THE CONCERT OVERTURE BY F. MENDELSSOHN "THE TALE OF THE LOVELY MELUSINE" IN THE CONTEXT OF MUSICAL IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE PLOT ABOUT MERMAIDS IN THE ROMANTIC EPOCH
One of the favorite themes in the culture of the 19<sup>th</sup> century is a plot about a sea maiden. This theme is realized in the various kinds of art. A lot of operas, chamber-vocal works, poetry, ballads, stories and novels by different authors are created in the romantic epoch. The great popularity of this theme determines the ways of realization the image of sea maiden. Also it shapes many special expressive means, which help composers, writers and poets embody these images in the art. The article is devoted to the consideration of the archetypical image of the mermaid and the mythologeme of water in the Concert Overture by Felix Mendelssohn “The Tale of the Lovely Melusine”. The attention is paid to a lot of different aspects: the dramaturgy, orchestral and melodic features, general compositional principles and intertextual relations between the Overture and other musical works about the mermaid theme. It is very important to emphasize particularly the ambivalence of the image of the sea maiden. This fact makes different composers to turn to similar ways of the embodiment of the image in their musical works of various genres, which are dedicated to the mermaid theme. It should be noted the independence of different authors from each other and, at the same time, very impressively similar results. The musical characteristics of Melusine and the mythologem of water created by Mendelssohn are correlated with the context of other implementations of these images in the musical art. This fact allows to make a conclusion that intertextual relations between different musical works are conditioned by archetypical image of the sea maiden.