Adolphe Nourrit is singer of the July Revolution

Van Shichzhe ORCID: 0009-0008-9680-7955 Teacher, Faculty of Music and Dance, Shihezi University 832000, China, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Shihezi city, 北四路, 280 shizhe.wang@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The French grand Romantic opera, which was formed as a genre in the late 1820s, put forward a galaxy of outstanding opera singers, including Laura Cinti-Damoreau, Julie Dorus-Gras, Corneli Falcon, Nicolas Levasseur, Gilbert Dupree, Adolphe Nurry. Their performing skills inspired the composers to create technically complex and dramatically layered opera roles. Relying on the long-standing French traditions of declamatory expressiveness, they added to their professionalism the best achievements of the Italian bel canto, establishing a new symbiosis of drama and vocal virtuosity on the French stage.

Studying the opera parts created for the singers of the Paris Opera House, modern researchers note the expansion of their range, the strengthening of the virtuoso-technical component, the increase in the scale of opera forms, the increasing role of dynamic nuances. Much attention is paid to the dramatic aspect of opera roles, including the study of stage behavior, acting skills, and the peculiarities of the appearance of singers of the past. All studies of this kind focus on the analysis of the singer's vocal and dramatic portrait, which is drawn through the study of his opera parts and comments recorded by eyewitnesses. Often this portrait is complemented by a detailed creative biography of the artist, quoting his letters and statements, if any, have been preserved and are freely available to the researcher.

Although the described approach has demonstrated obvious effectiveness, it does not provide an exhaustive picture of the inner life and spiritual and moral quest of the singer, his religious and philosophical views and his attitude to events taking place in society. This is especially true of artists performing on the big stage during a period of deep social upheaval – wars, revolutions, reforms. The July Revolution of 1830 ended the Bourbon monarchy and established a constitutional monarchy. The changes related to the abolition of censorship and the establishment of freedom of speech affected all sectors of society and public institutions, but especially the theater. Did the artists remain indifferent to this huge social shift, continuing to perform as before, or were they involved in a social movement? Were they interested only in professional and private matters, or did they interact with important figures in politics, science, philosophy, and literature? It is possible to get answers to such questions today only if historical sources containing the necessary information have been preserved: diaries, letters, articles or memoirs of an artist.

The public activity of Adolf Nurri has not received exhaustive coverage in correspondence and there is still no information about the presence of his diaries and memoirs. But his first biographer, Louis Kishra, was personally acquainted with the artist and in a three-volume biography in 1867 presented quite a lot of valuable documentary evidence: letters, quotes from newspapers and magazines, comments from theater critics, his own observations. All this allows us to form a clear idea of the socio-cultural and religious-philosophical views of Adolphe Nurry, which developed under the influence of the teachings of Henri Saint-Simon and his followers. The purpose of the article is to characterize the singer's attitude to the July Revolution and to identify the influence of sentimonism on his spiritual evolution.  

Adorlf Nurri was born into the family of opera singer, tenor Louis Nurri (1780-1831). Louis Nurry was engaged in the diamond trade, but in 1805 he successfully debuted on the stage of the Paris Op ?ra theater in Gluck's "Armide", and since then singing on stage has become his second profession. Both Louis Nurry's sons were inspired by their father's example and dreamed of an opera career from childhood. Nurri's father objected, considering it the best choice for his sons to continue the family business. However, the artistic atmosphere in their house – the father's communication with opera "stars", rehearsals, premieres, discussions – played a role and determined the theatrical choice of the sons. Adolphe Nurry became the leading tenor of the Paris Op ?ra, his younger brother Auguste (1808-1853) – tenor of the Op ?ra-Comique theater, and then a soloist in the opera companies of The Hague, Antwerp, Amsterdam.

In 1819, Manuel Garcia Sr. (1775-1832), the famous Neapolitan tenor who became famous in Rossini's operas, began performing in Paris ^{[1, pp. 78-99]}. Unbeknownst to his father, Adolf Nurri began taking vocal lessons from Garcia, who often stayed at his colleague's house. His father found out about the training when it was coming to an end, and already in the production of Gluck's opera Iphigenia in Tauris (1821), Louis Nurry gave his son the tenor part of Pylades, and left himself the secondary role of a Scythian. For the next five years, Adolphe performed tenor roles in operas by Gluck, Spontini, Salieri, Boualdier, Izoire and others. In 1826 Louis Nurry left the Op ?ra stage, leaving his son as the first tenor.

In 1825, Gioacchino Rossini's opera The Siege of Corinth, adapted from his Italian opera Mahomet II, was being prepared for production. Rossini, who had moved to Paris a year earlier, not only adapted the opera to the French libretto, but also changed the opera parts according to the capabilities of the performers. In addition, the composer had to engage in vocal retraining of Parisian singers – performers of the main parts.

The young Opera singers were already trained in the traditions of the Italian school, but their singing style was distinguished by special attention to the nuances of recitation, especially in recitatives. This process was mutual: as scrupulously as Rossini sought to take into account in his compositions all the stylistic nuances of the French opera school, so passionately did French singers, including Adolphe Nurri, adopt the best achievements of the Italian bel canto: freedom of sound studies, flexibility, mobility of voice, necessary for the performance of vocal decorations. Having received excellent training from Rossini, Nurri then performed the main tenor roles in all his Parisian operas: "The Siege of Corinth" (Neocles), "Moses and Pharaoh" (Amenophis), "Count Ori" (the title role), "William Tell" (Arnold).

Adolf Nurri's voice was classified as haute-contre: a high tenor, similar in characteristics to the Italian tenore-contraltino ^[2]. Nurri's voice had the same range as Rossini's Italian tenors, and he was also masterfully and imperceptibly able to make transitions from the chest register (voce di petto) to the head register (voce di testa or falsettone). However, the dramatic character of Nurri's characters in Rossini's Paris operas was somewhat different. It was no longer just a gentle lover overcoming various obstacles to reunite with his beloved, but a hero with a difficult fate, not devoid of contradictions, making not only a personal but also a civic choice.

The social and religious conflicts that formed the basis of the French grand opera created favorable ground for the development of the role of the heroic tenor, who is always involved in the element of romantic passions, social struggle and its tragic consequences. If in Rossini's operas there was a dramatic strengthening of the main tenor part, then in the large operas of Aubert, Meyerbeer and Halevi this trend reached a climax. Adolphe Nurri was the creator, the first interpreter of the main roles in all these operas: "The Mute of Portici" (Masaniello), "Robert the Devil" (Robert), "Gustav III" (King Gustav), "The Jew" (Eleazar), "The Huguenots" (Raoul).

Many of the characters played by Adolf Nurri protested against injustice, oppression and violence. Their parts assumed a special vocal style, based not so much on virtuoso singing as on a high, ringing voice, which was given by the head register. Contemporaries noted that the singer had a very beautiful head voice. F. Halevi called him "graceful and sonorous at the same time" ^{[3, p. 153]}, and one Parisian critic compared Nurri's high voice with the voices of castrati: "He muffles the falsetto, in which he goes too far and which gives his voice the imprint of a third gender" ^{[4, p. 29]}. This was also noted by G. Berlioz: "... the high notes of Nurri's head voice have a very feminine sound" ^{[4, p. 29]}.

Having achieved great success in mastering bel canto, Nurri combined Italian virtuoso flexibility and touching cantilena with French declamatory expressiveness, which at that time was an indicator of dramatic depth and truthfulness. He seems to have learned this valuable quality from his father, who studied singing with the exceptionally gifted singer and teacher Pierre-Jean Gard (1762-1823). Gara, in turn, captivated the audience with the ability to combine the acrobatic mobility of Italian vocals with expressive French articulation and "instilled a synthesized Italian-French style in his students" ^{[5, p. 209]}.

Adolf Nurri was not only an outstanding singer, but also a talented actor. "Nurri studied the role deeply and only after comprehending and analyzing it as a whole, he revealed details, clearly defined shadow and light," noted Halevi, who often watched Nurri's performance on stage during rehearsals and performances ^{[3, p. 150]}. Contemporaries often commented on Nurri's inimitable artistic charisma, his passionate pursuit of truthfulness of expression, dedication to the stage and awareness of the sacredness of his social mission.

Among the major figures who had a great influence on the formation of his creative nature, the greatest French dramatic actor and reformer Francois-Joseph Talma (1763-1826) stands out. Talma was a representative of the theatrical classicism that prevailed on French stages during the era of Revolution and Empire. Seeking depth and truthfulness of acting, Talma aspired to classical beauty and clarity in creating an image. In those years, when Adolphe Nurri studied vocals with Garcia, he also took acting lessons from Talma; the famous artist rarely performed on stage at that time, but willingly shared his accumulated experience. Obviously, Talma attracted the young artist not only with his acting skills, but also with his legendary past: during the Great French Revolution, Talma led the Red Squadron movement promoting revolutionary classicism, and in 1791 – the Theater of the Republic (Th tre de la r? publique). During the years of Terror, he became a friend and associate of Bonaparte, and later, during the Consulate and the Empire, his favorite actor.

Nurri belonged to the next generation of French artists. They were disappointed by the results of the Great French Revolution, which led to the power of Napoleon, and then to the restoration of the Old Regime. But the demand for social justice did not fade away in them, and the ideals of the revolution inspired artists, playwrights, writers, and composers. The first biographer of Adolphe Nurri was his contemporary Louis Kishra, who knew him personally and had seen his performances many times. Kishra noted the amazing property of the artist's talent: "Nurri produced the most amazing effects when he expressed love for the motherland, respectful filial love, paternal affection or religious reverence. Sacrifice for the sake of duty, martyrdom and self-sacrifice endowed his talent with supernatural inspiration" ^{[6, p. 358]}.

Nurri was inspired by the July Revolution, which ended absolutism by expelling King Charles X, and established a constitutional monarchy in the person of the "citizen king" Louis Philippe I. The Constitutional Charter of 1830, to which the new king swore, abolished censorship and guaranteed freedom of the press. Nurri not only welcomed, but also participated in revolutionary events. Kishra outlined important details, describing the situation at the Op ?ra theater on July 26, 1830 – on the eve of the July Revolution, when street riots had already begun in Paris: "We talked about state affairs and rehearsed William Tell. The connection seemed unconditional. I attended this rehearsal alone in a dark hall, which from time to time was penetrated by distant rumors. When they reached the famous tercet, where William declares: “Either independence or death!" (Ou l'ind ? pendance ou la mort!), everyone was in awe, and people standing at the back of the stage or behind the scenes – actors, musicians, stagehands, guards–struck by a sudden spark, ran up and repeated Wilhelm's exclamation. Thirty years have passed, and I could not erase from my memory the memories of this lightning shock and the impact of this strange, bizarre recitative, where singing and musical rhythm intertwined with the free outpouring of the word, from which, like a fiery ray from the darkness, such a clear battle cry burst out" ^{[7, p. 79]}.

This episode testifies to the enormous acting talent of Adolf Nurri, and his passionate commitment to the ideals of the revolution. The dream of freedom, equality and happiness for his people gave unprecedented credibility to his performances, infecting the audience with faith in a better future. During the "three glorious days" of July 1830, opera productions were canceled, and on August 4 the theater reopened with the performance of the opera "The Mute of Portici", which was given without the fifth, final act and ended with the victory of the Neapolitan revolutionaries led by Masaniello ^{[8, p. 445]}. Nurri, who played this role, sang "La Parisienne" instead of the finale. It was a new revolutionary anthem based on the words of Casimir Delavigne and the melody of the German military march Ein Schifflein Sah Ich Fahren, adapted to the French text shortly before or during the July Revolution. According to L. Kishr, the melody was adapted by Nurri himself in the spring of 1830 ^{[7, p. 80]}, but many sources also report that the author of the music was D.F.E. Ober. The text of The Parisienne glorified the bravery and steadfastness of the French people in the struggle against slavery and disenfranchisement, and the last verse recalled the great sacrifices made on the altar of freedom.

Over the next few days, Nurri sang "The Parisian Woman" on various stages in Paris. On some days, he visited up to four concert venues, arousing unprecedented public enthusiasm. The most memorable in the hearts of contemporaries and recorded in detail was his performance at the Pantheon in July 1831 on the occasion of the celebration dedicated to the anniversary of the July Revolution. The ceremony was attended by King Louis Philippe with a delegation of honored guests; it was held at a huge gathering of the people, and more than five hundred musicians took part in the performance of revolutionary and patriotic works. Louis Philippe sealed the bronze tables with the names of the victims of the revolution, and all those present honored the fallen fighters with a minute of silence. Nurri performed a cantata with a choir, and then "Parisienne": the choruses were sung by the choir, which was joined by the assembled people.

Six years later, a reporter for the newspaper Le National recalled this speech of Nurri as the greatest emotional experience for those present: "The effect that he had on the entire assembly when he sang the Drums from our brothers' squad cannot be described: men cried, women fainted, the old people were moved to the depths of their souls"^[9].This vivid testimony to Nurri's extraordinary talent, who was able to awaken a lofty patriotic feeling among fellow citizens, is almost indistinguishable from a number of other comments left by eyewitnesses.

"Drums from the band of our brothers" is the first line of the last verse of "Parisienne", which, for understanding the general meaning, it is appropriate to quote in its entirety: "Drums from the band of our brothers, / Roll the funeral signal / And we will cover their triumphal coffin with national laurels. / Oh, the temple of sorrow and glory / Pantheon, keep their memory alive." Today it is difficult to imagine the profound impact of these lines sung in Nurri's sonorous, expressive voice. There were probably many people at the ceremony, whose sons, husbands and brothers died on the July barricades a year ago, and their memory was honored in such a lofty and noble way. The concert ended with the "Marseillaise", which was sung by everyone together with Nurri. "The vaults of the huge building were shaken by thousands of voices united by the same thought. It is impossible to imagine anything more grandiose and exciting. I do not think that music, which serves a great feeling, has ever produced a more striking effect," Kishra noted ^{[7, p. 82]}.

The patriotism and religious feelings that inspired Nurri allowed him to create unforgettable dramatic images of the fiery rebel Masaniello in The Mute of Portici, the gentle son and brave patriot Arnold in William Tell, Robert the Devil devoted to his vicious father, the ardent and pious Raoul in The Huguenots. In each of these roles there were lines consonant with the moral and ethical values of Nurri himself. Performing them, the artist felt his identity, as if he was not playing a role, but expressing his own passion when the stage situation corresponded to it. It was this amazing ability of Nurri that his biographer emphasized: "This voice, so soft and gentle, acquired extraordinary strength when the situation required energy. Then he vibrated, rang, rumbled without muffled notes; nothing was forbidden to him that could always express the exact intention of the singer" ^{[6, p. 279]}.

It can be assumed that Nurri's deep awareness of his social mission as an artist was influenced by Talma. But no less important was the influence of sentimonism, the ideas of which Nurri absorbed, in all probability, from Eduard Charton and Emile Barrault, moderate sentimonists who advocated strengthening the moral role of art.

The current of sentimonism was a kind of social utopianism and developed in the second half of the 1820s, after the death of its founder Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), when his students O. Rodrigue, B.-P. Anfantin, S.-A. Bazar publicly recorded the basic doctrines of the doctrine.  Adolf Nurri, along with Liszt and Berlioz, joined this trend after the July Revolution of 1830, when the sentimonists made the greatest propaganda efforts to involve famous personalities.

It is difficult to determine the exact date of Nurri's first contact with the sensitisers. However, Prosper Enfantin's correspondence includes one letter to the writer and engineer Henri Fournel, dated October 26, 1830. It says that musicians have shown interest in the community of sentimonists: "Our ladies have not yet managed to recruit many recruits, but since there are about two hundred of them at our sermons and everyone is interested in us, we should soon get good results. Several artists are joining us: Liszt, Berlioz, Nurri" ^{[10, p. 49]}.

Evidence of Nurri's sentimonistic sympathies is the fact that Nurri had a share in the newspaper Le Globe, which was run by the philosopher and economist Pierre Leroux (also fascinated by Saint-Simon's ideas in the early 1830s). Since 1831, the newspaper has become the official organ of the Sentimonists, although Leroux and Nurry had to sell their shares to them.  In addition, at the beginning of 1832, Adolphe Nurry purchased 300 francs worth of bonds from the society of Sentimonists in order to support the development of ideas that impressed him.

The most important idea for him was that he, as an artist, was entrusted with a spiritual, educational and educational mission. In his statements and letters, he often expressed dissatisfaction with the social and economic structure of France, the loss of religious faith, and most importantly, the desire of the theater to be entertainment for the "rich and idle." In one of his letters, he passionately condemned the entertainment theater, indulging "Your yellow-gloved beauties ... your aristocrats of the Stock Exchange" ^{[11, p. 79-80]}.

Performing dramatically complex roles in the great operas of Rossini, Aubert, Halevi and Meyerbeer, Nurri considered them not only as works of art, but also a political manifesto capable of inspiring the audience with ideas of goodness and justice. Studying Nurri's letters to friends, we see that he strongly condemned klaka, the practice of hiring spectators who applauded to support the artists at the first performances of the opera. Nurri was also outraged by the custom of stopping dramatic action during a performance in order to repeat an aria that the audience liked ^{[11, p. 78]}. If now Nurri's outrage seems natural and reasonable, then in the 1830s such statements looked extremely bold.

But his arguments about the moral power of the artist over the public seem especially bold and passionate, and in recent years they have appeared more and more often in his letters. He was connected by friendly relations and fascinating correspondence with one of the most successful preachers of sentimonism in the early 1830s, Edward Charton (1807-1890).  In response to Charton's article in the newspaper Le Temp, Nurry wrote to him in February 1836: "Your words... they express so well what I deeply feel; I think I'm almost alone in this understanding. Yes, the theater can and should be something other than a place of entertainment for idlers. Since the impact of an actor is often very strong, it should be beneficial. To awaken noble impulses, to exalt the gift of love – that is our mission! May God help us by giving the support of people of good will!" ^{[12, p. 14-15]}. Such letters from Nurri show that in the teachings of sentimonism he sought support and some guidance for practical actions.

In the spring of 1837, he left the stage of the Paris Opera after the theater hired the young tenor Gilbert Dupree (1806-1896), who had recently become famous for his new style of singing with a "sombr?e" voice ^{[13, p. 52]}. Freed from constant work, Nurri began trying to put his missionary aspirations into practice. He went on tour to the south of France, giving concerts in Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. On August 3, 1837, in Lyon, Nurry, along with Liszt, performed at a charity concert that raised six thousand francs for the benefit of the unemployed ^[14].

By this time, the singer had finally mastered the sentimonistic idea that an actor, like a priest of ancient cults, could turn the theater into a new church for the masses. This idea has been repeatedly expressed in their articles and essays by Emile Barraud and Prosper Anfantin. Under their influence, Nurri nurtured the dream of creating a folk theater, accessible not only to rich and idle spectators "in yellow gloves", but for people of all classes, a theater that inspires artists and performs a moral function for the public.

In 1864, decades after Nurri's death, a fragment of an earlier unpublished letter was published in the Parisian magazine L'Amateur d'autographes, in which Nurri, addressing the playwright and librettist Theodore Anne, outlined his understanding of the role of theater in society: "In this ability [of the theater – Sh.V.] to spontaneously excite thousands of people, there is a lever that we could use to spread useful and beneficial ideas. <...> Do not treat my hopes as a chimera: what I want is probably not difficult to achieve: this is art for the people and created by the people, this is an inexpensive theater, this is a gymnasium in which young artists will be formed in front of a new audience, not biased in matters of art, an audience that can be improved and enlightened, while entertaining. We must offer the society spiritual food, different from the one we poison them with every evening. I repeat to you: art is for the people, but art is beneficial, making love a religious art. It is through the theater that people must pass today to come to church."^[15]

The letter to T. Anna was written by A. Nurri in July 1837, three months after the singer left the Paris stage. At this time, the singer's voice, apparently, was undergoing a natural restructuring for his age and broke down several times during performances. After hearing the singing of his Parisian rival Gilbert Dupree, Nurri decided to go to Italy for retraining. But this did not give the desired result, and the artist's self-esteem was thoroughly shaken. On March 7, 1839, Nurri, no longer believing in the return of his voice, committed suicide by throwing himself out of the window of his villa in Naples.

Shortly after the death of Adolphe Nurri, an article was published in the Courrier de Lyon newspaper, which again described his project of a folk theater. The article said that Nurri was going to make it popular in the truest sense of the word: the theater should be built for the people and with donations collected by the people. "Tragedy, drama, comedy and music will be supported by all the splendor of the art of scenography and the best staging technique," the publication said ^{[11, p. 82-83]}. It was also discussed that there should be a school at the theater, the purpose of which was to train "huge choral masses and numerous artists" necessary for the theater ^{[11, p. 83]}.

This project had supporters: artists, playwrights and musicians inspired by Nurri's humane goals. For example, the program publications of the sentimonists were monitored by F. Liszt's lover Marie d'agou, who expressed admiration for Nurri's ideas and hope that Liszt would implement his own similar project. But after the artist's death, his project was no longer seriously discussed, and by that time the movement of the sentimonists had ceased to be a kind of religious sect. Contemporaries who knew Nurri well, if they recalled his plans, they spoke of them as naive fantasies. For example, Berlioz wrote in a letter to his father about the "humane dreams of poor Adolf" ^{[16, p. 555]}. Nurri was buried in Naples, but exhumed a month later and transported to Paris for reburial. His body was taken through Marseille and Lyon, where funeral ceremonies were held, which gathered thousands of fans who sincerely grieved, remembering the "humane dreams" and practical help provided by Nurri to ordinary people.

Indeed, Nurri's project to create a popular theater seemed to many to be an impossible dream. But he was, perhaps, the only intention to implement the ideas of the sentimonists in reality. Nurri was probably well acquainted with the appeal of the sentimonist Emile Barraud "To the Artists" – a pamphlet published in March 1830 ^[17]. Barro's other work, "The Sermon of May 1: Art" (Pr?dication du 1er mai: L'art), repeated the main ideas about the role of art and the artist in society, but through the prism of the changes brought by the July Revolution.  The "Sermon" marked the most important stage in the development of the sentimonistic ideal, which consists in the synthesis of matter and spirit, religious and social. Addressing the artists, the creators, Barro proclaimed a new era: "We come not to bury and immure all glorious contemporaries under the first stone of our monument, but to clarify, forgive their sins and open to them a more versatile and majestic theater; because, finally, thanks to your own efforts, everything is ready so that you can preach in thousands of different forms a new religious word that promises the most numerous and underprivileged class for their sweat and blood and the privileged classes as a reward for their achievements, a better future that meets the needs of all people" ^{[18, p. 495]}.

Such appeals found a deep response in the heart of Nurri, who sincerely wanted to create a "more versatile and majestic theater" for everyone, but mainly for the "most numerous and underprivileged class." It is not difficult to discern the identity not only of the ideas, but also of the formulations that Barro and other sentimonists declared on the one hand and Nurri in their letters on the other. Undoubtedly, the singer had great authority among the artistic workshop and the working class, but bourgeois society remained indifferent to his ideas, as it did not see practical reasons and ways to implement them. In addition, Nurri's enlightened contemporaries were frightened or repelled by the religious coloring of such projects. The social doctrine of sentimonism, which asserts that art should be accessible to the masses, was later realized in the establishment of municipal music schools, the opening of choral societies and state–funded musical and theatrical institutions - music schools, conservatories, opera houses and theater studios. All these forms of education and enlightenment through art exist to this day, and the absence of a religious component does not prevent them from performing their main socio-moral function.

A study of the socio-cultural views and religious and moral aspirations of Adolf Nurri showed that their maturation began in the late 1820s. As the first tenor of the Paris Op ?ra theatre, he performed the main tenor roles in Aubert's operas The Mute of Portici (1828) and Rossini's William Tell (1829). In the first case, his hero Masaniello was a revolutionary who rebelled against the Spanish conquerors, in the second – the Swiss Arnold, who joined the struggle of his people against the Austrian invaders, despite a profitable marriage to the daughter of the Austrian governor. It is known from the comments of eyewitnesses that the artist articulated in these characters a sense of patriotism and indomitable fortitude in the struggle for freedom and national independence. This interpretation reflected not only the revolutionary mood of Nurri, but also many representatives of the artistic elite of France.

The July Revolution was a decisive impetus in Nurri's interest in the teachings of sentimonism. The revolutionary events breathed hope for justice into the hearts of people, and Nurri passionately strengthened it by actively participating in patriotic concerts and ceremonies. His enormous acting talent and high, clear, sonorous voice produced the deepest emotional impact on the audience – both on the opera stage and on concert venues. Having started attending meetings of sentimonists in 1830, Nurri became interested in the idea of the sacred mission of the artist and the theater in the religious education of society. It was found out that he was familiar with the doctrine of sentimonism from the writings of Emile Barraud and Edward Charton. He was familiar with some adherents of this doctrine, communicated with them, and corresponded with them. Although the project of the "people's" theater was not implemented during Nurri's lifetime, his ideas later received their practical implementation in France and other European countries. All this characterizes Adolf Nurri as an astute artist and thinker who saw distant prospects in certain ideas of social utopianism.