Musicology Annotation << Back From the history of musical theatre in the revolutionary epoch: the struggle between opera and ballet Petr N. Gordeev The article is devoted to the confrontation between the opera and the ballet troupes turning around at the Mariinsky theatre after the February Revolution. The fall of the monarchy threw the ballet dancers down in a state of confusion, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty about the future of the ballet art. Against this background, the well-organized opera singers began to lay claim to the absolute power in the theater. Faced with such an attitude on the part of their colleagues, the representatives of the ballet troupe complained to the director of the State theatres V.A. Telyakovsky as well as to the government commissioner of the former Ministry of court F.A. Golovin. When the confl ict went to the newspapers the representatives of the opera company offi cially announced that they treated the ballet with «deep respect». But in practice the opera singers continued to regard their colleagues as a secondary part of the theatre. One of the reasons of the confl ict was the group egoism peculiar to the revolutionary era, when the exaggerated role of the «collective» eventually led to its confrontation with other collectives. Keywords: The opera, the ballet, Mariinsky theatre, musical theatre, the 1917 revolution in Russia. Contacts: E-mail: petergordeev@mail.ru Pp. 11-15.