Music and Time Annotation << Back Opera «Birds»by V. Braunfels.To the Problemof Interpretationof the Ancient Plot A.A. Melnikova The article is dedicated to the opera «Birds» by the German composer of the first half of the 20th century Walter Braunfels. It was written in 1920 and had a huge success with the German post-war public on a par with the operas of F. Shreker and R. Strauss. Later, Braunfels` opera was forgotten for many years, and interest in it began to revive only at the end of the last century. One of the leading trends in the musical theater of the first quarter of the 20th century is reflected in «Birds» – an appeal to the theme of antiquity. But unlike such works of other authors, this opera is written on the plot of the ancient-attic comedy («Birds» by Aristophanes), what in the history of the development of the genre is the rarest case. The influence of baroque, classicism and late romanticism is noted in music. Keywords: Walter Braunfels, Aristophanes, antique plot, «Birds», repressed music. Contacts: E-mail: Linkastar58@gmail.com Pp. 43-58.