A Lightened Lope de Vega: The Use of Music in the Soviet Tele-Adaptation of «The Dog in the Manger»

Abstract

Russian director Yan Frid’s musical film Sobaka na sene (‘The Dog in the Manger’), produced by the Leningrad studio Lenfilm in 1977, is now considered a classic of Soviet cinema. This tele-adaptation of Lope de Vega’s The Dog in the Manger was a great success, thanks in part to the music written especially for the telefilm by the popular composer Gennadi Gladkov. The present article explores how the style of the music and the manner of its incorporation into the film privilege a specific reading of the Lopean comedy.