my nerves are bad to-night

In 1940, the famed Soviet film director Sergey Eisenstein was suddenly invited to stage a production of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Bolshoi. Wagner was unlikely fare at this time – the Soviet Union was largely hostile to foreign art, especially that of its great political rival in Europe, Germany. Yet the signing of the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact in 1939 opened up a brief window for the oddest of reconciliations. The historian Philip Bullock considers Eisenstein’s involvement in the production, and explores Russian interest in Wagner more generally, asking what happens when works of art get caught up in politics, propaganda and international diplomacy.  listen

PHOTOGRAPH: Pascal Amoyel

Tagged: alexandre benois, anti-capitalism, art and revolution, ballets russes, bolshoi theatre, bourgeois acquisitiveness, commissariat of enlightenment, curse of property, das kunstwerk der zukunft, die walküre, dresden uprising, gesamtkunstwerk, leo tolstoy, mikhail bakunin, molotov-ribbentrop pact, moscow, music of the coming revolution, philip bullock, richard wagner, sergei eisentein, siegfried, the play of light and fire, total theatre, vyacheslav ivanov, what is art?

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