Ru
EnV. Breitburg
The architectonics of musical: from Jack Viertel’s theory to Kim Breitburg’s practice (article 1)
The author of the published article notes that the musical in contemporary Russia is reasonably positioned by experts as one of the most promising and dynamically developing genre areas of musical theatre. This is the reason for the apparent interest in this genre shown by Russian musicology. However, the productive elaboration of actual problems is limited mainly to historical aspects, with a noticeable lag in theoretical research focused on the dramaturgy and composition of the musical as the priority factors in building an integral musical and stage form. Based on this, it seems quite natural to study and comprehend the relevant heuristic experience of foreign researchers, including the works of well-known theatre teachers and practitioners who tend to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse composers’ interpretations of this artistic phenomenon from the perspective of their direct implementation. One such work is J. Viertel’s book “The Secret Life of the American Musical” (2016), which presents a general structural and functional typology of musical forms used in “classic” examples of the genre (1940s–1960s), as well as examines the most illustrative examples of the creative interpretation of “classic” traditions in significant projects of later times. The author of the article projects the analytical characteristics of individual music forms in musical presented in J. Viertel’s book (“Opening Number”, “I Want Song”, “Conditional Love Song”) onto the works by the Russian composer K. Breitburg, the author of popular musicals that have been successfully staged by many Russian theaters over the past decades. The functional parallels and direct coincidences that can be observed allow us to consider this research typology as a starting point for further theoretical studies in the field of the architectonics and formation of “classic” and contemporary musicals.
Key words
light-genre musical theatre, “classic” Broadway musicals of the 1940s–1960s, receptive aspect of music formation, Jack Viertel’s structural and functional typology, musical-theatrical works by Kim Breitburg.
For citation
Breitburg V. The architectonics of musical: from Jack Viertel’s theory to Kim Breitburg’s practice (article 1). In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2026. No. 2. Pp. 104–117.
