Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Attending opera: a literary ethnography of the St Petersburg Bolshoi theater; 3. Embodying opera: the prima donna in Russia; 4. Representing opera: scene and self; 5. Naturalizing opera: the case of La Traviata in Russia; 6. Reading opera: the theater of psychological prose; 7. Divining opera: literary tales of operatic heroines; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author

Julie A. Buckler is Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.

Reviews

"Buckler's book is the first serious English-language scholarship on Russian opera to be published since the Gorbachev/Yeltsin thaw... The strengths of the book are twofold: revelation of new evidence discovered in archives in St. Petersburg and Moscow and exegesis of the process by which texts circulated between opera and prose literature... Buckler is to be commended for her keen analyses of meta-theatrical novels and stories by lesser-known nineteenth-century authors..." - The Russian Review "This monograph should be of interest to anyone concerned with nineteenth century Russian cultural life... Readers of this monograph can only hope that [Buckler] will continue further research ... and produce more work as rewarding as this book." - Slavic and East European Journal "The greatest attribute of The Literary Lorgnette ...is its wealth of information. Thanks to diligent research, Julie A. Buckler ...paints a detailed picture of nineteenth-century Russian opera culture. By the end of the book, the reader has learned about seminal Western and Russian operas; the custom of opera-going; major personalities; and how opera permeated literature." - Canadian Slavonic Papers