Presenting the new Moscow Art Theater Prize, Khabensky switched to Aesopian language

Contemporary art was cheated – the choice of Tsereteli did not inspire the jury

At the Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov was awarded the Art Theater Prize for the first time. It was conceived to support talented youth under 35 not only in the field of theater, but also in other areas of art. The laureates were awarded a reduced copy of the high relief “Swimmer” by the Silver Age sculptor Anna Golubkina, because it is so important for young people to swim, and preferably in different styles, as Konstantin Khabensky, artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater, noted. Not everyone got the award – the whole nomination “Contemporary Art” failed.

The noisy metropolitan beau monde gathered. Tatyana Golikova spoke on behalf of the government, calling on cultural figures to instill in young people loyalty and devotion to the country. In the hall were Vladimir Tolstoy with his daughter, Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova, Mikhail Shvydkoy and Karen Shakhnazarov. Writer Alexander Tsypkin took care of Svetlana Khodchenkova. Fedor Bondarchuk had to kiss the entire stalls. Not that he was striving for this – everyone was striving for him. For once, film directors of different generations came together – Vladimir Khotinenko, Yuri Bykov, Pyotr Buslov, Ivan Tverdovsky, many elegant actresses – Yulia Khlynina, Ekaterina Shpitsa; as always no frills – Anna Mikhalkova.

The artistic director of the new award, Konstantin Khabensky, spoke from the stage in Aesopian language, entered the image of a man who lived without noticing boundaries, and then ended up in a dark corner. He became scared, and the fear in his head is the very boundaries. Some vicious circle. The man sitting on the chair thought about where to direct himself. what to spend your life on. He was hopeless. And the young ones can still swim.

The first laureate was Patriarch Stanislav Lyubshin, who was awarded in the nomination “No Comments”. In the future, they will also begin to reward those who do not need to be introduced and additional comments – not only cultural figures, but also sports and science – a variety of fields. On the eve of his 90th birthday, Lyubshin was cheerful and witty, he is in perfect shape, rehearsing, and will give odds to some young people. No other representative of the Moscow Art Theater was presented in the nominations.

The lists of nominees were formed by experts from various fields of art. For example, film critic Ivan Kudryavtsev is in the field of cinema. If anything, all claims against him are for a sometimes controversial choice. In the affected area of ​​contemporary art, Vasily Tsereteli was the main expert. The jury considered that there are no names that mark some defining and turning point, and decided not to award the prize. As if he was in a number of other categories. In general, a round dance of teapots and mugs, goats in shirts, the entire “Day of the Utopian” from the gallery “Anvil”, the exhibition “Dry Nettle”, the exposition “How to catch a moth?” the Nabokov Museum did not inspire the strict Areopagus. They didn’t reach a consensus. How else can you explain everything. Weakness of the claimed works? Then all the questions to the experts who formed the “waiting list”. If the nominees were mature people, it would be another matter. And then for the first time they put forward the young and promising, and that’s bad luck. So you can hurt for the rest of your life. Or, on the contrary, harden. In general, the sediment remained. But it is good that the organizers of the award did not put pressure on the jury, did not force them to come to their senses and not spoil the holiday. All this conflict made the ceremony alive, and not glamorous and indicative.

Surprisingly, each of the film nominees presented the film with an indication of the platform on which it can be viewed, as if the movie was intended exclusively for home viewing. This is some kind of discrediting of screen art. As a result, the talented young actress Elizaveta Ishchenko, who played the main role in the series “Alice Can’t Wait” by Natalia Meshchaninova, won. Anna Mikhalkova, who played her mother, came to support the debutante. The award was presented by the director and jury member Fyodor Bondarchuk, who remembered his loved ones on the legendary stage – mother Irina Skobtseva, untimely departed sister Alena Bondarchuk. They are graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School, as was the wife and actress of the Moscow Art Theater, Paulina Andreeva, who was sitting in the gallery.

Another graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio Anastasia Belova, who played Larisa Ogudalova in “Dowry” at the Theater named after M.V. Moscow City Council. Mezzo-soprano Natalia Lyaskova won at the Opera, performing the role of Judit in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre. In “Ballet” the best was Elizaveta Kokareva – Sylphide in the Bolshoi Ballet of the same name. In the Classical Music category, harpist Sofya Kipskaya, who was absent due to a tour, was noted. In the literary nomination, a girl was also in the lead – the author of the novel “Protagonist” Asya Volodina. Only one young man became a laureate of the new award – Roman Zhaurov, who presented a composition for five performers, metal objects and electronics, and the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble in the Contemporary Academic Music category.

During the ceremony, masters appeared on the screen, giving parting words to the young. The writer Leonid Yuzefovich said that where violence begins, literature stops, and it is important to see a person from the side not of strength, but of weakness, which truly unites people. Choreographer Mikhail Lavrovsky remembered falling in love with a ballerina who left him, and he danced poorly in Milan. This should not be, because the main thing is the stage. You can limp before it, but you need to go out on the stage only on takeoff, leaving all your sorrows behind. And the viewer should be inspired after the performance, not crushed. Marina Neelova viewed success as a journey through a series of failures, urging young people to be bold and fearless, sometimes selfish, to squeeze everything out of the director without a trace. And this is perhaps the most valuable and meaningful part of the award ceremony, its tuning fork, which puts everything in its place.