Battling for the Enigmatic Russian Soul Through Online Opera Reviews

On October 21, the HSE Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities hosted a lecture entitled ‘Classics in the Modern Age: Online Opera Fans Battle for the Enigmatic Russian Soul’. Delivered by Emily Erken, Lecturer of Musicology at The Ohio State University’s School of Music, her lecture covered the peculiarities of Runet contributors in their reactions to contemporary productions of classic operas. Among other topics, her lecture addressed how Russians today are seeking to rethink the moral identity of the country in which they live and how representatives from a number of cultural groups present their current views as a natural development of the national heritage.

Following her lecture, Erken spoke with the HSE News Service about her interest in studying online communities of music critics in Russia, her broader interests in how people behave on social media and why they choose to write online, and her own response to contemporary Russian productions.

— Why did you choose Runet as a subject for your research?

— I began this project trying to answer the question: ‘Is opera still important in Russia?’ As an opera lover myself, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production of Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi Theatre took my breath away. It seemed that everyone I spoke with in my interviews had heard of the production, but few had actually attended it. Studying blogs and discussion forums on Runet offered me access to people who had seen Tcherniakov’s Onegin, and who really, really cared about the production.

— How do you combine internet behaviour and classical music?

— During the blog craze of the early 2000s, many Russians founded arts blogs dedicated to reviewing different events (opera and classical music, theatre, museum exhibits, new fiction, etc.). These bloggers or members of discussion forums created a hybrid of professional music criticism with diary narratives. Each post ends up something like ‘My night at the opera: descriptions, emotional responses, and evaluations.’ Arts blogs are a gold mine for reception studies, for scholars who want to know what individual audience members really feel or think during a performance. Online writing allows us a sneak peek into the world through their eyes.

— You are planning to use the case of the Eugene Onegin opera at the Bolshoi in Moscow in 2006, which generated quite a bit of discussion. Have you followed the changes within the last decade in Runet discussions? What is new?

— Yes. My work follows the reception in 2006 through 2014. The soprano Galina Vishnevskaya walked out of the premiere in 2006 and labelled the new production ‘the desecration of a national shrine’. Soon, everyone had an opinion about the opera, and about the validity of staging new productions of classic operas, a major trend in international opera during the last 30 years. The ‘scandal’ could easily be read as the triumph of artistic conservatism. But as individual writers put their reactions into words, they often struggled to name the essence of Onegin—that is, what is so beautiful, unique, or valuable about Pushkin and Tchaikovsky’s classic. Each person’s arguments reveal more than their artistic preferences. Their spectator review betrays the person’s own values, what matters most in his or her life. This moral reflection occurs whenever one of the big Russian theatres produces a new version of a classic opera, ballet, or dramatic play.

— What is the main difference between Runet and English language discussions globally? Or is there a difference at all?

— Most of my research focuses on issues of national identity, or how people in Russia define themselves as different from others. It's a fascinating topic, but it has also inured me to these kinds of conversations in my own life. So, I am inclined to say that internet behaviours—how people behave on social media, why they choose to write online, and even the vitriolic speech often used—are fairly global. The topics can differ. They reflect cultural conceptions of the self, us and them, right and wrong.

— Are there any performances you plan to attend during your visit to Moscow? Or what would you like to see in Moscow?

— Actually, I’ve seen two productions in Moscow that I would like to recommend. Joan of Arc at the Pushkin Theatre left me speechless. I still can’t tell you if I was watching theatre or narrative ballet. Similarly, Eugene Onegin: In their Words at the School of Dramatic Arts left me smiling in disbelief, as the cast of four moved through a comic and distanced approach to the ‘encyclopaedia of Russian life’. Their interpretation was unlike any kind of theatre I have ever seen.