Why did Mochalov ‘rage’ as Romeo? From the history of ‘Russian Shakespeare’: Romeo i Yuliya as a melodrama for a benefit performance

Abstract

The article discusses the genre attribution of little-known Shakespeare adaptations produced in Russia in the first third of the 19th c. In particular, the author considers French and Russian reworkings of Romeo and Juliet’s story. Examined in detail is A. Rotchev’s melodrama Romeo i Yuliya (1827). The play has never been published, either separately or in a collection of dramatic works, and was scripted exclusively for a theatrical production (a benefit performance). The article successfully argues that Rotchev’s text draws on de Ségur’s French libretto for Steibelt’s opera and that P. Mochalov’s tragic interpretation of Romeo was inspired by the opera and especially V. Samoylov’s performance as the eponymous male lead. Rotchev adapts Romeo and Yuliya’s love story first and foremost for a viewer (and not a reader). Hence the choice of genre favoured by the audience of the day, resulting in an altered and dramatically distorted idea of Shakespeare’s play (a shift from tragedy to melodrama). Analyzing Rotchev’s play, the scholar finds proof that the theatrical and the literary critical interpretation of Shakespeare in the Romantic era (Shakespeare as a dramatic poet) should be viewed entirely separately.