The main demon of the Russian musical Ivan Ozhogin turned out to be a family man and an introvert

– It is insanely interesting to reveal his inconsistency, riddles, the logic of his behavior. Why did he become what we know him to be? What made him like this? In the performance, the image is looped: the plot begins with the moment Peter leaves this world and ends with the same. But he, constantly looking back into the past, remembers that the world is red, where everything is saturated with cruelty and violence. And he will have to move on in just such a world, creating an empire, also mixed with blood.

– Your heroes are always courageous, convinced that they are right, they go ahead, against the wind, as Peter says. Do you also have this?

– I tend to doubt all the time and ask myself, am I doing the right thing? But my characters also ask questions. Peter turns to God. And Woland talks with God on an equal footing. This is not a frantic prayer, but a conversation. Peter is a believer. We all believe differently. For some, faith is going to church, standing at the liturgy. It is enough for someone to come in and light a candle. And for some it’s more difficult. Religion and faith are different things. The longer I live, the more I am convinced of this.

– You were born in Ulyanovsk, you constantly run between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Where is your home?

– I finally settled in St. Petersburg. In September it will be 10 years since I moved. And although I do not have a residence permit in St. Petersburg, with every cell I feel absolutely in my place. From the first year of work here, I felt that this was my city. When I moved here, a portal opened up for me.

– And what about Moscow?

– Moscow oppressed me, now it is less, but nevertheless … Traffic jams, wide avenues, a huge number of people, cars, distances are large. St. Petersburg is cozy, comfortable, and although I don’t really like this comparison – but where to go, if it is – a European city. I live in the region, on the banks of the Neva, exactly 50 m from the house to the water’s edge.

When did you realize that you had a voice?

– I don’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. All the time he played music, listened, tried to imitate. The older brother studied music, sang in the choir. Then he began to take me with him – I was a year and a half. Mom and dad worked, I was constantly with my brother. At the age of 2.5 I already had a membership book of the All-Russian Choral Society, I began to learn to sing in the boys’ choir at the Ulyanovsk Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren.

Do you remember your repertoire?

– But how! I remember very well! We sang the anthem of the Suvorovites, in which there was the phrase “we will not shame our school.” The head of the choir, Alexander Vasilyevich Zheleznyakov, now alive, miraculously connected with me now through his daughter, costume designer Elena Zheleznyakova, asked: “Who knows what “we will not shame”? Everyone was silent, I alone raised my hand and said that it means “we will not crap one’s pants.” The answer has been accepted. As a schoolboy, I began to stand out from the choir, and for the pure timbre, intonation and sonorous voice, they began to put me as a soloist. Y. Chichkov, V. Shainsky, M. Partskhaladze sang, many choral works. Once the school choir performed at the Trade Unions Palace of Culture in Ulyanovsk, I was supposed to be the soloist, but I did not come there, but to the Lenin Memorial Center, where my dad worked. It was a day off, I spent five hours at the checkpoint, and the whole city was looking for me – they connected firefighters, the police, an ambulance, they called all the morgues …

– And when your voice began to break, was there a fear that your voice would not return?

– When my voice began to break, I had just a big break, maybe that saved me. I went to another school and could no longer attend music. No matter what he did. And most of all – an artistic word with an excellent teacher Natalya Vladimirovna Ganshina. Thanks to her, I still remember and can recite prose and poetry by heart.

– At GITIS, you studied on the course of director Alexander Titel and artist Igor Yasulovich. What do you think, is a singer who graduated from the musical theater department of GITIS an artist or a musician?

– Our Masters have always told us: “You must be artists of the synthetic genre, be able to do everything – develop your weaknesses and pump your strengths. In any case, an artist who can dance, play and sing will be more in demand than any narrowly specialized specialist. Somewhere they were cunning, because in the opera everything is different. As for the vocal teacher, this is really a significant figure for me and not only for me. Margarita Iosifovna Landa brought up a large number of opera stars who are now singing all over the world. Among her students are also Sergei Zakharov, Philip Kirkorov … Before GITIS, I studied with her for a year at Gnesinka – during this time she gave me the professional skills that I still use and which allow me to feel more confident than other performers.

– You also worked in the opera – everyone remembers your shocking appearance as Felix Yusupov in the production of the opera Rasputin in Helikon.

– A difficult period happened in my life when the musical left it: I did not pass the casting for the role in Beauty and the Beast. Then he lived in Dzerzhinsky, near Moscow, and on a walk he met the abbot of the monastery. So I got into the festive choir of the Nikolo-Ugreshsky monastery, and later gradually gathered professional singers there. At the same time, “Helikon-Opera” appeared in my life. I came to the audition, sang something from the classical tenor repertoire, and Dmitry Bertman approved me for the role of Yusupov.

– And how do you like this music?

– Terrible music, terribly beautiful, let’s call it that. Because at first you don’t understand anything – what is happening, how, what it sounds like, from which note to build a melody. And after a while you begin to hear quite a beautiful harmony. At the age of 16-17, I was fond of jazz, which helped me to hear jazz melodies, arrhythmia and atonality in this complex American music of Jay Reese. Fortunately, my ear for music allowed me to learn this part and perform quite successfully in it.

– In the role of Yusupov, you dress up as a woman, sing with a female timbre and play a gay person. And this is quite unexpected for your role.

– It is always very interesting for an actor to try sharply characteristic things, especially since you cannot erase words from the history. A well-known fact is that Felix Yusupov dressed in a woman’s dress and performed in a night cabaret. This is a tragicomedy, a tragic farce. There is no vulgarity here – this is art.

– Wouldn’t you like to go on the opera stage again – without a microphone, with all your nature and vocal skills?

– To enter the opera stage, you need to discard everything and deal only with operatic vocals, learn the parts and build the right academic sound throughout the entire range. But, to be honest, in the musical genre there are much more interesting projects and work with good directors.

– You graduated from GITIS in 2002 – it was in Russia that a world-class musical appeared. Was it something new for you?

– Somewhere in the 3rd year, Igor Nikolaevich Yasulovich gave us a master class with a Broadway artist. During our studies, we staged graduation performances in the musical genre. We had an excellent dance teacher – Marina Suvorova, for the sake of which I went to GITIS, and not to the conservatory, where they also took me. So we joined the musical culture. But with vocals while studying at GITIS, something strange happened to me. I almost stopped singing. I passed my final exams with difficulty. Now this is even hard to believe. I ran to various teachers, including famous singers, but nothing worked. At the same time, he sang very successfully in the ensemble class with Tatyana Bashkirova. Maybe there were some psychological reasons for this, I don’t know … But after GITIS I went through a casting for the role of Romashov in Nord-Ost, and then in Chicago – for the role of Mary Sunshine, where a counter-tenor was needed . I studied with an excellent musical director Tatyana Solnyshkina and made my debut in Chicago successfully.

– Among your most successful roles in musicals are solid demonic figures: Count von Krolock in Vampire Ball, Jekyll and Hyde, Woland in The Master and Margarita, Don Juan, the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, the Wizard in The Ordinary Miracle and so on … Just a solid charm of evil …

– The covenant of the masters helps me: if you play bad, look for what he is good at. This helped me to do the role of Romashov, because the blind love for Katya makes him dodge to get her by any means. It is passion and envy that leads him to terrible deeds. All people like Jekyll and Hyde. Everyone has both good and evil. When it is more profitable for a person to “turn on” evil, he will turn it on and do what he needs – he will achieve his goal. And when a person wants to be good, he will be good. We change, we try to maneuver, sliding along this blade.

– When you were invited to play Krolock in Berlin, it was certainly a sensation, which is still unprecedented. Is this the pinnacle of your ambitions?

– At that moment it was really the top. The very fact to go on stage in the homeland of the musical “Dance of the Vampires”, in Berlin, in this absolutely cult role and play in German, having learned it in just 2 weeks – yes, it was top.

– How about two weeks?

– I never learned German. I learned the game with a coach, having already arrived in Germany. It was necessary not just to learn, but to know thoroughly, to understand the nuances, to sing “alive”. The rehearsals were in English, Mercedes Champai, the performer of the role of Sarah, helped me. She speaks Russian, her mother, opera singer Natalia Usmanova, once also studied with Margarita Landa. These are such interesting twists of fate. It was very interesting to work. Everything was organized very clearly and strictly according to the schedule – the German approach is pedantic. Not only was I discovering the German side of my Count Von Krolock, I was simultaneously developing the skills to communicate, understand and speak a foreign language. We even tried to translate to each other some jokes and anecdotes that only native speakers understand.

– Is there a fundamental difference between a Broadway model and a Russian one?

– It consists in a closer control of the performance of the actor’s drawing, built by the director down to the smallest detail. In a Russian musical, you can make your own proposals and options for the role drawing.

– What is closer to you?

– It depends on the schedule. During daily work in one musical, there should be a well-established scheme that works regardless of the emotional state of the performer at this particular moment. Like a machine, like a conveyor should work. If you have time to connect emotionally – great, if you do not have time – it means that the external drawing is working. But it is impossible not to turn on at all, but we emotionally respond, as according to the system of Mikhail Chekhov – from the external to the internal, and not only from the internal to the external.

– How many times have I seen you on stage – your inclusion is simply incredible. How can you exist at such a fast pace?

– It happens that there is no pause, there is one day off a week, sometimes a little more, well, on average there can be two, although this is rather an exception to the rule. There is rarely a vacation – I hope that there will be 10 days in May, and the rest of the time is just such a non-stop – concerts, performances and preparation for new projects.

– You have a huge fandom. Does it mean something to you? Do you communicate with your fans?

– I communicate, of course. I have musical meetings with communication and answers to questions. I try to give as much time as possible, balancing between giving my all to the fans and my family and my needs. The fact is that I am more of an introvert than an extrovert, despite my profession, so I am not always comfortable when communication is too intrusive.

– You said about the family. Recently I came across a poster for a children’s performance, where your daughters are announced.

– My children go to theaters from an early age. Studied at a music school. As soon as we moved to St. Petersburg, all the children went through the Blue Bird Children’s Musical Theater and still play there. They also appear in various adult productions of the Musical Comedy Theatre, the St. Petersburg Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre. The eldest daughter entered the Rimsky-Korsakov School in the vocal department, the youngest is still at school.

– What about your sons?

– The eldest son has already graduated from school, is engaged in sound engineering, sound design, helps me at concerts and receives a higher education. He also went through the theater-studio “Blue Bird”. And the smallest one is already joining the theater. Recently we went with him to a performance with the participation of sisters – I sat and watched carefully. Now he is 2 years old and he does not always agree to a long stay in the auditorium – he requires freedom and respect for making his own decisions.

– All in the father …