Concept of Sound-Visual Imagery in the Context of Basic Approaches to Beijing Opera Plastic Scenes Research
The article considers main methodological approaches to the research of Beijing Opera (Jingju), developed in the Russian art criticism. The main of them include art historical, system and interdisciplinary approaches, the review of which is combined with the analysis of the main scientific principles and methods applied when studying jingju. The expediency of their use for studying Beijing Opera performances plastic scenes is revealed.The article justifies the possibility of using the theoretical film-study developments of Russian-speaking authors for the analysis of the Chinese musical theater. The article points out the significance of Chinese troupes’ tours headed by Mei Lanfang, which took place in the USSR in 1935 to make international art dialogue more active. During the troupe’s visit, Mei Lanfang got acquainted with such directors as K.S. Stanislavski, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, V.E. Meyerhold, andS.M. Eisenstein. This acquaintance, as well as the experience of aesthetic perception of jingju, became for Soviet directors a source of new theoretical ideas and practical findings both in the field of theater and cinema.The theoretical developments of S.M. Eisenstein, in particular the concept of sound-visual imagery, and the prospects of their application for analyzing sound-visual relations in jingju plastic scenes are considered separately