“As an artistic director, I come into conflict with Miroshnichenko the choreographer” – Kommersant

Today at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, which last season lost first its general director and then its creative bosses, the head of the ballet troupe officially took office Alexey Miroshnichenko. Having voluntarily retired three years ago, he told Tatyana Kuznetsova about what made him leave and return, about the Perm ballet life and plans for the next season.

– Three years ago you left the Perm theater of your own free will. Why?

– For many reasons – personal, family, creative. I spent 80% of my time managing the troupe: rehearsals, personnel, repertoire, inputs, salaries, you get up at seven in the morning, go to bed at midnight. At some point, I realized that I only listen to music that I now put on, that I don’t remember the last time I read it, but I’m an avid book reader. It must have been a burnout. But, having decided to leave, I took care of the troupe: I made a plan for the coming season, found a successor – a successful one, as it seemed. I was not going to break off relations with the theater. And then the pandemic happened, the plans collapsed – in general, everything did not go as planned …

– That is, before you left, you had no disagreements with the theater management?

– No, just at that moment the theater switched to the director’s management model. I consider it the best for musical, non-author’s theatre. The director must maintain a balance between creative teams, not allow artistic directors to pull the blanket over themselves, take responsibility for decisions – both financial and artistic. Well, as in the Bolshoi Theater. And then our director Andrey Alexandrovich Borisov understood this very well. But he left for the Stanislavsky Musical Theater in Moscow shortly after me. And the ballet in Perm became a stepson. Sometimes only four performances were given in a month. They said: “We will give you Nutcrackers later.” Well, how is it? There was a case at the Mariinsky Theater when the part of Aurora was taken away from the ballerina Terekhova and they said: “Don’t worry, we’ll play the Blue Birds for you (pas de deux in the third act of The Sleeping Beauty.— “b”) will give. She answered: “Maybe you will give more Red Riding Hoods?” And in Perm there was no one to answer: the ballet lost its voice at artistic colleges, the artists began to leave the troupe, my performances were written off along with the scenery and costumes – this is how the three-act Blue Bird, the program of Stravinsky’s Diaghilev ballets disappeared, and this is in the city of Diaghilev. They almost wrote off Cinderella, at the last moment they saved it. And now we will resume it in the second half of the season.

– Why did you decide to return? Have a rest?

“Actually, I’ve been called before. But he decided after negotiations with the new CEO Anna Volk.

– Why did she seduce you?

– First, understanding the general situation. Secondly, the speed of decision making. Competence. Decisiveness. The ability to listen and hear. Can this be taken as flattery?

– Well, it seems. And what are the priorities?

“Oh… it’s a vicious circle here.

We have a large shortage of artists. To attract them, you need to earn. To earn money, you need to dance more. In order for the audience to buy tickets, a diverse repertoire is needed. And it has narrowed down a lot – licenses for Western ballets are not renewed.

All of Balanchine has disappeared from us, but once there was such a phenomenon – “Permian Balanchine”, Perm was one of the first to dance it in Russia, for all the years we have had 13 of his ballets. Jerome Robbins is gone. The license for Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet will end in October. The program “Winter Dreams” and “Second Detail” by Forsythe with “The Wedding” by Kilian remained – the license expires in 2025. We need to put on new performances. And here, as an artistic director, I come into conflict with Miroshnichenko the choreographer. The artistic director needs to rehearse the current repertoire, put on the poster “Corsair”, “Don Quixote” and other box office ballets. And the choreographer needs to compose and release Tishchenko’s Yaroslavna, a three-act ballet, in December. If I were a guest choreographer, I would have already yelled at every corner that this is a disgrace, that it is impossible to meet such a deadline. And the artistic director needs this premiere at any cost. At the same time, Yaroslavna is a male ballet. And I have 21 people in the men’s corps de ballet. And only one prime minister.

– And how to be?

– I’m scratching my head. Look here: strife. This is Igor, Vsevolod, Vladimir on the one hand and two princes, Mstislav Vladimirovich Trepolsky and Davyd Rostislavich Smolensky, on the other, and also the peacemaker Svyatoslav. Do they need friends? At least three people? And then where to get the Polovtsy?

“Change the women’s clothes?”

– In the 1970s, it was fashionable to make a female army on pointe shoes – like a symbol of foreignness. So it was with Oleg Vinogradov in his legendary “Yaroslavna”. Alas, not a frame of her has been preserved; they say that the films were destroyed when Yuri Lyubimov went abroad, he was also the director of Yaroslavna. My teacher Igor Belsky put mice in The Nutcracker on pointe shoes. And I’m not up to symbolism – a production necessity. But in my “Yaroslavna” there will be no women on pointe shoes. On pointe shoes there will be only Death.

“Yaroslavna” Tishchenko is a very serious score. Who will be the conductor?

– Artem Abashev, I have been doing performances with him for many years. He worked in Perm, but was forced to leave. I am very glad that he caught fire with this project, despite being busy at the Bolshoi, in Yekaterinburg, and in other theaters.

— Is there a chief conductor in Perm now? Or a music director?

– Not yet. These can be different positions, maybe one – the CEO decides. In fact, the system of chief specialists is gradually leaving.

– Is it? It is hard to imagine that, say, Teodor Currentzis would agree to work in Perm not as the main one – as a music director or conductor, whatever you call it.

– Yes, Currentzis was a king and a god in the theater. But in comparison with the recent past under him, despite the obvious tilt towards opera, ballet in Perm simply flourished. And after him there was no such figure, but the operatic dominance remained. As a result, five ballets a month. As Chernomyrdin said, no matter what political organization we try to create, we always succeed in the CPSU. I know one thing: the general director needs to find a middle ground between opera and ballet. And then everything will be fine in the theater.