М. Shiman
«The Maid of Pskov» and «The Snow Maiden» by N. Rimsky-Korsakov: history and myth
The paper is devoted to the problem of integrity of N. Rimsky-Korsakov’s world sensation through the comparison of his operas «The Maid of Pskov» and «The Snow Maiden». By means of such way we find common stylistic features in these operas. This allows us to estimate the maturity of his style in the first opera which usually viewed to be immature opus. The root of this paper is an article written by A. Losev «About the musical world sensation of love and nature» which provides a genre-concept of the opera «The Snow Maiden» to be folk musical (symbolic) drama. From this point of view «The Maid of Pskov» was analyzed. Considering the reconstruction of the musical rite provided by the composer, we also examine the research pattern Dialectics of Kin in this opera. The common in both works lies not in the horizontal lines of dramatic composition but in the symbolical vertical, based on the solar, moon and cosmogonic myths. So we arrive at a conclusion that there is a unified mythological model in these operas despite of the genre and textual differences between them.
Key words
N. Rimsky-Korsakov, «The Maid of Pskov», «The Snow Maiden», A. Losev, symbolic drama, objective lyricism, mythological thinking, two-universes’ space.