The backstage drama at the Bolshoi saw the arrival this week of a young musical director whose mission is to drag the theatre out of the crisis that has shattered its reputation.
A traumatic season has already seen the brutal dismissal of one of his predecessors and the enraged resignation of another. Now Alexander Vedernikov has the job of restoring the pride of Russia's most famous institution in the performing arts.
He faces a demoralised and demotivated company, depressed by months of hostile reviews, star performers who decline to perform and the upheavals of a troubled £150m rebuilding programme. A personal savaging by the Russian press probably also awaits him.
More management conflict seems possible, too. Initially Mr Vedernikov was heralded as the replacement for the artistic director, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who left in a fury last month. But there was uncertainty yesterday about his exact title and his position in the Bolshoi hierarchy as jostling for power continued.
Mr Rozhdestvensky quit in despair at the company's low artistic standards, and incensed at the abuse meted out to him. "I have been subjected to the most vicious, wild, horrendous and impertinent criticism for everything, for my very existence," he declared.
Last August, the culture ministry unexpectedly dismissed Mr Rozhdestvensky's predessor, Vladimir Vasiliev, to try to revitalise the Bolshoi. He heard he was out on the radio.
Mr Vedernikov, 38, a meek and calm symphony orchestra conductor, wants to use western techniques — an ambitious "advertising, rebranding and public relations programme" — to drag the Bolshoi into the 21st century.
As he sat for the first time in his modest new office — room 78, off a dimly lit corridor beneath the stage — he characterised the Bolshoi as a sluggish behemoth, riding on achievements it had failed to match since the 60s and isolated from Russia's new order.
"There was an enduring belief that the Bolshoi was the best theatre in the country, so it would be wrong even to contemplate doing anything differently." This torpor left the theatre eclipsed by its rival, the Maryinsky, in St Petersburg, home of the Kirov ballet.
"Our production of Boris Godunov dates back unchanged to 1948. It is exhausted, physically and artistically," he said. "We need to attract new directors from Russia and from the west"; new productions, too, to attract younger audiences.
But asked to detail what kind of productions he would like to see or how advertising would resolve internal problems, he could only answer: "Those are difficult questions."
Source.
A traumatic season has already seen the brutal dismissal of one of his predecessors and the enraged resignation of another. Now Alexander Vedernikov has the job of restoring the pride of Russia's most famous institution in the performing arts.
He faces a demoralised and demotivated company, depressed by months of hostile reviews, star performers who decline to perform and the upheavals of a troubled £150m rebuilding programme. A personal savaging by the Russian press probably also awaits him.
More management conflict seems possible, too. Initially Mr Vedernikov was heralded as the replacement for the artistic director, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who left in a fury last month. But there was uncertainty yesterday about his exact title and his position in the Bolshoi hierarchy as jostling for power continued.
Mr Rozhdestvensky quit in despair at the company's low artistic standards, and incensed at the abuse meted out to him. "I have been subjected to the most vicious, wild, horrendous and impertinent criticism for everything, for my very existence," he declared.
Last August, the culture ministry unexpectedly dismissed Mr Rozhdestvensky's predessor, Vladimir Vasiliev, to try to revitalise the Bolshoi. He heard he was out on the radio.
Mr Vedernikov, 38, a meek and calm symphony orchestra conductor, wants to use western techniques — an ambitious "advertising, rebranding and public relations programme" — to drag the Bolshoi into the 21st century.
As he sat for the first time in his modest new office — room 78, off a dimly lit corridor beneath the stage — he characterised the Bolshoi as a sluggish behemoth, riding on achievements it had failed to match since the 60s and isolated from Russia's new order.
"There was an enduring belief that the Bolshoi was the best theatre in the country, so it would be wrong even to contemplate doing anything differently." This torpor left the theatre eclipsed by its rival, the Maryinsky, in St Petersburg, home of the Kirov ballet.
"Our production of Boris Godunov dates back unchanged to 1948. It is exhausted, physically and artistically," he said. "We need to attract new directors from Russia and from the west"; new productions, too, to attract younger audiences.
But asked to detail what kind of productions he would like to see or how advertising would resolve internal problems, he could only answer: "Those are difficult questions."
Source.
Amelia GENTLEMAN,
The Guardian, Fri 6 Jul 2001
The Guardian, Fri 6 Jul 2001
Quiet young conductor tries to tame the Bolshoi snakepit
