Sociocultural preconditions for the children’s opera forming.
Opera for children as an independent genre was born in the last third of the XIX century and has been developing for more than a century, stimulating the active interest of both composers and musicologists. The objectiveof this study is to consider several sociocultural factors which influenced a new genre formation. To achieve this objective, the next methodswere applied: historical, genre. So, one of the sociocultural factors was the tradition of Hausmusik, according to which musical and musical-theatrical compositions were performed in an atmosphere of home comfort and spiritual harmony by all the family, the younger generation includeed. In the practice of different nations home concerts had some peculiarities. Thus, in the XVIIIth century the home amateur theater in which the children took part was popular in the Russian Empire. On the one hand, it had a didactic orientation, on the other it was one of the leisure forms. Hence there appeared the origination of a special repertoire, which took into account the child’s perception psychology. In the Austro-German states amateur music-making united all the inhabitants of the house, including servants and teachers. The latter often selected the program and directed the performances. The ne-cessity in such compositions stimulated the creation of the first children’s operas. These works designed for a certain age of performers were rather short and simple enough as to their musical text and could be learned within a short time under the guidance of a music teacher or adult relatives. Such operas were written by N. Lysenko, N. Brianskiy, A. Buchner, V. Orlov, Teel, F. Abt, G. Holst and many others. Besides private children’s theaters, the genesis of a new genre was influenced by the theaters that existed in the educational institutions of the XIX th century. Headmasters of gymnasiums and lyceums often welcomed that practice, considering it useful for the development of aesthetic views of pupils and also for improving the knowledge of foreign languages. In 1895, V. Orlov wrote a number of opera compositions, and he directed them for staging by young people during the festivals. Two decades later, the Ukrainian composer N. Le-ontovich, at the request of the headmaster of the First Ukrainian Gymnasium in Kiev, created music for B. Grinchenko’s scene for children “Na Rusalchyn Velykden” (“At the Water-Nymphs Easter”), which was performed by the students of gymnasium. Many operas are connected with children’s folklore with elements of dramatiza-tion: action games with dialogs, songs with dances and playing, in which the singing is combined with action according to a certain “scenario” that has been formed over the centuries. Such games have the syncretic integrity, and the opera genre, synthetic by its nature, transforms this unity of several elements in a new way. The folklore component also often reveals itself at the level of a plot, the forms of musical utterances. This is confirmed by O. Pchilka’s (O. Dragomanova-Kosach) operetta “Two Enchantresses”, or “Winter and Spring” (1919), rich with winter rituals and folk aphorisms; by V.Ptushkin’s musical performance “On Seashore far a Green Oak Towers…” (1987), in which the personalized chorus (Guys and Girls) is interpreted in the spirit of round dance songs of a two-rank type; by B. Tischenko’s opera “The Stolen Sun” (1968) – the composer involves the formula of folk lamentation, counting rhymes, teasers, not quoting them. If the above-mentioned sociocultural factors influenced the birth and forming of children’s opera in all regions of Europe, the tradition to perform musical plays involving children in the churches is characteristic of only the Western world. The circle of plots of such pageants has now narrowed to the limits of the Christmas theme, preserving the compul-sory music part, which can be represented in different versions: the choral performance of a hymn or chorale of the appropriate content in the end of a performance, alternation of solo and choral episodes with conversational dialogues, finally, the musical incarna-tion of the whole play. In particular, the American composer of Ukrainian origin P. Stet-senko created the children’s opera “The Three Hermits” (libretto by T. Martin based on the story by L. Tolstoy) to be staged in a church to the piano accompaniment. The libretto uses the texts of the Thanksgiving prayer and “Otche nash” (“Our Father”), one-voice singing of the hermits is supported by the choral accompaniment. The process of the children’s opera formation was significantly influenced by the experience of the “adult” opera genre. Specific forms of utterance (recitative, arioso, duet, trio, etc.) were taken from it; the main structural-dramaturgical units –the scene, the act; the patterns of musical-scenic development – the exposition of actors, collisions that promote plot events to the culmination, and their resolution, the introduction of themes-characteristics and leitmotifs. On the other hand, two genre-style models of the comic opera – French opéra-comique and Austro-German Singspiel– became the direct guide for the composers. The connection with both genres explains the principle of con-versational dialogues and solo vocal numbers alternation, small ensembles, mostly du-ets; with Singspiel– the prevalence of fairy tale plots; with opéra-comique– the type of characters that do not belong to the upper classes (peasant children, booth actors, etc.). The resultsof the research support the idea that the children’s opera forming was in-fluenced by the next sociocultural factors: 1) the tradition of Hausmusik including home amateur theatre and theatrical practice in educational institutions; 2) children’s folklore with elements of dramatization; 3) church musical plays involving children; 4) “adult” opera genre, with its forms of utterance, structural-dramaturgical units etc. To conclude we would like to say that responding to changes in the world, composers are not afraid to introduce new subjects that were not previously used in compositions for children, for example, related to armed conflicts (D. Chesky’s “Mouse War”, 2007); the authors also expand musical vocabulary using modern writing techniques. This indicates the respon-siveness of the genre to events that are extremely worrying for contemporaries, which is the best evidence of its vitality.