Source: “The Bolshoi Theater is in a completely terrible state”

Against the backdrop of news about dramatic changes awaiting the Bolshoi Theater, Moskovsky Komsomolets turned to a person who knows the situation, as they say, from the inside. Our interlocutor asked not to reveal his name, but spoke about the crisis state of Russia’s leading theater, talking in detail about how and why BT lost its original repertoire and turned into an “empty box.”

Welcoming the new proposed leadership in the person of the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater, the speaker, however, expressed confidence that Valery Gergiev will not directly manage the Bolshoi Theater, but will appoint his representative in Moscow.

– What awaits the Bolshoi Theater in connection with a possible “merger” with the Mariinsky Theater? What forecast can you give?

– I don’t want to make predictions, I’m not Vanga. But this has been discussed for several years. The Bolshoi Theater is in a completely terrible state, there is practically only one box left, there is no theater as such.

As a person who has been familiar with BT for decades, I can say with complete confidence that absolutely everything was destroyed. The country’s main opera house has existed for several years without a musical director or chief conductor – this has never happened in history.

In this regard, measures should have been taken a long time ago and, thank God, it happened – however, we will wait until this formally happens (when the decision on the “merger” is officially made public. – I.V.).

– In your opinion, will Valery Gergiev cope with the tasks of an “anti-crisis manager”?

– Gergiev is a very powerful personality; today it is impossible to find anyone equal to him in Russia. The question is different – I’m not very sure that he has enough strength to manage so many theaters. He has the Mariinsky Theater with three stages, branches in Vladivostok and Vladikavkaz, and now also such a colossus as the Bolshoi Theater. Physically, even a young man, and he is seventy years old, cannot do this.

I think he will be listed as the director nominally, so that some big name will head the theater. But, probably, in agreement with the authorities, or he will appoint a “vicar” himself (maybe this word is not very suitable).

– Is manager a better definition?

– In general, a person performing a function on site. And I hope that with the help of Valery Abisalovich they will find an artistic director-musician here. Because in the world of conductors, Gergiev has weight and he has many of his own students. (Unlike the Bolshoi Theater, the Mariinsky has a team of conductors for both opera and ballet).

Secondly, I think that the repertoire crisis will be overcome. The people who ran the Bolshoi Theater liquidated the entire repertoire – there are three titles in total. If there is anything else in the ballet, then there is practically no opera – they have nothing to stage.

– What caused the repertoire deficit?

– It even got to the point that they gave a reading concert on the New Stage. Kryuchkova is a wonderful actress, but she read Tchaikovsky’s correspondence with von Meck, and Igor Golovatenko sang romances. Such a concert is possible, but not on the key stage of the country.

And the reason for this is the lack of productions. Somewhere the licenses for the scenery ran out, as was the case with Sleeping Beauty, and no one was working on it.

The problem is that Vladimir Urin is not a musical person, he, of course, directed the Stanislavsky Theater, but these are planets of completely different scales, the Bolshoi Theater is practically a city within a city. The opera, by the way, is directed by Lyudmila Talikova, brought from France, I am convinced that she is incompetent – the vocalists and the orchestra laugh at her.

Plus, not a single opera production is complete without invited soloists – there are absolutely none of our own, even a joke was born: “Soon they will invite someone from the outside to play the Nanny from Eugene Onegin.”

Unfortunately, none of the successful premieres was the work of the Bolshoi Theater. All these were so-called cooperations – with the New York Metropolitan Opera, with someone else. That is, what passed there was taken here, bought for a certain period of time and produced in Russia. But there was no own production!

– You think that the Bolshoi Theater is in crisis. If so, how many years has the crisis lasted?

– The crisis began – this is my personal opinion – when Levantal, Grigorovich and Lazarev were removed under Yeltsin, and instead the theater was headed by Vladimir Vasiliev (he was the artistic director, and the director under him was the late Vladimir Kokonin). Even then, the slow decline of the Bolshoi Theater began. And then Vasiliev was replaced by a man from St. Petersburg, Anatoly Iksanov, he was an excellent director of the Bolshoi Drama Theater at one time, but he did not understand the difference between the operas “Tosca” and “La Bohème.” Then Iksanov was removed – and then everything went downhill.

According to MK, one of the first people Gergiev will rely on when managing the Bolshoi Theater may be Nikolai Tsiskaridze, but this information has not yet been confirmed.