Features of forming the views of K. Szymanowski on the theatrical aesthetics
The purpose of the article is to consider the peculiarities of the formation of the philosophical and aesthetic views of Karol Szymanowski and their influence on the musical and theatrical searches of the Polish artist. The most interesting result of these searches was the appearance of his musical drama “King Roger”, which clearly reflected the author’s understanding of the embodiment of the idea of musical and theatrical synthesis. The nature of synthetical character of Karol Szymanowski’s musical dramas is determined; it cannot be understood outside the consideration of theatrical preferences, aesthetic and philosophical concepts, literary sources, which stimulated the creative search of the composer. It was found out, that the formation of the musical and theatrical ideals of Szymanowski was influenced primarily by the R. Wagner’s, R. Strauss’, I. Stravinsky’s theater, as well as the Ancient Theater and the musical and theatrical concepts of Polish artists (S. Wyspiański, T. Miciński, S. Przybyszewski). Like the theater by Wyspiański, the Szymanowski’s theater is a theater of synthesis and metaphor; it is an attempt to translate a philosophical essay into the language of drama. The influence on the Polish artist of the theater by L. Andreev, who was considered as the mouthpiece of philosophical mysticism, was noted. Szymanowski perceived Andreev’s ability to show the inner dichotomy of man, “tragedy of intelligence”, “tragedy of faith”, to embody loneliness of man as a necessary condition for the realization of his freedom. Szymanowski assimilated the basic aesthetic ideas of Antiquity and Renaissance through various literary texts. The analysis of documentary materials, in particular, the comments on the margins of the pages of books from the family library, testified, that Szymanowski read carefully, pondered and discussed with his close friends the works by Ch. Diehl on the history of Byzantine art, the cycle of lectures “From the Life of Ideas” and other works by T. Zieliński, “Images of Italy” by P. Muratov, “Conversations with Goethe” by J. P. Eckermann , “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy” by C. J. C. Burckhardt, “Imaginary Portraits” and “The Renaissance” by W. Pater, etc. The archives of Szymanowski preserved the notes on the history of the art of Ancient Greece in French, on the culture of Ancient Rome in German and Russian, extracts from the history of the origins of Christianity, the culture of Sicily and the life of Roger II, notes from the letters of Seneca, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Novalis’ works, exploration of oriental culture and so on. In the aesthetic and theatrical views of Szymanowski his adherence to the Antiquity, which he even considered his “spiritual homeland”, was brilliantly reflected. The study identified a whole range of moral and philosophical problems, which Szymanowski tried to reflect in the concepts of his musical dramas, “Hagit” and “King Roger”: the problem of power and life, love and death, sacred and profane love, healing beauty and such which destroys, and especially the problem of intolerance that the composer considered as the greatest flaw in the spiritual life of humankind. The influence of existentialism, of A. Bergson’s intuitionism and L. Shestov’s irrationality on Szymanowski’s aesthetics is analyzed. It is noted that the “philosophers of life” – A. Schopenhauer, S. Kierkegaard and F. Nietzsche – drew attention of Szymanowski to the problem of placelessness and perplexity of a human in the world, his depreciation in a mass society. Therefore, in the image of the protagonist “King of Roger” Szymanowski tries to warn of the main danger to man – his transformation into fiction, dissolution of one in the mass. In the realm of literature, primarily the works that reflect the unusual qualities of intelligence and the broad erudition of their authors attract the Polish artist. It is no coincidence that Szymanowski treated with great attention to the novels by D. Merezhkovsky, to works by G. Flaubert, especially to his drama “Temptation of Saint Anthony”. He, like Flober’s Anthony, constantly worried about the spiritual dilemma that embodies in the drama in two symbolic beasts: the Sphinx, which means crusty immobility, faithfulness of a tradition, a canon, and the Chimera, who represent by eternal thirst for a new, striving to seek, to know. Sphinx and Chimera always stretch to each other, but they never will be to conjoin. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Roger in Szymanowski’s opera also symbolizes the idea, that the human spirit will never find a harmony between contemplation and action, faith and thirst for knowledge. An indefatigable spiritual search is also characteristic for the protagonist “Marius the Epicurean” by W. Pater. However, to the inhabitant of Rome gifted by sensitive artistic nature, Christianity turned up not so much in the idea as in the visual, sensual image. Definitive attraction of Marius to the new truth never happened, just as and Roger in Szymanowski’s opera. This way, the “openness” of drama and composition of “King Roger” is a consequence of the “openness” and paradoxical features of his aesthetic-philosophical plan. Significant influence on the formation of author’s worldview the socio-political atmosphere had, in which Szymanowski was submerged during the active formation of his musical and theatrical views. Almost forced isolation in Yelisavetgrad, which was connected with the revolutionary events that grew into a civil war, had a very negative effect on the psychological state of the composer. This explains the actualization in the Szymanowski’s creativity the category of the tragic in relation to the beautiful and ugly, elevated and low, his close attention to the tragedy and drama; and the certain distancing from the comic sphere. Consequently, Szymanowski was carried away of the ideas of the synthesis of cultures (Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arabic, Slavonic), religious syncretism in various forms (Christian modernism, panerotism, etc.), the Wagnerian theory of “eternity of the myth”, the Nietzschean concept of the interaction of the Apollonian and the Dionysian origins in the artistic creativity, Platonic understanding of Eros, refined aestheticism of W. Pater, who saw a pure art as the artist’s output from the world of subjective representations in search of Beauty, L. Shestov’s irrationalism with his “experience of adîgmatical thinking”, Bergsonian intuitionism, which has found a vivid artistic embodiment in the literary works of M. Proust. In addition, the Polish artist perceived his consciousness as historically broken, crucial, which stands on the lower boundary of the historical curve, where the danger of spiritual death is quite large; from this it follows the special tragicalness of his mental outlook. Implementing his musical and theatrical plans, Szymanowski went through a fascination with various aesthetic ideas: if for the musical drama “Hagit” the aesthetic of late Romanticism and Symbolism was specify, then the pantomime “Harnasi” shows the dominance of neo-folklore aesthetics. However, the most omnigenous “aesthetic palette” is inherent in the “paradoxical” musical drama “King Roger”, which is marked by the idea of cultural syncretism and where signs of the aesthetics of Romanticism and Impressionism, Symbolism and Modernism, Expressionism and Neo-folklorism were crossed in the process of realizing musical and theatrical synthesis.