogue of an exhibition at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture publishes visual documents from over a dozen museums and fifteen scholarly articles, which together in monographic detail show how theater and spectacle evolved in Russia from the late the late seventeenth century to the early twenty-first. A unexampled wealth of visual material on historical theaters — models, set and costume designs, architectural plans and drawings for theaters and stages, archival photographs — emphasizes the spatial experience of theater and the key role of architects and designers. The research of the authors and curators permits the publication of hundreds of images on each period of the theater as varied as Gonzaga's drawings for estate companies of the aristocracy in the eighteenth century to Alexei Shchusev's for the Tashkent Theater which combined motifs of Islamic architecture with devices of contemporary experimental theater. The curators and authors regard the theater not only as a venue for entertainment, but also as a civic institution that makes possible a mixing of social classes and a relatively free view of the society and the current regime. The government also played a role, for example, Alexander I during his liberalizing phase called for the Alexander theater to be designed so that all seats were comfortable the tsar's place distinguished only by its location just above the stage. 453 p., 34 cm, approx. 800 color and b/w illus., Rus. Item #2363
ISBN: 9785995007487
Introduction headings: Theater as the mirror of Russian life; Architecture and the theater: search of the ideal; Life of the theater in museums: recreating the history; Russian theater architecture: between a church and a puppet show; Toward a history of the Russian theater: from Aleksei Mikhailovich to Catherine II; Art of decoration; A. A. Bakhrushin and his theater museum; Discoveries in theater art of the 20th c.; What concerns designers in contemporary theater. Catalogue: Beginnings of the Russian theater: From Choromina Comedy (komediinaia khoromina) to baroque theater; Mechanism of court triumphs; Estate theaters of the 18th c.; Count Sheremetov's Ostankino; Gonzago in Arkhangel'sk: the theater of spectacle; the Apraksins' serf theater; the Imperial theaters: Neoclassical theaters of St. Petersburg: Bol'shoi, Hermitage, Alexander, and Kamennostrovskii; Neoclassical Moscow theaters: Petrovskii, Arbat, Bol'shoi, and Malyi; Eclectic and Art Nouveau theater: theaters at the turn of the 20th c. stylization and styles; The Soviet theater: between avant-garde and neoclassical: the theater's role in politics; theater designs in Soviet architecture of the 1930s; Modernist theaters: from the Thaw to the contemporary period.
Price: $172.00