14 5 Synthetic arts (theater, ballet, circus, variety)

Synthetic arts are those forms of artistic creativity that represent an organic fusion or relatively free combination of various art forms, creating a qualitatively new and unified aesthetic whole. This includes, first and foremost, theater (drama and opera), which has absorbed literature, acting, painting, music, and decorative and applied arts; ballet, which utilizes the natural plasticity of the human body and combines dance, music, painting, and sculpture, imbued with a certain dose of sexuality; variety art, which presents a wide variety of artistic numbers, welded together by an entertainer, in the form of singing, recitation, dance, illusionism, and acrobatics; and the circus, where athletic and humorous elements clearly predominate, and, most importantly, representatives of the animal kingdom are included in the spectacular series. Synthetic arts are a combination of all traditional art forms, presented to us in an unusual form—that is, the complete expression of human imagination. Synthetic arts should not be confused with the related concept of synthesis of the arts, such as an architectural structure adorned with sculptures and paintings, surrounded by a landscaped garden, and so on. There are many non-standard forms of art, sometimes even unacceptable to our society. Nevertheless, with each new era, new forms of art, new ideologies, new traditions, and customs emerge.

The concept of synthesis (from the Greek "synthesis" - combination, connection) has several meanings in art. First of all, it is the unification of several artistic forms around one, which is defined as dominant. We note, Chaly, that the leading art form on the basis of which artistic imagery is synthesized is architecture. The decoration of a building's façade and interior with sculpture, stained glass, mosaics, as well as furnishings (carpets, tapestries, chandeliers) create a sense of comfort and beauty. The content and aesthetic clarity of the image depend on the historical era, the specifics of national life, the purpose of the building, etc. For example, religious architecture differs significantly in form and content from residential or public architecture. This is also characteristic of sculpture, painting, etc. Another type of synthesis is associated with the emergence of a qualitatively new form of art on the basis of several already existing ones, forming an organic relationship and can exist only in unity. The concept of synthetic thoughts of art is used in relation to arts formed by the unity of artistic language and do not exist outside of it. These include theater (tragedy, comedy, drama, ballet, opera), cinema, variety art; they are called, depending on their purpose, spectacular; according to the method of perception - visual-auditory; By their mode of existence, they are spatio-temporal arts. They are formed by the unity of the artistic language of painting (set design), architecture (interior design), literature (drama), music, dance, and decorative and applied arts (costumes, furnishings, etc.). Cinema, moreover, is based on technological advances that allow images to be captured on film, replicated, and made more democratic. The fullness of the artistic image of the synthetic arts is a manifestation of the spiritual need to create a vital fullness of being. In art, space and time are not physical characteristics of being, but a spiritual reality, since it is the relationships between the characters that shape both space and time and unfold their aesthetic characteristics: fullness, depth, and certainty. The scale of the dimension of space and time is created by the human qualities of the characters.

In theatrical art, the basis of synthesis is dramatic action. In form, it is an action of life; however, unlike the unpredictability of life's events, theatrical life is a life captured by people, contained within the aesthetic and artistic laws of conflict development, the clash of destinies and characters, which makes it a real being.

Conflict from within creates the self-movement of events, the internal dynamics of theatrical dramaturgy, as well as cinema. In the synthetic arts, the creation of an image occurs thanks to acting: the actor's ability to live in the image. Images unfold directly in the action. Actors on stage reflect the fullness of life relationships, transforming into heroes. At the same time, they realize that their activity is a game, and the OPZH is, they play and their attitude to what is happening and to the hero. Their images are not physical vitality, but spiritual reality. Consequently, the heroes come to life again and again in the person of the actor. Therefore, theater, in terms of the specifics of creating an image, is the art of reviving life - the spiritual world of man, and therefore salvation from death and non-existence. That is why in dramaturgy and theater, the current rules reflect the objective laws of the development of relationships and conflict resolution. Let us recall that the laws of dramatic action and the aesthetic principles of theater were first developed by Aristotle. He is the owner of the idea of the unity of place and

Actions, character traits, are sometimes defined as tragic, sometimes as comic, etc. Theater, as G. Gachev aptly puts it, is a liturgy performed by humanity, peoples, and generations. It is a religion, that is, a constant renewal of the connection between man and existence, between the face and the choral folk whole.

For an actor, the character's appearance, demeanor, and way of interacting with others, the attitude toward others and oneself hidden behind these external signs, the concept of the value of life, and the attitude toward them, are not so important. Therefore, usually, especially in modern theater, actors perform without makeup and costumes to emphasize the primary significance of the characters' spiritual state and a certain timeless, and therefore universal, quality to their relationship with the world.

When the need arises to recreate a historical time, to create the flavor of an era, makeup, costumes, sets, movement, communication style, etc. become important.

Theater (from the Greek theatron - a place for spectacles) is the earliest form of synthetic art. The stage action, unfolding directly in front of the audience, creates a special effect of empathy, and therefore, forms a culture of feelings. At the origins of the theater is pantomime - a wordless action based on facial expressions and gestures. Substantively, it is connected with ritual action (hunting, agricultural, religious), and later also with mysteries and carnival performances of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages. Already at the beginning of the theater, elements of the game are combined with dialogue, music, songs and dances and masks corresponding to the content of the play. In the Ancient World (India, China), a high theatrical culture was formed, elements of which are preserved to this day. The basis of the European theater is the theater of Ancient Greece, which arose in the 6th century BC, and reached its greatest flourishing in the 5th century BC. Its origins are in the mysteries in honor of the god Dionysus At first, it was a collective action: in the mysteries there are no actors-performers and spectators, everyone takes direct part in it. The purpose of this action is to develop a sense of the generic, natural integrity of human existence. Everyone has the right to directly reproduce the generic action [3, p. 216]. Researchers describe the sequence of the mystery action as follows: the murder of the god (ancestor), the eating of his body (totem animal), as well as adultery and even cannibalism. The second act of the action is repentance for sins, mourning for the dead, general grief. The culmination is the return to the world of the renewed god; universal reconciliation and joy. Here is reflected the evolution of relationships in communities: from spontaneous, disordered to harmonious, well-coordinated.

What has been said regarding the origins of the theater is important for the symbolism of its content, designed to reveal, through actions, the process of overcoming by man (the human race) primitive trains and the creation of a harmonious coherence of the stories. The classical variety of ancient theater is formed thanks to the work of outstanding tragedians of antiquity Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (VI-V centuries BC). Their works are based on mythological plots in which gods and heroes act. The ancient hero is a person whose actions are individualized. The activities of heroes create new circumstances. They push the boundaries of existing experience, expand the field of value representations of mankind. The hero's exit beyond this experience, the creation of a new space of freedom and the image of man's relationship with the world is a huge creative contribution of Greek antiquity to the spiritual experience of mankind. It is ancient drama and theater that predetermine a new type of relationship, mankind: the transition from the undifferentiated integrity of social communities to the allocation of those who act (the hero) and those who empathize. Their destinies (community).

Social relations in tragedy acquire essential definition through the qualitative interactions of the community, acting as a conscious spiritual whole. The spiritual definition of both participants forms a dialectical whole: the heroes change circumstances. Without their activity, the world would appear faceless, depersonalized. However, without the public's empathy for the hero, the unfolding of relationships, which is what constitutes specifically human life, would not occur. The public's empathy for the heroes also shapes the public relations, as it embodies the value of their actions, realized through feelings and reason, and consequently, of the subject of the action—the hero. Beyond the phenomenon of spiritual interaction between the hero and the public (the chorus of ancient tragedy), in the emptiness of the world, the action of the heroic individual creates meaning. Equally important is the circumstance of empathy sanctioning the hero's right to make mistakes and rash acts, as they reveal the complexity of life and the value of creating new experiential content. Already in Ancient Greece, theater was defined as a source of civic education and self-awareness.

Comedy (whose father is Aristophanes) has also played a certain spiritually formative role since ancient times. It forms

A critical approach to phenomena has outlived its usefulness, but still claims significance. Without healthy irony, neither the individual nor society is capable of rising to new understandings of the value of life and overcoming negative experiences. This is precisely why Aristotle, while devoting great attention to analyzing the structure and content of Maya agedia, does not ignore the aesthetics of comedy and the comic (Poetics). By highlighting and exposing the weak points of comedic characters to the audience's gaze, theater has a cleansing effect on the psyche of the audience, turning them toward moderation of behavior and prudence of action.

From antiquity to the end of the 18th century, tragedy was the main form of theater. Its historical development clearly traces the evolution of the hero's image and the content of his activity. The heroic principle characteristic of Greek antiquity gave way to a martyr's principle in the Middle Ages. Medieval theater existed in two main forms, opposing in their dominant mood and forms of expression. On the one hand, it was semi-professional theater, embodying the choral principle of the national spirit (buffoons, jugglers, wandering actors). Common forms of such theater included farce, and especially carnival. The second type of theater included miracle plays and mysteries on religious themes about the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ.

In the 15th-18th centuries, European theatrical art was defined as professional, and its content extended beyond religious subjects, enriched by secular relationships, civic ideals, and activism. The hero recognizes himself as the subject of moral choice and is committed to active self-realization. From this period on, theater was enriched by musical varieties (opera, ballet). Shakespeare, Marlowe (England), and Lope de Vega (Spain) emerged in the dramatic genre. In Italy, mass comedy theater—dell'arte—spread, manifesting itself in the democratic form of carnival. In France, theater flourished with the tragedies of P. Corneille and J. Racine and the comedic works of Moliere. The aesthetic principles of classical drama in the tragic genre are based on the high moral aspirations of the hero.

During the Age of Enlightenment, theater was seen as a vital means of personal moral development. The aesthetic principles of democratic theater were substantiated in the works of D. Diderot and G. Lessing. Beginning with the Age of Enlightenment, the theater's form changed: high tragedy gave way to bourgeois drama. The exceptional heroic and tragic personality was replaced by a hero who struggled for a living space for self-affirmation. The change in the type of hero led to a narrowing of the conflict's content: from the cosmic dimension (the conflict of the ancient hero with fate) it was transferred to the personal sphere of the ordinary person. On the one hand, this is a manifestation of the democratic nature of culture, which sees every human personality as valuable given its potential for self-realization. On the other hand, art sanctioned the average person and absolutized the range of their everyday interests and concerns as the intrinsic value of human vitality. Only in the tragedies of F. Schiller did Enlightenment theater maintain a connection with the classical ideal of the hero. He is an individual, and through his activities he creates the objective grounds for the scale of the conflict.

The XIX-XX centuries are characterized by the richness of the aesthetic principles of the theater. The aesthetic principles of realistic theater are based on the system of K. Stanislavsky. The outstanding director and theater theorist sees the acting mystique as a consequence of the aesthetic organization of feelings, that is, immediate emotional states are only the process of preparing a role, a working process. The actor’s experience of the life of the hero into whom he will transform is repeated feelings, previously experienced and familiar in life. So, the actor is characterized by the ability not to dissolve in feeling, not to be absorbed in a random reaction to secondary things, to something that does not concern the essence and what is experienced. There is creativity based on the intuition of artistic feeling, and feelings have another quality - aesthetic. An actor can achieve deep internal persuasiveness of a role only on the condition that his imagination, combining artistic fiction and the experiences associated with it, fits into a sense of truth. Thus, the score of a role is created in the joint work of actors, where each individual part of the role is combined, They are integrated into each other, uniting into a single performance score. In accordance with the demands of the work's aesthetic expressiveness and artistic perfection, the score should not contain a single superfluous feeling, but only those necessary for the overall action.

In the 1920s, the aesthetic principles of Symbolism and Futurism were widely introduced into theatrical art, embodied in particular in the directorial innovations of Les Kurbas (Ukraine), Meyerhold, and A. Tairov (Russia). In Western Europe at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, a bohemian culture (France) emerged, whose representatives created an aesthetic of theatricalization of life in contrast to the serious businesslike manner of respectable bourgeois. The place of everyday beings

The festivity of the theater is preoccupied with the principle: life is a theater, and the people in it are actors. In the late 1920s, playwright and theorist of epic theater B. Brecht (Germany) introduced the principle of alienation into theatrical aesthetics, that is, an internal detachment from the characters with the goal of critically understanding their actions and life values. As the author himself explains, the effect of alienation is to encourage the viewer to take an analytical, critical position regarding the events depicted. In the mid-20th century, the theater of the absurd (Beckett, Ionesco) became an interesting phenomenon in theatrical art.

Thus, theater as an art form reflects humanity's relationship with the world, revealing itself through its complexity and the contradictions that course through human consciousness and engender a sense of the need to compete with fate. Theater unites existence and man, the individual and society, the accidental and the natural. By confronting a person with trials, it objectively predetermines the development of their potential to realize themselves creatively, on a grand scale, to reveal the tragedy of fate and the grandeur of character. This is precisely why theater is a school for the spiritual development of not only individuals but entire nations, and its dramaturgy and aesthetics are a vivid testimony to the history of the formation of the national spirit.

Cinema (from the Greek kine, meaning "to move") emerged as a new form of synthetic art in the 20th century, primarily due to technological advances and the development of specific aesthetic principles. A film is the product of the creative work of a screenwriter, director, cameraman, actors, musicians, lighting technicians, editors, and others. The technical ability to capture action on film and then reproduce it for a wide viewing audience determined the mass and democratic nature of cinema.

In accordance with the specifics of this art, its artistic language was formed. By the nature of the creation of an artistic image, cinema is close to theater. The depiction of reality in it occurs in the spatial and temporal dimension, unlike theater, where the action unfolds before the eyes of the viewer, cinema offers viewers a finished work, filmed on film. The creative process - the stage action, the experiences under it - are fixed in the work as in a finished artistic whole, and therefore remain behind the scenes. However, the process of creating an artistic image in cinema also has its advantages. Thanks to the repeated recording of episodes (takes), it becomes possible to obtain the highest quality examples of acting. True, the advantage of theater is the immediacy of dramatic action, which gives rise to depth of feelings of empathy. At the same time, in artistically perfect works of cinema, the distance created by the form of producing experience (screen, film) disappears: the hero seems to be moving from the screen towards each specific other person - the subject of experiences and communicates with each personally. At the same time, he lives his own life, his own problems. The tragic course of events of his Life, just like joyfulness, also becomes an object of the viewer's emotions.

The origins of cinematography lie in the development of filming technology and image projection. Its initial forms are elementary filming of movement and its projection onto a screen (the first such event in the history of cinema was the Lumière brothers' film Arrival of a Train, 1895). The subsequent development of cinema is the development of its aesthetic principles in the forms of aesthetic organization of fragments of reality into an artistic whole, a complex system of aesthetic and artistic means. At the same time, a distinction is made between the aesthetic principles of theater and cinema not only in terms of expressive means but also in terms of the subject matter. Cinema, like theater, is a spatio-temporal and visual-auditory art. At the same time, cinema's capabilities in reflecting spatio-temporal relationships are significantly broader. It is capable of conveying the full diversity of manifestations of reality: the natural environment, human activity, historical events, the inner experiences of the individual, etc. In cinema, screen time and screen space differ from real time and space, as they are conditioned by the needs of image expressiveness and the conveyance of the inner content of an event.

Cinema assembles elements of reality to create a new reality, unique to it. The uniqueness of cinema lies in its construction of a coherent picture from fragments, rejecting everything beyond Ive and retaining only the most significant. Thanks to this, it has exceptional capabilities for the volumetric and expressive display of details. This is connected to the principle of editing: a film work, already during the shooting process, as V. Pudovkin notes, is presented as a montage sequence of individual parts of the film, provided that a true length is found for each segment. For example, if the event depicted requires it, there will be a rapid, sometimes almost convulsive rhythm of frame changes, similar to a panicked reversal of the observer's point of view.

seized with horror by what he saw. Only if the film director finds a corresponding rhythm for the unfolding of the image will the screen come to life with its own inner life. The director will create an image that combines screen space and screen time with the duration of individual elements of the film. The technique of concentration in time and in action by removing unnecessary transitional moments is also found in a simplified form in the theater, in cinema it is taken to the maximum and is the very essence of cinematographic art [1 9, p. 272]. When editing a work, the director takes on the responsibility of throwing out the unnecessary in order to direct the viewer, concentrating his attention only on what is important and characteristic.

Important elements in creating the aesthetic expressiveness of films are camera angles - changing the distance of the camera from the object. Plans (close-up, medium, long) allow you to focus attention on the details of the images while watching the film camera move with it, finding yourself inside the events. An important aesthetic means is light (the ability to highlight an object, focus on facial expressions, interiors, landscape details, etc.). Color has a great symbolic load, conveying the nuances of the internal state of the characters, the richness of life forms created by the volume of chiaroscuro modeling, the sculpting of form with color, etc. Words, intonation, and music serve to convey the aesthetic expressiveness of a work. At the turn of the 1930s, when sound recording technology was invented and mastered, sound cinema emerged. In the previous decade—the era of silent film—the aesthetic expressiveness of events, the logic of their flow, and the characters' mental states were conveyed through editing, expressive acting, and sometimes captions were used to indicate the sequence of events. Sound in film not only deepened its artistic expressiveness but also contributed to the clear rhythmic organization of works through music, creating an active factor in the creation of a figurative language of cinema.

Despite the value of these aesthetic and artistic means of creating a figurative language of cinema, the unifying principle, the initial condition of a work's artistry, is the principle of aesthetic measure—that is, the internal motivation of one cinematic technique, and not another, in creating an artistic whole.

The basis of a film work is the script, which determines the necessity of all the aforementioned aesthetic principles. Without such internal unity, there is no cinema as a work of art. The dramaturgy of the frame, as S. Eisenstein notes, is created by a number of techniques designed to generate a complex of associations, without limiting the frame only to the visibility of what falls on the screen. Light, angle, frame cropping - everything is subordinated to not only reflecting the subject, but also revealing it in the semantic and emotional aspect that is embodied at a given moment through a given object placed in front of the lens [10, p. 36]. Moreover, the subject should be understood broadly: people, things, buildings, landscapes, etc.

To understand the full richness and complexity of the artistic language of art, let us analyze some ideas of cinematic aesthetics proposed by S. Eisenstein, who put forward the idea of intellectual cinema. He believes that the principle of the golden ratio is the underlying premise of the inner life of all arts. It is known that this principle is fundamental in poetry, music, painting, architecture, sculpture The outstanding director proves that this principle is also inherent in the expressive visual (synthetic) arts: theater and cinema So, in tragedy it manifests itself, in particular, in the form of dividing the five acts into the most organic proportions: 2: 3 and 3: 2 The existence of internal dependencies of the rhythm of artistic impact in cinematography S. Eisenstein reveals using the example of the film Battleship Potemkin - his own directorial work In Potemkin not only each individual part of it, but the entire film as a whole, and at the same time in both its culminations - at the point of complete immobility and at the point of maximum takeoff - strictly observes the law of the golden section - the law of the structure of organic phenomena of nature. The action of this law can be traced throughout the entire development of the film's events: as the master demonstrates, the principle of the golden ratio, at its highest point, operates in the form of the contrast between red and the black-gray-white light image. Color (the red flag on the rebel battleship) becomes the semantic center of the work. The director notes that the flag is removed at the point of the golden ratio: at point C: 2 (that is, at the border between the first three and last two parts – at the end of the third part).

In the five parts of the film (analogous to the five parts of a tragedy), he shows that within each part there is a break into a different mood, a different rhythm, a different event, but each time the transition is to a sharply opposite contrast, namely, the opposite, for it presents an image of the same theme each time with

from a reverse perspective, yet inevitably growing out of it. Consequently, the organization of thought is the actual content of cinema as an art form. In the cinema of the 1960s-80s, the aesthetic expressiveness of artistic language found vivid embodiment in the work of Andrei Tarkovsky (see: V. Petrushenko, Nostalgia for the Absolute: The Philosophical Context of Andrei Tarkovsky's Filmmaking). The loss of the ability to shape the figurative fabric of a work is a consequence of the loss of the need to master the aesthetic principles of cinema and the substitution of artistic spirit for entertainment, commercial success, etc., that is, for extra-artistic motives. This is precisely one of the significant reasons for the crisis of contemporary cinema, and therefore the source of the leveling of the human personality.

Thus, cinema, through its distinctive artistic language, offers broad possibilities for creating artistically expressive images and events, moods and relationships, past and present, sublime and everyday, full of compelling inner vitality, drawing on the achievements of aesthetics, artistic practice, and technical advances in its field.

Theater
Theater (from the Greek thiatron - place for spectacles; spectacle) is a form of art.
Theater is a form of social consciousness; it is inseparable from the life of a people, their national history and culture. Theater typically achieves artistic excellence when, imbued with the progressive ideas of the era, it champions humanistic ideals, deeply and truthfully revealing the complexity of the human inner world and its aspirations.

The artistic reflection of life and the affirmation of certain ideas, worldviews, and ideologies is accomplished in the theater through dramatic action performed by actors before the audience. The struggle of characters and the exploration of social and psychological conflicts that influence the destinies of people and their relationships form the basis of a play or performance. The specific nature of theater requires an emotional and spiritual connection between stage and audience, and the presence of shared interests between the creators and the audience. Theater plays a vital role in aesthetic, moral, and political education. It possesses rich means of artistic generalization, expressiveness, and impact on a mass audience.

Drama is the foundation of theatrical performance. Theater translates literary works into the realm of stage action and specific theatrical imagery; the characters and conflicts of drama are embodied in living faces and actions. Words and speech are the most important tools with which theater is equipped with drama. In theater, words are also subject to the laws of dramatic action. In some cases, speech is transformed into a means of everyday characterization, while in others, complex conflicts within the character's consciousness and psychology are revealed through the verbal fabric of a role. Speech on stage can take the form of a lengthy statement (monologue), flow as a conversation with a partner (dialogue), be addressed to the audience, or sound like a character's thoughts, their "inner monologue," etc.

Theater is a collective art. A performance is a work possessing artistic unity and harmony of all its elements. It is created under the direction of the director and in accordance with the director's vision through the joint efforts of the actors, set designer, composer, choreographer, and many others. The core of a performance is the director's interpretation of the play, its genre, and stylistic approach. The action of the performance is organized in time (tempo, rhythm, waxing and waning of emotional tension) and space (the design of the stage, the principles of its use, mise-en-scène, sets, movement, etc.).

The main vehicle of theatrical action is the actor, whose work embodies the essence of theater: the ability to captivate audiences with the spectacle of life unfolding before their eyes, and the creative process of bringing it to life. An actor's image is created based on the play and its interpretation by the director. But even in a strictly organized performance, the actor remains an independent artist, capable of recreating a living human image on stage using the means available to them alone, conveying the complexity and richness of human psychology.
K.S. Stanislavsky believed that self-improvement and role development during rehearsals constitute two inextricably linked aspects of an actor's work.

Often, an actor creates an image on stage that is unlike their own, changing externally and internally in different roles. When embodying the appearance and character of a character, the performer utilizes plastic and rhythmic expressiveness, the art of speech, facial expressions, and gestures. The history of world theater knows actors who possessed a virtuoso mastery of external transformation.

In musical theater, the action is embodied through musical dramaturgy, which is based on the general laws of drama—the presence of a clearly defined central conflict, revealed through the struggle of opposing forces, and a specific sequence of stages for the development of the dramatic concept. In each type of musical theater,

In the performing arts, these general principles are specifically reinterpreted according to the nature of their expressive means: in opera, the action on stage is expressed through music, that is, the singing of the characters, as well as the sound of the orchestra; in ballet, dance and pantomime play a role analogous to singing in opera. In both cases, music is the primary unifying medium, tying all the elements of the drama together. In operetta, a type of opera with spoken dialogue, couplet song and dance are of great importance. Expressive means from dramatic, operatic, and choreographic arts, as well as pop and everyday music, are used in the musical genre.

OPERA

Opera is a part of theatrical art.
In its most general form, opera can be defined as a theatrical performance in which people sing, not speak. Singing and song are an essential component of this art. Here, song appears in various forms: an aria—a song-monologue, a song-confession; a duet—a song-dialogue; recitative—an imitation of spoken forms in music, etc. Choral singing occupies a special place in opera, revealing not an individual but a mass image—the image of a nation or a large group of people. In some operas, choral forms play a leading role. This is typical of musical folk dramas. Examples include Mussorgsky's brilliant opera-dramas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina.
Of course, opera is not only song. It is also the music that exists in opera even without its direct connection to song. And the acting of the singer. And elements of visual art—in the sets, in the props. Opera is a synthetic art. But at the same time, as in any form and genre of art, it has its own guiding principle. This principle in opera is precisely music, song. First and foremost, this is what makes opera a unique art of spiritually sublime truth.
Due to the unique nature of its imagery, opera primarily conveys the non-everyday, poetic side of life. Goncharova's "An Ordinary Story" or Chekhov's "A Boring Story," despite their profound content, would hardly serve as a good plot basis for an opera. An opera libretto can be a sad, tragic, or heroic story, but never "ordinary" or "boring." Opera is built entirely on singing. But, as the saying goes, "A girl can sing about lost love, but a miser cannot sing about lost money." Not every subject can be sung about. There are forbidden areas, and they must be considered, as they are determined by the inherent laws of art itself.

BALLET
Ballet is closer to opera than any other art form. Ballet (from the French balleto and Latin ballo – to dance) is a combination of music and choreography (dance, pantomime). It can be said of it that it is "doubly musical." The element of music, both audible and no less visible, dominates here. Dance in ballet is such "visible music." Only outwardly does it appear silent. Essentially, the dance is based on music, filling it from within.
This musical richness and, at the same time, the "inexpressibility" of the choreographic imagery results in the ballet's content not being directly "retold" and cannot be sufficiently and accurately expressed through verbal explanations. The ballet imagery is polysemantic, generalized, and symbolic. Reducing the essence of the ballet imagery to everyday meaning not only fails to explain it but, in many ways, destroys it. In this case, the same thing happens as with all kinds of expositions of the content of symphonic works. Ballet, like opera, does not allow for overly grounded plots. Of course, there can be no absolute prohibitions in art. But absolute freedom is also impossible. For example, even Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" can be translated into the language of ballet. Rodion Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya have proven that it can. However, this translation is far from adequate—it is selective. Understanding the themes of Tolstoy's social novel from Shchedrin's ballet is not just difficult, it's impossible. The ballet makes no such claim. Shchedrin's "Anna Karenina" is a song of beautiful and tragic love. This ballet is based not even on Tolstoy's novel, but on Tolstoy's plot. The same can be said of Minkus's "Don Quixote," Glière's "The Bronze Horseman," and so on. The very selection of subject matter in such ballets demonstrates what ballet can and cannot do. It cannot be too mundane, nor overly didactic, nor urgently topical.
Ballet, like music, is capable of conveying the subtlest nuances of feeling and its highest, grandest, and most heroic flights. But ballet is unable to convey mundane and prosaic actions; it cannot express itself in prose, even if inspired ideas and great thoughts are hidden behind it."

The Origin of Ballet. Ballet, the highest level of choreography (from the Greek choreia – dance and grapho – I write), in which dance art is elevated to the level of a musical and theatrical performance, originated as a courtly aria.

The centrocratic art of ballet emerged much later than dance, in the 15th and 16th centuries. The term "ballet" appeared in Renaissance Italy in the 16th century and denoted not a performance, but a dance episode. Ballet is a synthetic art in which dance, the primary expressive means of ballet, is closely linked to music, the dramatic foundation—the libretto—set design, the work of the costume designer, the lighting designer, and so on. Ballet is diverse: plot-based—classical narrative multi-act ballet, drama ballet; plotless—symphonic ballet, mood ballet, and miniature. Ballet can be comic, heroic, or folkloric in genre. The 20th century brought new forms to ballet: jazz ballet and modern ballet.

Circus

HISTORY OF THE CIRCUS. The first known permanent circus was the Circus Maximus, named one of the wonders of Rome in 7 BC. Its building was transformed and rebuilt over several centuries. In fact, equestrian competitions had been held on this site since the time of Romulus. Later, wooden structures were erected, gradually replaced by marble ones, which acquired ever greater splendor. The building was decorated with statues, bronze, and gilding; privileged seats for noble Romans and senators were added, and later, an imperial box. The arena's area, the number of pens for horses and wild animals, and the number of seats for spectators increased. During the late Empire, it was estimated that it could accommodate between 150,000 and 385,000 people. The Circus Maximus was the largest, but not the only one, in Rome.

All permanent circuses can, in a sense, be considered conduits for the official art of entertainment. Simple, brutal, and bloody spectacles (large-scale gladiatorial fights, wild animal baiting, and chariot races) enjoyed unquestionable popularity across all strata of society.

However, there is historical evidence that in Ancient Rome (as well as in Ancient Greece, Byzantium, China, and other countries), traveling circus troupes consisting of acrobats, equilibrists, and jugglers were also known. They performed in city and village squares and embodied a fundamentally different form of circus art—simple, mobile, and aimed only at the poorest classes.

In fact, this division into "official" and "democratic" styles existed in European circus art until the early 19th century. Permanent and semi-permanent circuses cultivated lavish, spectacular performances tailored to the tastes of aristocratic audiences: equestrian art and horse training, theatrical extravaganzas glorifying equestrian maneuvers and battles, and so on. Acrobats, gymnasts, equilibrists, and clowns performed in booths and squares.

In 1807, the newly constructed Olympic Circus opened in Paris. The fairground acrobat J.-B. Oriol, who combined acrobatics and equilibristics with clowning techniques, moved there from the booths. This marked the beginning of a new era in the development of circus arts. The circus confidently embarked on the path of synthesizing all possible genres in a single performance. And from the mid-19th century, the number of circus genres and the expansion of technical capabilities increased by leaps and bounds.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the structure of circus performances had changed dramatically. Carpet clowns and clown trainers appeared in permanent circuses. Animal trainers migrated from menageries to the circus. A huge leap forward occurred in the genre of aerial gymnastics: the introduction of safety nets made it possible to significantly increase the complexity of tricks. A new role emerged in aerial gymnastics—the so-called "catcher" (an artist who spotted and caught flying partners), and the "cross flight" act was first performed. A revolution also occurred in the art of tightrope walking: hemp rope was replaced by a much stronger metal cable, making it possible to perform complex acrobatic pyramids on the rope. A new genre emerged: Icarian games. In the early 20th century, acrobats and gymnasts acquired a new attribute: the teeterboard, which increased the height of their jumps. And with the technological revolution of the early 19th century, acts and attractions based on the use of technology were radically transformed and expanded: from "wall racing" to "flying from a cannon to the moon"; from "water extravaganzas" to a riot of new possibilities in "illusion."

The formation and development of circus arts is inseparable from the general history of civilization and is firmly embedded in its context. The origins of the circus are linked to rituals, games, the peculiarities of everyday life and the way of life of the people, as well as the emergence of new crafts and professions, and even the foundations of advertising.

For example, pantomime developed from the ritual rites of primitive society, designed to ensure a successful hunt. Ventriloquism (the so-called "engustrimism" or "ventrology") originates from the shamanic rituals of shamans performing a cult rite.

Beast tamers trace their lineage back to gladiators who fought wild animals in the arena, as well as to the first Christian martyrs, who were publicly torn to pieces by lions and tigers in ancient Rome.

The equestrian circus traces its origins to ancient times.

Chariot races and horse tournaments were a favorite pastime of the ancient Romans. Later, beginning in the 16th century, the development of the equestrian circus was facilitated by numerous riding schools, driven by the need for specialized training for riders participating in equestrian combat. Another form of equestrian circus, trick riding, emerged and flourished among the nomadic peoples of the East, as it involves entirely different riding skills.

The art of tightrope walking originated among rope-weaving artisans: to demonstrate the strength of their craft, craftsmen would walk and jump along a rope stretched between two stands.

Fakir and manipulator acts have been known since ancient times and trace their origins to religious rituals, but the development of circus illusion was determined by much later technological advances: first, the invention of amalgam and mirrors, and later, electric lighting and a variety of complex mechanisms.

Improvements in technical techniques also led to the development of the extravaganza genre, where the arena is filled with water or ice instead of the traditional sand.

Different genres emerged and matured at different times, and along with them, the main priorities of audiences emerged and changed. However, the circus as a whole has always been the most democratic art form, enjoying immense popularity among audiences of virtually all age and social categories. The reasons for this are extremely complex and varied.

First and foremost, the popularity of circus arts stems from the human desire for perfection, for miracles, for dreams that take us beyond the ordinary and open up new possibilities. Circus performers demonstrate strength, agility, and courage beyond the ordinary spectator. They juggle weights and lift enormous weights ("power acrobats"); demonstrate extraordinary flexibility ("rubber"); swallow fire or train snakes ("fakirs"); fly through the air ("aerialists"); They juggle a wide variety of objects, including their feet ("Icarian games"); they interact with domestic animals ("trainers") or engage in direct contact with wild animals ("tamers"). These extraordinary abilities evoke admiration and pride in spectators.

The second reason for the circus's popularity is based on baser feelings: the desire to "tickle nerves," to experience the danger that awaits a circus performer; and the subconsciously perceived possibility of witnessing an accident. This is undoubtedly a vestige of the naive and cruel views of the primitive order and the pagan customs of antiquity. The classic demand of the Roman mob: "Bread and circuses!" (Latin: "Panem et circenses") literally translates as "Bread and circus games," and is directly associated with the bloody gladiatorial fights and the baiting of wild animals. With the spread of Christianity and the formation of modern ethical principles, such views naturally became considered "socially unacceptable." However, circus arts still exploit this archaic sentiment to a certain extent today. It's no wonder that the phrase "death-defying act" is common in English, harking back to old circus advertising. And many aerialists today pride themselves on performing without a safety net—a taut net or a so-called "lounge" (a safety rope attached to the gymnast's belt).

A third, no less important reason for the popularity of circus arts lies in the topicality of its individual genres, particularly clowning. "Jester," "gayer," "clown," and "fool" are essentially synonyms for "clown." Although the officially recognized primary function of such a character was to entertain the public, traditionally, jesters have appropriated the right to address the most complex and pressing issues of our time. At the same time, they had the opportunity to appeal to virtually any social class: from the Caesars (court jesters) to the lowest social strata (travelling comedians). Under strict censorship (whether during the Inquisition or dictatorship), this was the only way to tell the truth. Of course, the jester's profession was fraught with danger; however, an exaggeratedly naive manner of presenting topical information gave the clown a greater chance of survival.

While circus arts share a commonality, circuses of different eras and nations, as well as those targeting different social groups, each had its own distinctive features.

Variety
Variety is a form of performing art. It combines various genres in a performance (concert) in acts that are separate, complete performances by one or more performers. Variety is characterized by the performers directly addressing the audience, often in their own voice. When an artist transforms, they do so primarily on stage, sometimes using wigs, costume details, and so on. Variety performers are characterized by a nakedness of feeling and an openness of skill. Given the brevity of their performances, variety artists make extensive use of various means of

The art of variety shows is characterized by a rapid impact on the audience, employing techniques of the grotesque and buffoonery. They typically eschew deep psychological development of the character, striving to create a specific mask. Elements of humor, satire, and journalism predominate in variety art. It is primarily based on contemporary, and even topical, material, and utilizes its own specific genres: couplets, romances, monologues, mini-plays, acrobatic dances, manipulation, and others.

The origins of variety art are in the performances of traveling performers (buffoons, jugglers, shpilmans, and others), primarily at folk festivals, and from the mid-18th century, also in booths. Among them, prominent were the "old-timers" (raeshniki), who beckoned to the public from a balcony built above the booth entrance. Fairground barkers performed satirical monologues, jokes, and acrobatic stunts to attract visitors. The booths featured sound imitators, acrobats, magicians, and transformers, and, from the second half of the 19th century, also storytellers, coupletists, and performers of farcical scenes.

Another source of variety entertainment were divertissements—concerts held after the main opera, ballet, or drama performance, featuring opera arias, ballet excerpts, folk songs, and dances. From the mid-19th century, Divertissements featured solo musicians, storytellers, performers of couplets, and later arias and duets from operettas.