The Transfiguration of Don Juan. Essays on the Dramaturgy of Alexander Dargomyzhsky’s Opera the Stone Guest. Dedicated to the 210th Anniversary of the Composer. Essay One

The essays on A.Dargomyzhsky’s opera The Stone Guest are not quite usually named - “The Transfiguration of Don Juan”, to understand the image of the protagonist. The problem of semantic content and musical dramaturgy of this experimental and absolutely brilliant phenomenon of Russian musical theatre are addressed in the study. Namely, an attempt was made to study Dargomyzhsky’s recitative opera following the primary source, the little tragedy of the same name by A.Pushkin, in terms of the authors’ spiritual worldview. In this case, spirituality is understood not only as the richness of the inner world but also as the faith-centric creativity characteristic of representatives of Russian culture of the 19th century. The research perspective reveals a lot of new information in a seemingly familiar work.