– “Leonardo” – the second part of the trilogy “Antichrist and Christ”. The first – “Peter I” – turned out to be so modern, without speculation on relevance. Now I am moving further, that is, deeper – we are moving from the 17th century to the 16th, but time is not so important for me. Another thing is important – how does the divine and the devil get along in a 50×50 ratio in one person? So it was with Leonardo.
– In relation to the figure of Leonardo da Vinci – exactly what do you mean?
— Leonardo draws a picture of The Last Supper with one hand, and invents a mine with the other. Mines as explosive devices existed before him, but Leonardo was interested in how to make sure that they hit as many people as possible. Then he invents the Dionysian ear – a system of channels that allows you to listen through walls to what is said in other rooms.
So I listen today to our politicians, diplomats, and their rhetoric horrifies me. They say: “War, war”, and at the same time everyone forgets that this war is not at the table, not at the computer where you can reboot, but living people will die, by the thousands and even millions. It’s scary because it already exists.
So, for me, Leonardo is not an artist, but a kind of alchemist: he deliberately abandoned relationships – friendship, love, did not want to mix this with art. He fell in love with Gioconda only towards the end of his life. Three weeks I drew only an eyebrow, and the big picture – three years. Three years of communication and contact, but this is towards the end of life.
And in parallel with writing great pictures, he created a brothel and came up with a system of rooms and corridors in which women and the clients they served would not meet each other. And there was Michelangelo, whom I adore. He is an artist from God, not an alchemist. What Leonardo could draw in a year, Michelangelo did in three days. And, of course, I prescribe their conflict. And Michelangelo, like many, considered Leonardo a traitor.
Why such accusations?
– In Italy, there was a civil war between the Republic of Florence and Romandia, where Caesar Borgia ruled. So, Leonardo, when he served in Borgia, gave him drawings of the fortification of Florence, for which Michelangelo called him a traitor.
– What literary work underlies the future production? And do you use any documents that you referred to when creating “Peter I”?
– I take Merezhkovsky’s historical novel “The Resurrection of God. Leonardo da Vinci” (first published in 1900. – М.Р.). But since Merezhkovsky was not very immersed in the personality of Leonardo (in contrast to the era and personality of Peter), the playwright Andrey Shishov and I are writing our staging. Plus, we use materials from books about Leonardo and Michelangelo, about which their contemporaries wrote. In this story, I also have Raphael – he is the third participant and the third look at the service of art.
– Since we are talking about art, paintings, sculptures and their creators, by what means do you intend to embody them in the theater? After all, this is not a movie that has unlimited possibilities.
– Of course, I will not show reproductions of paintings, because I am opposed to discussions about the art of people who have flipped through several albums or listened to a couple of lectures and, on this basis, consider themselves art critics. I traveled a lot, saw, talked, I have enough serious consultants.
When staging at the Leonardo Theater, I am interested in lighting and shadow. I understood its meaning back in the cinema, and there the shadow was to help me. This TV and YouTube channels are fighting the shadow, while painting and big cinema are working with it all the time.
Are the actors for the roles of Renaissance geniuses already known?
– I can’t say yet – distribution is underway, but these are definitely the actors of the Modern Theater. But for the role of Gioconda, I will announce the casting. After all, Gioconda has gone into folklore, becoming souvenirs, T-shirts, bags, Internet memes. And it cannot be just a type – only a professional actress is needed. In my version, Leonardo confesses his love to her, she leaves with her husband for another city and does not return – she dies there. And he already understands that he lived wrong, that he needs to be open to the world, like Michelangelo.
— What love? Which Gioconda? There is an opinion, and quite stable, that Leonardo was a homosexual. Gioconda is still love or a model?
“Most likely he was a narcissist, not a homosexual. He was so immersed in the creation of a portrait of the Mona Lisa … He painted it with the smallest layers of paint – twenty microscopic layers on only one face. We must not forget that at that time the artists themselves produced paints, and Leonardo surpassed Michelangelo in this. But because of his ambitions, he also ruined The Last Supper: after his death, the picture was redrawn seven times. He was mistaken – it was impossible to paint a fresco in such a technique, and Michelangelo warned him about this. In general, he was mistaken a lot, because he was an alchemist, not an artist. It is indecent to repeat how Leonardo described, for example, sexual intercourse.
“Sorry, I don’t know. How did he describe sexual intercourse?
“He described the contact with the woman as an alchemist. How could an alien do it – completely insensitive, without any aspiration, emotion. And this is a real description. It should not be forgotten that he had many students, but many of them refused him. One even committed suicide after realizing whom he served.
— The main characters are artists who entered world history and largely determined it. Their creative conflict also influenced. Is your performance a manifesto?
— Yes, the manifesto and my attitude to art in general. I read manifestos, statements by various modern directors about what the theater should be like, but after watching their performances, I don’t see what is being declared. Leonardo had the same thing – a lot of words, concepts, but in reality …
What about secret crafts? If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow, knowing no shame … A mysterious mold on the wall …
– Akhmatov’s phrase refers more to Michelangelo than to Leonardo, who for me is a pharmacist. He laid everything out on the shelves, mixed up the paint … And today there are a lot of such directors. But I love artistic delusion – it’s a statement.
“But the diabolical is from the darkness, from the abyss. What’s the calculation here?
— And I think that the devil himself is the calculation. Leonardo calculated everything, trying to be the Creator and thus becoming one with God. But the Lord endows you with talent, the ability to create and express yourself, through you he does it, and you begin to calculate everything. So the devil whispers in your ear.
Now I am returning to Moscow. The staging is ready, and we begin to work. As in Peter the Great, Leonardo will have many acting characters, and I hope everything will work out by the end of spring.
– In general, as I understand from our conversation, you are concerned about the global problems of the world, creativity, but not reflections, from which, among other things, art is born.
“Global issues are very important to me today. I see how they resonate with the audience. Small things are not for me. And, by the way, about Leonardo: he was very calm about how, in front of his eyes, the inquisitors burned his own paintings, destroyed his sculptures. Everyone was surprised, even including those who destroyed it. He didn’t go crazy, he didn’t fight – how is that possible? After all, art is part of you. And you have to fight for your art.
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