THE ROLE OF MUSIC IN THE UKRAINIAN DRAMATIC THEATER AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the musical element of the Ukrainian drama theatre in the period of its intensive establishment and development – the late 19th and early 20th centuries, – in particular, of the two brightest theater centers of the Dnieper Ukraine: the “theater of the Coryphaei” and the theater of Mykhailo Staritsky. The author shoes the main socio-historical and artistic priorities of the theatrical art of the period: realistic presentation of characters and events, requirement to make the intended impression on the broad democratic audience, rendering the main ideas in a comprehensive and emotional way. The repertoire preferred the drama of manners "with singing and dancing" due to the need to preserve mental archetypes and ritual codes that would otherwise have no chance to be preserved in professional art, and thus lead to a loss of national identity. Inseparable synthesis of verbal and intonation elements in dramatic unity gave a unique result and ensured the originality of the Ukrainian theatrical tradition. Moreover, the achievements of the Ukrainian theater in various historical epochs proved to be extremely important not only in the purely aesthetic, but also in the public aspect, since they established the principles of national identity, preserved and restored historic memory in a situation of prolonged statelessness, through relevant topics and appeals to ancient folklore sources and ritual elements. The author emphasises that the Ukrainian theater of the second half of the 19th century was polyfunctional, acting on both national dramatic and national musical, opera scene. The musical segment of the dramatic whole was of fundamental importance in the formation of the national theater. Both folk songs, naturally included in the plot of dramatic action, and the music specially written for individual productions by professional composers and amateurs, make a very voluminous stratum of Ukrainian culture. In conclusion, it is noted that the domination of music in the Ukrainian theater of the formation and professionalization period is determined by a number of mutually determined factors: objective historical (the need to preserve historical memory, the establishment of a national identity); mentally rooted (archetypes of folk ritual actions, which in its essence was a synthe-tic, musical and theatrical artifact); aesthetic (adopting certain achievements and artistic trends of the European and Russian theater). These main tasks were fulfilled both through the synthetic features of theatre companies and the musical and dramatic nature of the repertoire.