Classical opera under authoritarian rule: A comparative study of cultural policy in the USSR, Italy and Germany

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the operatic culture of Stalinist USSR, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy. This task implies analyzing and comparing the operatic cultures, and scrutinizing governmental policies as they affected opera in the USSR, Germany, and Italy in the period of authoritarian rule. The most important focus is on the impact which these three regimes had on opera. And we start our analysis from the paradoxical fact that opera managed to retain its high quality during the time of strictest repression