Three Loves for Three Oranges

"This impeccably researched and lavishly illustrated book gathers together scholars from several countries, disciplines, and research interests to illuminate a seminal work of Modernist theatre and music: The Love of Three Oranges. The approach is unique in that it examines three iterations – Gozzi's theatrical fairy tale (fiaba), Meyerhold's divertissement, and Prokofiev's opera. The interconnections are well-known but the details have been hitherto treated largely in their own disciplinary context: Italian literature, Russian theatre, 20th-century music. Hugely important are the three new translations of the texts, which are either available for the first time in English or supplant antiquated versions. This book should lay the foundations for new research trajectories."—Christopher B. Balme, editor of Commedia dell'Arte in Context, LMU Munich, editor of Commedia dell'Arte in Context, LMU Munich

"Three Loves for Three Oranges is a groundbreaking contribution to the field, offering rich insights into multiple areas of performance studies. Ranging across a wide array of interconnected themes, including commedia dell'arte, collective creation, collaborative writing, literary studies, modernist opera, and Russian avant-garde theatre practices, the book challenges our assumptions about the nature of theatre making, with significant implications both for scholarship and for the teaching of theatre practices."—Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, editor of Women, Collective Creation and Devised Theatre: The Rise of Women Theatre Artists in the 20th and 21st Centuries, editor of Women, Collective Creation and Devised Theatre: The Rise of Women Theatre Artists in the 20th and 21st Centuries

"This is one symposium that really is a feast: three sumptuous courses, served afresh and described with gusto, their individual flavors matched with their ingredients and their complex interrelationships clarified. Kudos to all the chefs and mavens."—Richard Taruskin, author of Cursed Questions: On Music and Its Social Practices, author of Cursed Questions: On Music and Its Social Practices

"Uniquely, this volume gives us innovative translations, detailed comparisons and interdisciplinary analyses of all three texts detailing the journey from Carl Gozzi's fiaba, through Meyerhold/Soloviev/Vogak's Divertissement, to Prokofiev's opera. Previous literature mapped some of the changes, but none offered the comprehensive analyses we find in this book. . . . The tripartite structure of the book is the most logical in terms of the material and, together with the cited paired chapters, as well as reading chapters as stand-alone texts, allow a multi-focus use both for the specialist and the general reader. The editors are to be congratulated for their overall innovative approach and for making the work of many Italian and Russian scholars available in English."—F Jane Schopf, Stanislavski Studies

"This is a delightful book, as scholarly in its method as it is light-hearted in its approach. It is also unique in that it brings together for the very !rst time in publication history three famous, but not fully excavated and known works by Carlo Gozzi, Vsevolod Meyerhold (together with Vladmir Solovyev and Konstantin Vogak), and Sergey Proko!ev."—Maria Shevtsova, New Theatre Quarterly

"A complex and rigorous exploration of the artistic lineages, Three Loves for Three Oranges: Gozzi, Meyerhold, Prokofiev offers a detailed study of the intertwined creative paths of Gozzi's theatrical fairy tale (fiaba), Meyerhold's divertissement, and Prokofiev's opera. This carefully conceived and elegantly executed collection of essays and originally translated theatrical texts is an immense multidisciplinary historiographic undertaking, which includes insightful contributions of seventeen scholars from the fields of theater and art history, Italian and Slavic Studies, and musicology. . . . Highlighting the importance of multiple cultural and disciplinary perspectives in historiographic research, the volume boldly paves the way for further investigations of theatrical genealogies."—Julia Listengarten, University of Central Florida, The Russian Review