Turandot by Carlo Gozzi in the Russian theatre reception of the 1910-1920s

Abstract

The article discusses the staging of the play Turandot by C. Gozzi in Russia in the 1910-1920s. The reasons why Russian directors turned to the play of C. Gozzi at that time were determined by the theatre aesthetics of the Silver Age, when the plots of the Italian comedy and its characters were perceived as a manifestation of a pure comedy aesthetics. The author analyses the productions by Fyodor Komissarzhevsky in 1912 and Evgeniy Vakhtangov in 1922 and concludes that Komissarzhevsky brought the comedy of masks closer to the comedy of characters, which resulted in an aesthetically contradictory rendition, while Vakhtangov rendered Turandot as an ironic fairy tale, in which actors did not play the characters, but the actors of a Venetian theatre troupe who played the comedy. Vakhtangov’s rendition of Princess Turandot premiered on February 28, 1922 at the Third Studio of the Moscow Art Theater. The author describes the cast, analyses the specificity of literary and stage interpretation of the play and reflects on Vakhtangov’s concept of the theater-holiday, the methods of “detachment”, stage grotesque, self-parody, and modernizing the improvisational text. The article also shows the critical reception of the production, drawin on the memoirs of the actor Boris Zakhava, who performed the role of Khan Timur in Vakhtangov’s production. In concludion, the author speaks about the influence of Vakhtangov’s production on the work of Evgeny Schwartz and directing of Svetlana Obraztsova and Georgy Tovstonogov. The author declares no conflicts of interests.