ABSTRACT
Otto Dütsch’s magnum opus Kroatka (‘The Croatian Girl’), deserves the utmost attention in the history of grand opera in Russia. Written to an original subject in a contemporary setting, the opera revolves around an inter-ethnic love triangle played out against a spectacular background of popular uprising. In documenting the opera’s plagued creative history, the chapter explores both the libretto’s explicit political implications and Dütsch’s treatment of the musico-dramatic canons of the Parisian model. Other issues, such as censorship and the cultural context, are also discussed in order to give a fresh perspective on Meyerbeer’s complex reception in mid-nineteenth-century Russia.
