Munich’s ballet director retires
Has been ballet director in Munich since 2016: Igor Zelensky
Source: dpa
He led an iron regime in the Bavarian State Ballet and expelled modernity from the house. Now Igor Zelensky has vacated his post. Because of “private, family matters”. The real reason was probably another.
AIt was announced on the evening of April 3rd, the resignation will already take effect on April 4th: Igor Zelensky, director of the Bavarian State Ballet, is leaving his company. That sounds active, especially when “private, family matters” are added as a reason. Or rather advanced. Because the resignation of the Russian, who probably led a strict regime on the Isar, should not be so voluntary.
After the Putin army invaded Ukraine on February 24, it quickly became known that Munich’s Tanzzar probably had unauthorized ties to the state-run Moscow foundation “National Cultural Heritage”. He is said to be working as a consultant on the establishment of four cultural centers in Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Vladivostok and in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Zelensky is also said to be seen alongside Putin on videos related to the foundation, which are no longer accessible in Europe.
Since then there has been silence in Munich. Zelensky said nothing, nor did he appear at the opening of the ballet week. Munich’s new opera director Serge Dorny, who only indirectly heads the ballet, handed the case over to the Ministry of Art. And after weeks of sitting out, the 52-year-old Zelensky suddenly remembered the “family”….
Igor Zelensky, once a star soloist at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, then an esteemed dance director in Novosibirsk and at Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater, has held office in Munich since 2016. His extended contract was valid until 2026. The Russian, who was hard at work on a classical ballet course, had been engaged by ex-artistic director Nikolaus Bachler, who usually kept his avant-garde banner so strict.
Zelensky quickly destroyed the existing, highly colorful repertoire diversity of the Bavarian State Ballet. Instead, there were again the narrative ballets loved by the glamor-addicted, conservative Munich dance public, as well as bought-in modernism by the fashion choreographers currently performed everywhere.
And of course expensive guest soloists, including Sergei Polunin, who understands Putin (he wears a chest tattoo of the idolized president), even if the native Ukrainian had his best dancing days behind him. Their own troupe, on the other hand, with the exception of one or two soloists, became more and more bland and uninteresting: little dolls dancing mechanically on autopilot with fixed smiles.
And now Judith Turos and Thomas Mayr are taking over the fate of the troupe; Oddly enough, not dance dramaturge Serge Honegger, who had relaxed the stylistic Stalinism a little.
And if Munich is lucky, then an ideal successor is already ready: the ex-Bolshoi boss Alexei Ratmansky, who was spurned in Berlin and one of the most sought-after choreographers in the world, who has just released a piece with Bayern. And at the end of the premiere he waved the Ukrainian flag while bowing because of his Kiev roots. A prophetic sign of victory, at least there?