Branislav Kriška a jeho prínos do operno-teoretického diskurzu

Abstract

: The paper deals with theoretical discourse in the field of opera in Slovakia. It focuses on the director Branislav Kriška, whom musico-logists and theatrologist consider to be the most significant and, from the aspect of the aesthetic formation of the musical theatrical art, the most influential Slovak opera director of the latter half of the twentieth century. His theoretical articles published in specialized journals and programme booklets and his monograph on Giacomo Puccini, operas in the verismo style, and their staging prac-tices, are not only valuable materials for understanding the director’s staging signature but, in the context of twentieth-century Slovak opera theatre, they represent a unique theoretical activity of a practicing theatremaker. Kriška drew on Walter Felsenstein’s concept of stage performance and his understanding of musical theatre as a musical-dramatic scenic art, in which the staging and the vocal performance elements are complementary and equal.