The dissertation analyzes and summarizes the experience of productions in such genres as operetta, musical comedy, vaudeville, musical, rock-opera at Kharkiv Academic Theater of Musical Comedy (founded in 1929 under the name State Ukrainian Musical Comedy), Kyiv National Academic Operetta Theater (1934) and Odessa Academic Theater of Musical Comedy named after M. G. Vodyanoy (1947).
The chronological framework of the study is determined by the fact that since the 1960s there have been outlined such characteristic features of the comprehensive operetta theater modernization as dynamic genre genesis; appearance of the first professional directors and actors of musical theater. And already in the 1990s and 2000s, the process of renewal took complete shape: Ukrainian authors created musicals and rock operas.
The author has clarified and supplemented the periodization of the history of the operetta theater in Ukraine, which allowed her to characterize the expansion of the genre range of the theater's repertoire within each period. More than two hundred performances of the 1940s and 2000s served as material for the analysis.
The work shows that from the end of the 1950s, along with productions of traditional genres (operettas, musical comedies, vaudeville), European musicals were staged within the framework of the theater's "socialist-realist" paradigm (Ukrainian theater first gained experience of cooperation with European masters). The decade of the early 1960s and 1970s was characterized by Broadway musicals productions of F. Lowe, K. Porter, M. Lee, and J. Herman. The musical became the main feature of the evolution of the operetta theater of the "thaw" era, bringing to it images and issues of classical literature and increasing the requirements for performance culture.
It is found out that a Ukrainian musical was created in the 1970s. The domestic model of the genre accentuated the psychological aspect in the performance (based on the best works of contemporaries). Within the framework of lyrical or epico-heroic productions, an effective scenography was developed, which contributed to the reproduction of a nonlinear chronotope of action. The use of microphones, an innovative solution of space emphasized the interpretation of musical comedies and musicals in a concert style. The stage interpretations of musical comedies and musicals by the following Ukrainian authors are analyzed: V. Ilyin, Ye. Lapeiko, V. Nazarov, I. Poklad, Yu. Rybchynsky, Yu. Rogoza, L. Kolodub, O. Sandler, V. Filipenko and their foreign colleagues: M. Dunaevsky, O. Kolker, R. Pauls, M. Samoilov and others.
The paper emphasizes that the ideological repertoire has been shortened since the mid-1980s, while the interest in musicals based on the works of until recently banned authors is becoming indicative. According to the aesthetic principles of postmodernism, even the performances of traditional for operetta theaters works employ techniques of intertextuality, stylization, citation and collage. The theater of this period is characterized by interpretations of musical comedy as a musical ("Sorochinsky Fair" by O. Riabov, directed by V. Shulakov), operetta as a revue ("Bayadera" by I. Kalman, directed by S. Smiyan) and musical as a show ("Don Cesar de Bazan" by E. Ulyanovsky, directed by V. Podhorodynsky). The Ukrainian Operetta Theater has gained experience in full-fledged productions of works by O. Rybnikov, E. Lloyd Webber, and G. Gershwin. The musical and vocal style of interpretation of Broadway musicals came close to authentic. In the 2000s, a type of dance-rock opera (Odessa) appeared.
The dissertation emphasizes that since the 1960s the operetta theater has begun to address the works from the repertoire of dramatic theater: Aristophanes, W. Shakespeare, B. Shaw. They staged works by M. Bulgakov, T. Dreiser, M. Cervantes, O. Sukhovo-Kobylina, Sholom Aleichem and New Testament plots. The influence of the poetics of these authors on the companies that had played operettas and vaudeville was undeniable. Broadway musicals and ballade operas were successively mastered on the Odessa stage. Other theaters specialized in operetta and musical comedy. At the same time, the Kyiv theater innovatively embodied Soviet musicals, and the Kharkiv company prepared their productions for rock opera performances. The role specialization of the leading actors was replaced by a stage theme. The heroic musical comedy laid the foundations for the intonational reorientation of the theater. Musical and vaudeville developed the actors technically. Musicals and rock operas expanded the genre amplitude of the theater to tragedy and existential drama and contributed to its intellectualization.
