2023-09-06 19:22:37
His 103rd season opened the theater. Evgeny Vakhtangov, where one of the largest troupes. But at the gathering, which began on Wednesday at noon, it seemed that the number of journalists and cameras exceeded the main composition. The excitement is understandable: to date, Vakhtangov has the strongest troupe, and the theater is the most successful not only in Moscow, but also in the country. With details from the theater on the Arbat – MK columnist.
11.30. Arbat. At the service entrance I meet young artists who came first: the beauty Lada Churovskaya, a ballerina by her first education, and Denis Samoilov, who became famous in the role of Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace. In the corridor leading to the foyer, at the board with newspaper clippings, the veteran actress Agnes Peterson. Actress Marina Esipenko, the third princess in the history of the theater Turandot, is walking along the corridor, dancing and singing (the first is Cecilia Mansurova, the second is Yulia Borisova). Like a light breath, like a breeze. I thought after her: “Still, the most beautiful actresses are here.”
11.50. Foyer of the theatre. Their new chief director, Anatoly Shuliev, is his first gathering, he is already the boss, who will announce plans and begin to receive either gratitude or resentment from the actors, depending on whether they will have roles in new performances or not. But while Tolya, and for many now Anatoly Fedorovich, tells me that his son was born, they called him Platon.
Shuliev and the director of the theater Kirill Krok, Alexander Oleshko, before the start of the gathering, without much solemnity, in the quiet of the director’s office, donated two porcelain figurines “Princess Turandot” to the theater. Not simple, but unique exhibits – copies of historical ones made in 1972 at the Dulevo Porcelain Factory (author Brzhezitskaya).
“After the departure of Yulia Konstantinovna Borisova, the time has come to transfer them to the theater,” says Alexander Oleshko. – I want one to stay in the theater, and the other to go to the Vakhtangov House in Vladikavkaz. I would be grateful to the theater if they are available to the audience in memory of our beautiful Turandot. Well, a good sign for the start of Season 103.
Anna Antonova and Evgeny Knyazev. Photo: Victoria Zudina
12.03. Hall of the Historical Stage. There is a screen on the stage, on which the life of the Vakhtangovites in the last season is visually flashed in just three minutes. But there is something to trump about – they released 11 premieres, played 1102 performances in Moscow and 97 on tour. The main event of the 102nd season of the Vakhtangov Theater was, of course, the opening of the Vakhtangov House in Vladikavkaz and the gala concert “Vakhtangov. The Way Home”, dedicated to this significant event and the 140th anniversary of the birth of the theatre’s founder, Yevgeny Bogrationovich Vakhtangov.
Director Kirill Krok takes the floor, starting his speech not with major notes:
– The past season for the Vakhtangov Theater turned out to be difficult – I would say, dramatic. The theater began the season without an artistic director (this was the first time since 1987, when this position was introduced and Mikhail Ulyanov was elected artistic director). For reasons beyond our control, the main director Yuri Butusov quit the theater, and for several months we worked without artistic direction.
But a joyful change for us, inspiring hope – in April, Anatoly Shuliev became the chief director – a graduate of the director’s workshop of Rimas Tuminas, a native of Vladikavkaz, the hometown of Evgeny Vakhtangov. During the artistic direction of Rimas Vladimirovich Tuminas, the Vakhtangov Theater reached the highest artistic level. We began to live, according to Tuminas, not “from performance to performance”, but “from discovery to discovery”. Now, I think, our task is not to lose the line of the horizon that has opened up before us along with recent achievements.
Krok especially emphasized that during the season the theater sent humanitarian aid to the Donbass several times, which was collected by artists and theater employees.
Just as brief as the director, the new chief director Anatoly Shuliev, who announced the list of future premieres. The first will take place at the end of September – “The Night Before Christmas” based on the novel by N.V. Gogol, staged by Oleg Dolin (Simonovskaya Stage). At the same time, the unique project “Offering to Rachmaninoff” with Yulia Rutberg and the National Orchestra of Folk Instruments named after N.P. Osipov will take place on the Historical Stage. Two premieres are waiting for the Main Stage – “An Ordinary Miracle” based on the play by E.L. Schwartz directed by Ivan Popovsky with artist Maria Tregubova and “Pushkin’s Tale” based on Pushkin’s prose, which will be released by Anatoly Shuliev with artist Maxim Obrezkov.
Directors Vladislav Nastavshev (“The Tale of Sonechka”), Eldar Tramov (“Tennis Players Five” after T. Williams) and Gennady Shaposhnikov (“The Barber of Seville” after Beaumarchais) will work on the New Stage. On the Simonov stage, the line of mastering prose by theatrical means will continue: Georgy Dolmazyan is rehearsing the play “Long Years” based on the novel of the same name by D. Lawrence and the screenplay by V. Delmare “Give way to tomorrow”, and Pavel Parkhomenko will begin work on a production called “Bitter. Stories”. “Duck Hunt” by A.V. Vampilov will be staged by this year’s GITIS graduate Askar Galimov.
Anatoly Shuliev. Photo: Victoria Zudina
The main director concluded his brief speech with an intriguing quote: “Perhaps we are now older, as we inherit the experience of perceiving and practicing art from many generations of ancestors. In inheriting this wealth lies the danger of boredom, or the desire for originality, which may give rise to an aversion to precision of line, fine form, or beautiful color. There is also the danger of simply manipulating old material. His exploitation, sophisticated and heartless. But the true deliverance from this weariness of the age-old heritage does not lie in deliberate clumsiness, not in the rudeness or shapelessness of creativity. Not to convey everything in dark colors, not in the brutality of the image, not in the mixing of colors from unsteady obscurity to gray hopelessness. Not in the fantastic complication of forms to stupidity and so on to madness. Before we get to that, we must take a fresh look at the world. Its colors should again stun, but not blind us. We must return ourselves to childhood or confine ourselves to it. In any case, we need to wash our windows.”
The intrigue is that the author was not named. “This is a “man from the past,” I’ll tell you later,” Shuliev promised.
“Guys, yes, I wrote this,” Sergey Makovetsky admitted when everyone got up and went to the buffet. Sergei Vasilyevich’s joke was appreciated.
On the opening day, the Vakhtangov Theater showed five performances on all its stages.
Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29109 dated September 7, 2023
Newspaper headline: Vakhtangov started their 103rd season
#wash #windows #Vakhtangov #Theater #opened #season #hoax