The romantic tradition of Hausmusikand its effect on children’s opera genesis.
The genesis of children’s opera genre, especially its subspecies, oriented to children performers, is not limited only to the influence of the fairytale romantic opera, it is rooted in the musical way of life of the Romantic era. The XIX century created rich conditions for active cultural practices, and the tradition of Hausmusikwas one of them. The first mention of this phenomenon, according to the German researcher G. Busch-Salmen, refers to 1605, however the holding of meetings accompanied by the joint performance of music is much older and goes back to the High Middle Ages. Centuries-old practice contributed to the forming of socio-psychological functions of home musical meetings. Centu-ries-old practice contributed to the formation of socio-psychological functions of home musical meetings. On the one hand, they allowed to fill quite a closed home space and, according to historians, dispelled “melancholy loneliness”; on the oth-er hand they determined the rules of leisure, contributing to the aestheticization of the “culture of inhabitation”. In the XVII–XVIII century Hausmusik tradition goes into the shadow, supplanted by the development of secular chamber music making. At the end of the 18th century, as Busch-Salmen writes, “the amateur and musician received a special status along with the virtuoso, and the semi-public music making became one of the favorite entertainment with high pretension”. At the beginning of XIX century music making with family and close friends con-solidated its positions, because it could not be better fit into the aesthetic postulates of the Biedermeierera. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to the age of fifteen – the time he created his only opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho (Camacho’s Wedding), written in the spirit of Singspiel – was already the author of other Singspiels intended for performancein the family circle. A few years later, in 1829, the composer turned back to “greet-ing Singspiel” and composed Die Heimkehraus der Fremde(Return of the Roam-er) in honor of the silver wedding of the parents. As reported by the researchers, the composition was intended exclusively for private performance. The Mendelssohn family was no exception, when organizing home concerts and productions, and this kind of leisure was common in Western and Eastern Europe, and not only in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the end of the Romantic era, the tradition of playing music with the family and in the high society salon did not disappear; it only underwent changes and lasted out until the beginning of the First World War. Not only purely musical evenings were popular but also theatrical performances, often with musical numbers, performed by the children themselves. The evidence of this practice is the creation of an opera for children on demand. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov recalls the creation of the work On the Garland for Pushkinat the request of Julia Fedorovna Abaza for her children. Rootedness of children’s performances with music in everyday life stimulated the creative initiatives of gifted children who tried their own strengths in these genres. The popularization and forming of a new genre was influenced also by the the-atrical practice existing in educational institutions of that time; it filled after-hours. In order to organize children’s and youthful leisure Vasily Orlov wrote a number of children’s operas in 1895. The opera series of the composer includes 4 opuses: The Crow‑Pythoness, The Fox and The Grapes, The Pig under The Oakand The Bullfinch and The Swallow. Their plots are based on the fables of Ivan Krylov, however, the tightness of the text required its expansion for the libretto. Despite the “childish nature of the genre”, it already follows the standards of the opera as a whole at the time of its forming – the text side is submitted to musical reg-ularities. V. Orlov brings in poems, texts of folk songs, conversational dialogues written by him. They are analogous to operatic recitatives describing the situation and promoting the action. Designated by the author as “children’s operas in one act”, the compositions represent a sort of genre mix, since “operaness” appears in organic unity with the tradition of the play with inserted musical numbers. Each opus contains 5 vocal numbers, which form a kind of vocal micro-suite. These parts contrast with each other in two ways. On the one hand, this is an opposition between solo and choral principles, on the other hand – a genre contrast: each individual composition contains one or two choral songs stylized in the spirit of folk songs, and traditional opera solo and choral numbers (arioso, solo in the form of melodeclamation). Among the musical numbers there are most of the choruses. In addition to choral numbers on the texts of fables, V. Orlov included folk songs arrangements in each opera. Their functions are different: to expose the scene of action, to show the main characters, to complete the composition. In all arrange-ments the composer retained the strophic and verse-chorus structure typical for these songs, adding a variant principle of development. The opera series of V. Orlov is a unique composition in which poetry, mu-sic, and acting are synthesized in an original way, reflecting the very idea of the Hausmusikconcept. It was wider than just the performance of the music at home, and encompassed various types of creativity with the family, in an atmosphere of coziness and spirituality.