This data paper accompanies the database Operatic productions in the Netherlands, an open dataset containing details on over five thousand opera productions in the Netherlands between 1885 and 1995 extracted from the Annalen van de Nederlandse Opera-gezelschappen (Annals of the Opera Companies in the Netherlands), which appeared in book form in 1996. These data give an extremely rich account of the performance history of operatic works and the personnel involved in their production. Since the original publication lacks a critical introduction, the authors have attempted to reconstruct the origins and systematics of the collection. They also discuss the attributes of the data and the basic data structure in order to give users relevant information to use and restructure the data for their interests. The data structure and metadata classifications are based on an inventory of the classifications used in existing performing arts databases across Europe. This facilitates future connections to other relevant performing arts datasets. The transfer of the Annals into a relational database finally brings out their full research potential.
This chapter explores the tension between national and international operatic repertories in the case of nineteenth-century Russia. It discusses conceptual problems associated with the notion of a national canon, which is frequently conceived of in a binary opposition to an international or universal one. The discussion of Russian musical life charts the reception of foreign repertories as well as the canonization of Mikhail Glinka’s operas Zhizn’ za tsarya (A life for the tsar, 1836) and Ruslan i Lyudmila (Ruslan and Lyudmila, 1842), and concludes by showing how the tensions between foreign and domestic works played out differently in critical and historical writing from the way they did in the performing repertory. This chapter is paired with William Weber’s “The survival of English opera in nineteenth-century concert life.”
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