Music and Time Annotation << Back Light Opera – a new genre of musical theater XXI N.I. Ilyicheva The article is devoted to the issues of modern Russian Opera as one of the genres of academic musical theater. The Opera with its traditional forms, which form the essential basis of the genre, has long lost its audience. Both composers and Directors of Opera houses around the world are trying to change the situation in their own way. One of the directions of modernization of classical Opera is the creation of mixed performances, whose dramatic principles can change the internal formative foundations of traditional Opera, as well as the formation of the actual for the modern listener melodic-intonation language of musical performance. From this point of view, the article analyzes the light Opera by A. Pantykin. Chichikov. Souls.» Literary basis of light Opera-poem N. In. Gogol's "Dead souls" – transformed by composer and screenwriter K. Rubinsky in an ostrodetektivnuyu history, in which the plot poem read through the prism of Comedy N. In. Gogol's Players. In addition, in the play there are actors from other works of the writer, and in the composition of the Opera of particular importance is the opposition of a group of negative characters to the mysterious positive hero of the poem. Light Opera is presented by the authors as a new stage in the development of classical Opera, combining rock music, traditional genres of classical Opera, as well as various techniques of modern musical and dramatic performances. Keywords: light Opera, genre mix, musical performance "Gogol. Chichikov. Of the soul", the melodic Plast, pop music, traditional genres of classic Opera. Contacts: E-mail: Stella_Natali@bk.ru Pp. 25-28.