Anna Nisnevich

Fields

Russian musical theater at the turn of the 20th century, 19th- and 20th-century music, opera, neoclassicism, Mozart.

Profile

My research is driven by the basic question of why, how and to what extent(s) music moves people. I have been seeking answers to this question in particular eras (19^th and 20^th centuries), places (Europe, with special focus on Russia and Soviet Union), attitudes (romanticism and modernism) and collaborative art forms (opera, ballet, film). I believe that musicology can only thrive in an interdisciplinary environment, by engaging in conversations with cultural studies, critical theory, anthropology and other perspectives that help keep us focused and academically fit.

I have published articles and reviews in Opera Quarterly, Cambridge Opera Journal, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema and Russian Literature; most of these address intersections between Russian/Soviet history, opera and cinema. For a representative sample, see “Temporary Floods, Eternal Returns: Opera, Technology, and History in Two Films of Alexander Sokurov” in Opera Quarterly 26.1 (2010).

I have taught graduate seminars on opera and embodiment, and on the intersections between art music, modernism and modernity. I have supervised M.A. theses and Ph.D. dissertations on 20^th-century German opera, American avant-garde ballets, and French aesthetics after World War II.

My book in progress, How Chaikovsky Became Soviet, explores the appropriation and naturalization of this 19^th-century composer during the Stalin era. As I trace the various routes of Chaikovsky’s Sovietization – conceptual, institutional and popular, among others – I also consider the ways in which his oeuvre came to contribute to the privileged notions of what being Soviet entailed.

Recent Courses 

• Introduction to Western Art Music
• History of Opera
• History of Symphony
• History of Western Art Music From 1750 Through Present
• History of Russian Music
• Music in European Capitals at the Turn of the 20^th Century

Selected Honors and Awards

Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship, 2006.

Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Travel Grant, for presentation of paper “Opera as Mechanism: The Case of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges” at the Fourth Biennial Conference for Twentieth Century Music at the University of Sussex, 2005)

Mabelle McLeod Lewis Fellowship in the Humanities, 2005.

University of California, Berkeley, Graduate Division Travel Grant for presentation of paper “Russian Ark: Temporary Floods, Eternal Returns” at the national meeting of the American Musicological Society, 2004.

Teaching Effectiveness Award, University of California, Berkeley, 2004.

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, University of California, Berkeley, 2004.

Humanities Research Grant for Overseas Research, University of California, Berkeley, 2001.

Selected Publications and Papers

“Shostakovich Dancing.” Introductory lecture at the Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), University of Pittsburgh, October 2006.

“Purging the Subject in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri.” Interdisciplinary Conference of the Society for the Nineteenth Century, University of Durham, UK, August 2006.

“Russian Souvenir: Travel, Memory and Instrumental Music in Nineteenth-Century Russia,” in Glinka and His Legacies (in preparation).

“Keys to Mysteries.” Review of Simon Morrison, Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement, Cambridge Opera Journal vol. 15, no. 2 (July 2003): 199-206.

“Beyond Good and Evil in The Sleeping Beauty.” Symposium “Chaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty” in conjunction with the Kirov Ballet performance at University of California, Berkeley, October 2005.

“Opera as Mechanism: The Case of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges.” Fourth Biennial Conference for Twentieth Century Music at the University of Sussex, UK, August 2005.

“Russian Ark: Temporary Floods, Eternal Returns.” National meeting of the American Musicological Society, Seattle, November 2004; Conference “Glinka and His Legacies,” University of California, Berkeley, April 2005.

“Glazunov’s Raymonda and the ancien régime.” Russian Ballet Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley, November 2004.

Activities

Interdisciplinary conference Glinka and His Legacies, University of California, Berkeley, April 2005; conceived and co-organized.

Celebration of Russian Ballet and Music on campus of the University of California, Berkeley, 2004-2005; co-organized a year-long series of cultural events and symposia; researched and wrote text for exhibition in Doe Library.

“Russian Music from the Silver Age to the Age of Steel” pre-concert lectures at the Summer Chamber Music Festival in Madison, Wisconsin. Sponsored by the University of Madison, Wisconsin Slavic Center, July 2005.

San Francisco Opera Pre-Performance Lectures: “Misleading Motifs in Chaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades,” June-July 2005. “The Animal and the Human in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen,” June-July 2004. “Soul into Psyche in Janacek’s Kata Kabanova,” November 2002.

“Petersburgian Legacy in Russian Music.” Public lecture-presentation at the Humanities West symposium St. Petersburg 300, San Francisco, October 2003.

Various program notes for the University Symphony orchestra, including discussions of Sergey Prokofiev’s suite from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphony 5, Sofia Gubaidulina’s In croce (1999–2002).

Member of University of California, Berkeley working groups, Music, Literature and Critical Theory, exploration of music in relation to other media, and Mapping St. Petersburg, a project to produce an electronic map of St.Petersburg with attention to its historical and cultural sites.

Musicology Search Committee, University of California, Berkeley, 2004–5.

Dean of Arts and Humanities Search Committee, University of California, Berkeley, 2005–6.