ABSTRACT
This chapter explores serf theater as a system of representation that transgressed and reinforced social norms, linking stage and society. The primary data on serf theater are scattered among diaries of contemporaries attending serf productions, as well as in records of theater owners. Most of the scholarship on serf theater was produced during the Soviet period. The emergence of serf theater, an important venue for musical production, coincided with the period of early modernity in Russia, which began considerably later than in Western Europe. Before the eighteenth century, Russia existed in relative isolation from the Western hemisphere. Operas about the unequal love between a low class girl and a nobleman became fashionable on the Russian stage in the last quarter of the century. Russian serf actresses were simply the property of a male owner. The opera comique has a happy conclusion, usually culminating in a wedding.
