V. Leonov, I. Palkina

Divertissements In the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Rostov-on-Don

The article highlights the practice of divertissements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Rostov-on-Don. The article characterizes their specificity as entertaining concerts, which included various stage genres. The author makes the assumption that the divertissements started to be hold in Rostov at the beginning of 1880s. The article highlights the entrepreneurial activities of Samoilenko and Charakhchiyanz, and describes the concerts in the gardens organized by them. The author believes that in Rostov in 1890s the concert-divertimento was developed largely due to the activities by Charakhchiyanz, who founded the winter and summer theatres in a private garden called “Palermo”. The article provides information about the composition of theaters, premieres, programmes of divertissements-concerts, popular artists from the mentioned period, the composition of the troupes, working on the terms of entreprises. The authors emphasize the multinational composition of the troupes, whose artists performed in Russian, Malorussian, French, Italian, English and other languages. The article is full of facts that help to recreate the historical background of musical and stage divertissements in Rostov at the turn of the century.

Key words

concerts-divertissements, entreprise, the “Palermo” garden, K. V. Charakhchiyanz.

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