McGowan, Kenneth: The Moscow Art Theatre, Barrymore’s “Hamlet,”  Apr., 1923; Duse in Repertory (Jan., 1924); “The Miracle” (March, 1924). All in Theatre Arts Anthology, Theatre Arts Books, NY, 1950. This substantial collection (687 pp.) is from the original Theatre Arts Magazine (1912-48), not the successor of the same name that I and many others grew up with. McGowan, co-author with Robert Edmond Jones of the very valuable Continental Stagecraft, drew several lessons from the visits of the MAT, of Duse performing solo excerpts from her repertory, and of Reinhardt at his most grandiose (The Miracle, an adaptation of Maeterlinck’s Sister Beatrice, with transformative sets by Norman Bel Geddes and music by Humperdinck): that our country needed to learn how to train and develop actors; that we also needed to emulate the practices of the best European companies, which were permanent repertory ensembles under a permanent director, with a permanent policy of play selection and, in consequence, a devoted audience. His reflections, as valid with respect to opera as to spoken theatre, remain instructive.

Osborne, Conrad L.: The Mouth-Honored Prophets/Stanislavski and Felsenstein. Musical Newsletter, Vol. 5, # 4, Fall 1975. A critical essay review of the Fuchs/Felsenstein and Rumyantsev volumes.

Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir: My Life in the Russian Theatre, John Cournos, trans. Theatre Arts Books, 1968, originally published 1936. V-ND was a much more fluent writer than KS, and his portrait of the Russian literary and performing arts culture of the ’90s and ’00s, his own narrative of the founding of the MAT, and his recollections of his close relationships with Chekhov, Tolstoi, Gorki, and many others all add significantly to our picture of the period. On the differences with KS’s version of events and political developments, readers will have to sort things out for themselves.

Rumyantsev, Pavel: Stanislavski on Opera. Elizabeth Hapgood Reynolds, trans. and ed., Theatre Arts Books, NY, 1975. The publishers attribute this volume to Rumyantsev and Stanislavski himself, as co-authors. And it’s true that many of the words are Stanislavski’s, inasmuch as they are transcribed from notes taken during training and rehearsal sessions of the Opera Studio. But it’s Rumyantsev’s book. He was a young baritone who entered the Studio early on, took the title role in its production of Eugene Onegin, and later directed, both in the Studio and independently. His detailed notes from the sessions make up the bulk of the book, supplemented by his own observations and by a 45-page opening essay called In the Opera Studio. Initially, the Studio rehearsed and performed (to piano accompaniment only) in the ballroom of the old but grand house the new regime granted KS after he was stripped of his land and business holdings in the Revolution. There, the concentration was on works of intimate scale—besides Onegin, Werther, La Bohème, and, rather oddly, Cimarosa’s Matrimonio Segreto. Later, it was able to move into the Dmitrovski Theatre, co-tenant with Nemirovich-Danchenko’s Musical Studio, and take on larger works, with an orchestra in the pit, but still on a relatively small scale.

Oliver M. Sayler, ed: Max Reinhardt and His Theatre. Brentano’s, NY, 1924. A beautifully produced, copiously illustrated collection of articles by Reinhardt himself, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Alfred Roller (citing only the most operatically prominent names); one of his leading actresses, Gertrud Eysoldt; and many other qualified observers. A splendid overview of Reinhardt’s entire career and oeuvre, from his beginnings to the work of his famed Berlin company and on to the founding of the Salzburg Festival and his close collaborations with von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss. It does not, of course, include the work of his final years, including his American sojourn. He held KS in high esteem, which was reciprocated.