CRASSH

This paper analyzes the programming and reception of operetta on the Soviet stage before and after the Central Committee intervention into Soviet musical life in February 1948. It uses a nearly unique source for assessing the reception of Soviet musical theater to attempt to answer questions about what sorts of operettas Soviet audiences preferred, about what operettas Soviet arts administrators promoted and theaters produced across the Soviet Union, and about how those preferences changed during the Zhdanovshchina. It also uses the report of an official USSR-wide investigation of operetta and musical comedy theaters that followed the 1948 party intervention to assess the effects on operetta and musical comedy theaters of a relatively unexplored but central, practical feature of the 1948 upheaval in the Soviet music world - the elimination of direct state subsidies to most musical theaters. Finally, it juxtaposes official interpretations of the reaction of operetta theaters to the elimination of state subsidies with findings derived from analysis of Soviet audience taste to argue that although official programming and audience preferences were rarely in sync, their disjuncture followed surprising patterns about which officials in Moscow were only partially aware and which they, unsurprisingly, simplified to fit their ideologically motivated preconceptions. By focusing on operetta, the paper thus uses a 'popular' musical form to draw attention to the complex interaction between arts policy, artistic production, and audience consumption in the ideologically charged environment of the Soviet 1940s.