National Theater Award for the 2011-2012 season. The festival, which will be held for the nineteenth time in March 2013, is changing - for the first time among the nominations, a "supporting role" appeared, and under the directorate - the board. Nevertheless, "The Mask" as the main theatrical award of the country always raises questions - to the composition of the jury, to the results, to the quality of competitive performances. After the results of the work of the expert council were announced, information appeared on the STD website that the jury was formed without agreement with the secretariat of the theater union. We talked about this and not only with the general director of the festival, Maria Revyakina. Interviewed by Anna Banasyukevich.
- In what state has the festival approached today and what's new?
— "Golden Mask" is a living and ever-changing history, it is a mirror of the Russian theater. The festival and its projects respond to the demands of the times, not only reflect the situation in theatrical art as such, but also convey the mood of society, broadcast the very intonation of the surrounding life. The core of everything that is united under the phrase "Golden Mask" is the institute of the Russian National Prize and the Festival. "Golden Mask" has two unchanging foundations - an expert council and a jury. Expertise is carried out by critics, theater critics, that is, analysts. The decision on awarding is made by representatives of all theatrical professions. This is something that is invariable in our work.
- The composition of the jury should be rotated by 2/3, but usually no one from the last season goes to the jury. The Regulations on the Prize stipulate that neither the creator nor the participant of the performance can work on the jury. That is, the jury can include people who work in a theater whose production is nominated for "The Mask" - it is difficult to cut off almost all the leading theaters and limit ourselves strictly to those who did not make it to the list of nominees. We try to negotiate with the chairman of the jury in advance, because usually the main directors, choreographers, conductors have a life planned for a year in advance. Since Valery Fokin did not have any premieres last season, we invited him. He did not immediately agree, but then said that he was interested. When a person gets on the jury, he sees a snapshot of what happened interesting in the theaters of Russia during the season. Fokin is not the creator of the play "Gedda Gabler", it was staged by Kama Ginkas, that is, all points of the Regulations are observed. Fokin is a significant director and, as everyone knows, an independent person. I am sure he will not lobby his theater for selfish reasons. In any case, in a situation where there is a person on the jury who works in the theater whose production is nominated, he cannot vote for his theater. The same is true for the advisory board.
- What powers does the chairman of the jury have in comparison with ordinary members of the jury?
— The chairman of the jury has two votes in controversial decisions. If the jury votes and the votes are split 50/50, then the chairman of the jury has the right to add his vote to any opinion that he considers reasonable. He cannot exert any special pressure, and all members of the jury have professional authority. And all these talks - that if there was a different chairman, there would be a different result, they have no basis. If there are 15 jury members, then one chairman will not change anything.
- Are there any criteria for selecting performances from the expert council?
— Only artistic criteria. No more. In Moscow, all performances are watched "live". As for performances from the regions, we receive CDs from theaters, and we ask them to make a regular recording, as simple and adequate as possible, as if a person is watching from the audience, we do not accept trailers. If, after watching the recording, the expert council recognizes the performance as interesting, then several people fly into the city and watch. If their opinions are different, then the next ones fly. The experts are by no means like-minded, but when they work, they understand that they need to form a poster, according to which it would be clear why these performances were included in it.
The STD filed claims against the festival management that the composition of the jury was not coordinated with the secretariat?.. What will happen next?
- This is partly a fair reproach addressed to us, this is our mistake, although, of course, we did not do it on purpose. The situation is as follows: every year it becomes more and more difficult to rent Moscow venues for imported performances. It is necessary to negotiate with musical theaters 1.5 years in advance. And in the Bolshoi, and in the Theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, everything is scheduled. In this regard, sometimes we are forced to show some performances already in January. We always bring the Mariinsky Theater earlier for the same reasons - the theater schedule is extremely tight. Because of this, the jury is sometimes forced to start working before the festival opens, that is, to watch performances in January-February. Therefore, it is necessary to announce the nominees and the jury in November, to hold a press conference. We have always dealt with this problem in working order. Same story this year. We sent the draft of the jury to 31 addresses - in the commissions, in the offices of the Union of Theater Workers, but made a mistake - did not send it to the chairman of the Union. Then he went on a business trip for 10 days, and it turned out that we announced the composition of the jury without coordinating it with the secretariat, violating the procedure. Now the secretariat reserves the right to make changes in the composition of the jury - this will be announced on December 10th.
- Why did the "Golden Mask" need to rule?
- The Golden Mask Festival Directorate is an autonomous non-profit organization, a legal entity. The supreme body of our festival is the president, but at one time the law on autonomous non-profit organizations changed and we turned to the STD secretariat in order to change the charter - this was in 2011. Now the supreme governing body is the board, which includes Konstantin Raikin, Igor Kostolevsky and festival president Georgy Taratorkin. The sole purpose of government is representative. In order to work with sponsors, in the regions, on some individual projects, people who are known and appreciated are needed. The board is related only to the management of the "Golden Mask", to our projects, but not to the activities of the festival as a whole, not to the selection of performances or to the formation of a poster.
- Will the nomination "Experiment" ever be cancelled?
- At one time this nomination was called "Innovation", but it was renamed, because the concept of "innovation" is extremely controversial and, in fact, it can be attributed to any interesting performance. The nomination "Experiment" exists because there is a genre of drama, there is a puppet theater, there is a ballet, an opera, a musical, but there are performances, some other theatrical performances that cannot be summed up under any existing genre. For example, the AKHE theater is neither drama nor music. To what nomination should their performance be attributed? The "Experiment" nomination is always a difficult, but also an interesting theater issue. It is necessary that theater scholars find a suitable terminology for this new theater.
How do you combine the positions of the general director of the "Mask" and the director of the Theater of Nations? And will this affect the selection of performances for the festival?
- In no case. I can name several such examples. The president of our festival is an actor of the Mossovet Theatre, he has never lobbied for the interests of his theatre. The chairman of STD is the artistic director of the theater Et Cetera, and I have never in my life heard that Kalyagin tried to lobby for the performances of his theater. As for my case, I work at the Theater of Nations as a director, and my area of competence includes administrative, economic and financial work. I am not responsible for the repertoire policy of the theater, I do not undertake to analyze the performances that are shown there. The theater has projects, including such as the festival "Territory", the festival of theaters of small towns, the implementation of the project of the Theater Quarter is to be carried out - all this relates to the organizational work that I am doing. It's the same with The Mask. I have never exerted any influence on the work of experts and the jury, and I will not, my task is to strive to ensure that the "Mask" works effectively, so that not only the Ministry of Culture and the Moscow government, but also sponsors participate in the financing of the festival. So my two positions are not related to each other in any way, and the law allows the combination, but I am not a civil servant.
/. The festival of performances nominated by the Russian National Theater Award "Golden Mask" for the 24th time starts on Tuesday in Moscow. The ballet Cinderella by the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater will be shown first on the stage of the Moscow Musical Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Golden Mask press service told TASS.
"The ballet "Cinderella" of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theater will be the first to enter the fight for awards, which is nominated for the award in eight main categories: "Best performance in ballet", "Best work of a conductor" - Teodor Currentzis, "Best work of a choreographer" - Alexei Miroshnichenko Alona Pikalova, "The best work of a costume designer" - Tatyana Noginova, "The best work of a lighting designer" - Alexei Khoroshev, "The best female role in ballet" - Inna Bilash, "The best male role in ballet" - Nikita Chetverikov "- noted in the press office.
The interlocutor of the agency informed that the next will be shown the "Governor" BDT them. G. A. Tovstonogov, nominated as "Best performance in a drama, large form", "Best director's work" - Andrey Moguchiy, "Best work of an artist" - Alexander Shishkin, "Best work of a lighting designer" - Stas Svistunovich, "Best male role in the drama "- Dmitry Vorobyov. The performance will be shown on February 7 and 8 at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov.
The February poster of the festival also includes "The Cage" (Bolshoi Theatre), "Cantos" of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, "The Seasons" (Mariinsky Theatre), "Visiting Europe" (Festival "Territory" and "Rimini Protokoll", Germany) , Kuzmin. Trout Breaks the Ice” (Gogol Center), “Billy Budd” (Bolshoi Theatre), “Akhmatova. A poem without a hero” (Gogol Center).
"February is only the beginning of the Golden Mask festival, which will last until April 15, when the winner of the competition will be determined," the press service added. Competitive performances, together with the audience, according to tradition, are watched by the jury, of which there are two at the Golden Mask. The jury of the drama theater and puppet theater this year was headed by the director, People's Artist of Latvia, laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation Adolf Shapiro. Pavel Bubelnikov, chief conductor of the St. Petersburg State Children's Musical Theater "Through the Looking Glass", guest conductor of the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky theatres, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, became the chairman of the jury of the musical theater.
Total 66 performances
"The share of theaters from Russian regions, as in previous years, is almost half of the total number of nominated (44%). The geography of the festival continues to expand: in 2018, the competition program included new cities: Lesosibirsk, Almetyevsk and Makhachkala," Revyakina noted. .
“Of course, the competition program includes the performances of the country’s main theaters,” she continued, “these are the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Theater, and Lev Dodin’s MDT-Theater of Europe, the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, the Alexandrinsky Theater, the Vakhtangov Theater and others. But with them for example, the Olonkho theater from Yakutsk, which always amazes with its theatrical originality, the Gafuri Bashkir Theater from Ufa, whose play Antigone is one of the most nominated in the competition, performs on an equal footing in the competition: six main nominations are the work of a director, artist, female and male roles, as well as female and male supporting roles. Six nominations also went to the play "Thunderstorm" for the first time participating in the competition of the Youth Theater from Krasnodar. "
Revyakina called it gratifying that small theaters that had previously visited the Golden Mask were again entering the competition: the Gran Theater from Novokuibyshevsk, the Drama Theater named after. Chekhov from the city of Serov. In 2018, another record was set in the nomination "the director's work in a drama", where 29 people are represented.
As for the competition of musical theaters, according to Revyakina, there are all the permanent participants in it: the Bolshoi Theater, the Mariinsky Theater, theaters from Perm, Yekaterinburg, Moscow. A new participant in the competition (was once in the competition in 1996) is the Voronezh Opera and Ballet Theater, which presents the opera "The Motherland of Electricity".
"Golden Mask" is not only a competition, - Revyakina emphasized, - I mean an out-of-competition program, which includes the "Mask Plus" and "Children's Weekend" projects. In February-March 2018, 19 performances from 12 cities of Russia will be shown in the out-of-competition program: Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kansk, Lesosibirsk, Moscow, Novokuibyshevsk, Novosibirsk, Perm, St. Petersburg, Serov, Khabarovsk, Sharypovo.
According to Revyakina, “Mask Plus features bright, non-standard works from Russian cities, created by talented artists, young directors, graduates of theater universities, free theater troupes, and studios. Mask Plus demonstrates to viewers and professionals the diversity of modern theater that lives and develops outside the capitals and well-known cultural centers.”
The project "Children's Weekend" is addressed to children and teenagers from two to 16 years old. Its goal is to present the most interesting, in the opinion of leading theater critics and experts, performances for children and youth. “Last Children's Weekend turned out to be traditional in a good way: the program included a lot of fairy tales, folk and author's, bright stylizations for folklore and classical puppet theater. This year we decided to radically change the vector and celebrate experimental, exploratory works, which are very few in our conservative children's theater - and that makes them more valuable, ”said Revyakina.
Obviously, with today's children growing up in the digital age, it is impossible to speak the same language as 20-30 years ago. Our program will include a comic performance, a chat performance, a lecture performance, a mockumentary performance. Somewhere, children will be able to have plenty of fun and leave pillows, and somewhere they can take part in the action using their mobile phone, the agency's interlocutor said.
"Golden Mask in the City" is one of the most popular projects of the festival. Our street performances and exhibitions are visited by up to 2 million people every year. In 2018, we will continue to surprise Muscovites with unexpected performances by theaters nominated for the Golden Mask in various places, the festival director assured.
The Golden Mask in Cinema project will be held for the fourth time in 2018, and every year we are pleased to note the growing interest of the audience, said Revyakina, adding that the playbill for the film program includes the performances Ivanov by the Theater of Nations and Drums in the Night by the Theater them. Pushkin.
Internet broadcasts
"For the first time, we decided to supplement the program of the Golden Mask in the cinemas of the country with broadcasts of performances-nominees on the Internet. Thanks to the new project Golden Mask Online, the audience of the festival and the involvement of viewers around the world in the overall festival process will significantly increase. Live broadcasts within the framework of the project" Golden Mask Online" will be held on the main page of the search portal "Yandex", and the program includes competitive performances "The Governor" of the G. A. Tovstonogov Bolshoi Theater staged by Andrey Moguchy, "Uncle Vanya" of the Lensoviet Theater staged by Yuri Butusov and opera "Chaadsky" theater "Helikon-Opera" staged by Kirill Serebrennikov", - said Revyakina.
The General Director of the "Golden Mask" announced another piece of news. The award will hold two award ceremonies for the first time in its history.
“This year, for the first time, we decided to hold two equivalent award ceremonies, separately highlighting the winners of the award in the honorary nomination “For outstanding contribution to the development of the theatrical art of Russia,” Revyakina said. “We are talking about people who are known by the whole country and who, no doubt, deserve special respect and attention.
You can listen to the program not only on receivers, but also on the Internet - www.site.
Program email: [email protected]
Today we will talk about the good, about the fact that there is something in life besides economics and politics. Guest in the studio Maria Revyakina, General Director of the Russian national theater award "Golden Mask" and the festival of the same name.
It is very pleasant that today we can talk about art, about beauty. True, in the old days I was always worried, especially when things were bad with tours, that you invite some Moscow theater figure to the program, and he starts talking about his theater, about his performances, premieres, here you involuntarily think that in Moscow, St. Petersburg or some other million-plus city will see this, but Russia is big. And interest in the theater, in spite of any life circumstances, remains. And the fact that we say that people have become just so indifferent to everything beautiful is not true. So I think, how would people see it all? In the format of the festival and the national Golden Mask award, some details have appeared that will allow our listeners in other Russian cities, not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, to see wonderful theatrical achievements. But let's just start with a few words about the "Golden Mask". Not everyone knows about her, although they talk a lot about her on television, on the radio, and write in newspapers. What it is?
M. Revyakina: First of all, it is very beautiful in itself "Golden Mask" , which was invented and developed by the famous theater artist Oleg Sheintsis. The Golden Mask Festival was established in 1993 by the Union of Theater Workers. It was the idea Mikhail Alexandrovich Ulyanov and several others, including Vladimir Georgievich Urin, current director of the Bolshoi Theatre. This is the idea that came to them - to make a festival that could unite theatrical Russia. In the beginning, he touched Moscow. And already after it was held in Moscow, our colleagues of those years decided that after all it should be a holiday for all theatrical Russia. And, of course, it was a very correct decision.
Actually, the principle itself was this: professionals - professionals. He remained so. That is, the expert councils of the award include theater critics, theater journalists and musicologists. These are the people who look for performances, watch them and form a poster. They are united in two expert councils - for music and for drama. They work for a year, the entire theatrical season, and then finish by October, form a poster from a huge number of performances watched, and then from January-February, it depends on which venues we choose, there are already two jury members - drama and music - watching these performances and winners are chosen from among the nominees. We usually have it in April, this year it will be on April 18, there is a closing ceremony and awards ceremony.
As for the number of performances, it increases every year. I mean those performances that experts watch. This year they watched over 600 performances. Of course, this is a lot. Huge work, hard work, because you need to fly, drive, watch.
And out of such a large number, 56 performances were selected this year, they hit the poster. But at the same time, again, this year we had an innovation. We discussed it for a very long time and, finally, it was finally accepted. It consists in the fact that we first publish long list- a list of those performances that were the most interesting and bright for the entire theatrical season. Here are 180 of them. And from this long list appeared shortlist, consisting of 56 performances.
Now the jury is already working. It is also not an easy job: to choose the best director out of 15, because in any case it will be, one way or another, a compromise solution, since it is clear that there are serious figures among them.
Theater, as well as literature and everything else, is a subjective thing.
M. Revyakina: Of course, this is all subjective. But when 9-12 subjective personalities gather, they still come to some kind of poster. It is clear that they have different preferences, different tastes, a completely different level of approach to performances, but, nevertheless, they select performances, and they select them by open voting. They argue a lot, sometimes they vote many times in the final, but still come to the formation of a poster.
I think it would not hurt to name a few names of those who determine the fate of both the best directors and the best productions?
M. Revyakina: We change them every year. We have a rotation.
But is there a chairman?
M. Revyakina: No, they all change too. Our expert advice is rotated. I can only name the chairmen of the expert councils who are now working, they started in the fall. This Alexander Vislov- Chairman of the Drama Expert Council, and Ekaterina Biryukova- Chairman of the Musical Expert Council. But every year, according to the regulations...
And who is on the jury?
M. Revyakina: As for this year's jury, the chairman of the drama jury is Anatoly Mironovich Smelyansky, and the music jury is headed by Andrejs Žagars.
An interesting thing appeared this year - "Golden Mask" in the cinema".
M. Revyakina: Yes. We have a number of projects. Because, after all, the competition is the main core of the festival, but over time, around the festival itself, many projects have appeared that we came up with together with our experts. And almost all of our programs have expert curators.
First of all, this is a non-competitive program that has been going on for several years. We start the festival out-of-competition program . And now there are very interesting performances, there are not so many of them left, about 30 from various cities, which were also selected by experts. The out-of-competition program has sections: "Ethnic theater" , "New Theater" , "Young Director" or "Young people who put on plays" . And in general, completely different, even small towns are represented - Kudymkar, Glazov. Yakutia, Khakassia - there are also wonderful performances from there, which are selected by experts and which are now on.
There is another project "Kids Weekend" . We are trying to recruit children's performances in Russia, because after all, the demand for children's performances is large, and there are few good performances. And this is the second year we have been implementing this project. This is also before the main festival.
Then the main festival, an educational program, we have had it for several years now. Here now Theater Institute works, Institute of Theater Criticism, Ballet Criticism where young people are taught. First, we give everyone the opportunity to go to performances, write reviews, teach how to write reviews, explain what ballet is. Anya Gordeeva leads this class. There are a lot of recordings, but, unfortunately, we can not recruit much.
Eat laboratory where he teaches Dina Hussein. This is modern dance. There were a huge number of applicants. We received a lot of questionnaires, about 90, but only 20 were selected.
And now we begin opera criticism class. We have it like this especially for schools, for teachers and for schoolchildren, so that they can still understand opera. Therefore, it is also at the Institute of Theater.
In general, the "Golden Mask" conducts very serious educational work. Program Russian Case , which has been used by producers from abroad for 15 years, our colleagues - theater directors and directors of festivals. And within 4-5 days they watch (this is a separate poster) performances. Their schedule is generally the hardest: four or five performances a day. They jump around different venues and look at what is happening in the Russian theater. And somehow direct contacts with theaters are already being established.
And before I talk about the "Golden Mask" in the cinema", I must say that since 2000 we have been holding a festival called "The best performances in Russian cities" with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the respective regions. And every time our festival ends, we start regional trips. We take the winners and nominees of the "Golden Mask" to different cities. In particular, this year we have Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tara, where Mikhail Aleksandrovich Ulyanov was born, Petrozavodsk, Kostomuksha, Ulyanovsk, Dimitrovgrad, Cherepovets. And so we bring performances there that already have a certain quality mark, from our point of view.
And I must tell you that these are always crowded halls, there are always no tickets. We do not sell tickets for these performances, but we ask our colleagues to sell tickets at the cost of tickets in a particular region so that people who love the theater can get to the performances: doctors, teachers, students. So that any people can really see what they will never see, because they will not be able to come to Moscow.
And the second project we have, which has been going on for 10 years, is "The best Russian performances in the Baltic States" . And there is the same picture. They start selling tickets in May, and in a week or two all the tickets are sold out.
And then we decided the following. Last year, an idea arose, why not make sure that the performances that take place as part of the festival can be seen by people, theater fans who are far away and due to geographical and economic circumstances will never come to the festival. And together with art association "Cool Connections" and our main partner TV channel "Culture" we came up with a pilot project this year - these are live broadcasts of performances-nominees in cinemas in Russia.
(Listen to the full version of the recording of the conversation with the guest in the audio file).
National Theater Award for the 2011-2012 season. The festival, which will be held for the nineteenth time in March 2013, is changing - for the first time among the nominations, a "supporting role" appeared, and under the directorate - the board. Nevertheless, "The Mask" as the main theatrical award of the country always raises questions - to the composition of the jury, to the results, to the quality of competitive performances. After the results of the work of the expert council were announced, information appeared on the STD website that the jury was formed without agreement with the secretariat of the theater union. We talked about this and not only with the general director of the festival, Maria Revyakina. Interviewed by Anna Banasyukevich.
- In what state has the festival approached today and what's new?
— "Golden Mask" is a living and ever-changing history, it is a mirror of the Russian theater. The festival and its projects respond to the demands of the times, not only reflect the situation in theatrical art as such, but also convey the mood of society, broadcast the very intonation of the surrounding life. The core of everything that is united under the phrase "Golden Mask" is the institute of the Russian National Prize and the Festival. "Golden Mask" has two unchanging foundations - an expert council and a jury. Expertise is carried out by critics, theater critics, that is, analysts. The decision on awarding is made by representatives of all theatrical professions. This is something that is invariable in our work.
- The composition of the jury should be rotated by 2/3, but usually no one from the last season goes to the jury. The Regulations on the Prize stipulate that neither the creator nor the participant of the performance can work on the jury. That is, the jury can include people who work in a theater whose production is nominated for "The Mask" - it is difficult to cut off almost all the leading theaters and limit ourselves strictly to those who did not make it to the list of nominees. We try to negotiate with the chairman of the jury in advance, because usually the main directors, choreographers, conductors have a life planned for a year in advance. Since Valery Fokin did not have any premieres last season, we invited him. He did not immediately agree, but then said that he was interested. When a person gets on the jury, he sees a snapshot of what happened interesting in the theaters of Russia during the season. Fokin is not the creator of the play "Gedda Gabler", it was staged by Kama Ginkas, that is, all points of the Regulations are observed. Fokin is a significant director and, as everyone knows, an independent person. I am sure he will not lobby his theater for selfish reasons. In any case, in a situation where there is a person on the jury who works in the theater whose production is nominated, he cannot vote for his theater. The same is true for the advisory board.
- What powers does the chairman of the jury have in comparison with ordinary members of the jury?
— The chairman of the jury has two votes in controversial decisions. If the jury votes and the votes are split 50/50, then the chairman of the jury has the right to add his vote to any opinion that he considers reasonable. He cannot exert any special pressure, and all members of the jury have professional authority. And all these talks - that if there was a different chairman, there would be a different result, they have no basis. If there are 15 jury members, then one chairman will not change anything.
- Are there any criteria for selecting performances from the expert council?
— Only artistic criteria. No more. In Moscow, all performances are watched "live". As for performances from the regions, we receive CDs from theaters, and we ask them to make a regular recording, as simple and adequate as possible, as if a person is watching from the audience, we do not accept trailers. If, after watching the recording, the expert council recognizes the performance as interesting, then several people fly into the city and watch. If their opinions are different, then the next ones fly. The experts are by no means like-minded, but when they work, they understand that they need to form a poster, according to which it would be clear why these performances were included in it.
The STD filed claims against the festival management that the composition of the jury was not coordinated with the secretariat?.. What will happen next?
- This is partly a fair reproach addressed to us, this is our mistake, although, of course, we did not do it on purpose. The situation is as follows: every year it becomes more and more difficult to rent Moscow venues for imported performances. It is necessary to negotiate with musical theaters 1.5 years in advance. And in the Bolshoi, and in the Theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, everything is scheduled. In this regard, sometimes we are forced to show some performances already in January. We always bring the Mariinsky Theater earlier for the same reasons - the theater schedule is extremely tight. Because of this, the jury is sometimes forced to start working before the festival opens, that is, to watch performances in January-February. Therefore, it is necessary to announce the nominees and the jury in November, to hold a press conference. We have always dealt with this problem in working order. Same story this year. We sent the draft of the jury to 31 addresses - in the commissions, in the offices of the Union of Theater Workers, but made a mistake - did not send it to the chairman of the Union. Then he went on a business trip for 10 days, and it turned out that we announced the composition of the jury without coordinating it with the secretariat, violating the procedure. Now the secretariat reserves the right to make changes in the composition of the jury - this will be announced on December 10th.
- Why did the "Golden Mask" need to rule?
- The Golden Mask Festival Directorate is an autonomous non-profit organization, a legal entity. The supreme body of our festival is the president, but at one time the law on autonomous non-profit organizations changed and we turned to the STD secretariat in order to change the charter - this was in 2011. Now the supreme governing body is the board, which includes Konstantin Raikin, Igor Kostolevsky and festival president Georgy Taratorkin. The sole purpose of government is representative. In order to work with sponsors, in the regions, on some individual projects, people who are known and appreciated are needed. The board is related only to the management of the "Golden Mask", to our projects, but not to the activities of the festival as a whole, not to the selection of performances or to the formation of a poster.
- Will the nomination "Experiment" ever be cancelled?
- At one time this nomination was called "Innovation", but it was renamed, because the concept of "innovation" is extremely controversial and, in fact, it can be attributed to any interesting performance. The nomination "Experiment" exists because there is a genre of drama, there is a puppet theater, there is a ballet, an opera, a musical, but there are performances, some other theatrical performances that cannot be summed up under any existing genre. For example, the AKHE theater is neither drama nor music. To what nomination should their performance be attributed? The "Experiment" nomination is always a difficult, but also an interesting theater issue. It is necessary that theater scholars find a suitable terminology for this new theater.
How do you combine the positions of the general director of the "Mask" and the director of the Theater of Nations? And will this affect the selection of performances for the festival?
- In no case. I can name several such examples. The president of our festival is an actor of the Mossovet Theatre, he has never lobbied for the interests of his theatre. The chairman of STD is the artistic director of the theater Et Cetera, and I have never in my life heard that Kalyagin tried to lobby for the performances of his theater. As for my case, I work at the Theater of Nations as a director, and my area of competence includes administrative, economic and financial work. I am not responsible for the repertoire policy of the theater, I do not undertake to analyze the performances that are shown there. The theater has projects, including such as the festival "Territory", the festival of theaters of small towns, the implementation of the project of the Theater Quarter is to be carried out - all this relates to the organizational work that I am doing. It's the same with The Mask. I have never exerted any influence on the work of experts and the jury, and I will not, my task is to strive to ensure that the "Mask" works effectively, so that not only the Ministry of Culture and the Moscow government, but also sponsors participate in the financing of the festival. So my two positions are not related to each other in any way, and the law allows the combination, but I am not a civil servant.
Walking before the opening ceremony of the festival along the long corridor of the Smilgis Theater Museum, hung with posters of performances shown by the “Ash Mask” in Latvia, Maria Revyakina, general director of the National Russian Prize, exclaimed: “I can’t even believe that ten years have passed! It seems that only yesterday you opened this first festival in Riga.”
- After all, you took up this project as soon as you became the general director of the Russian Golden Mask?
- Yes, and we started together, with Julia Lochmele. By the way, she first watched the performances of "ZM" in Estonia, then in Moscow - and caught fire with the idea that such a festival should definitely be done in Latvia. After that, we began to hold them with you every year.
And now we have been together for ten years, and not only do we come to you, but also your NRT, the Dailes Theater, the Opera come to us, we also hosted your independent, non-state theaters.
Maria Revyakina, Russian theater manager and director, General Director of the Golden Mask National Theater Award-Festival (since 2004) and Director of the Theater of Nations (since 2012), Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation.
Laureate of the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of culture (2014).
We brought such wonderful performances as "Long Life" and "Sonechka" by Avis Hermanis, and it was a shock for the whole of Moscow. And his production of "Shukshin's Stories" at the Theater of Nations is an absolute bestseller, on October 8 we played it for the 200th time! You know, it turned out to be such an intricately intertwined friendship. For example, Andrey Zhagars was once deputy chairman of the musical theater jury at the Russian ZM. And this year - as the chairman and at the head of the whole team, he determined who will be the laureates.
And what is happening between our theatres, our theatrical cultures, including the Mask and our entire long life (almost according to Hermanis!), is, of course, great.
Despite crises, problems, disagreements, speaking this theatrical language, we understand each other.
Culture, and especially theatrical culture, always contributes only to the fact that people understand each other better. Because at the center of any serious production is a person, with all his complexities, problems, questions, and they are eternal.
- By the way, it was you personally who initiated the international program "Context" within the framework of "ZM"?
- Originally it was called "Legendary Performances of the 20th Century" and included those foreign performances that have been running for a very long time and are preserved as some kind of classic, although these are not necessarily classical productions.
And then we nevertheless replaced it with “Context”, that is, it is something at the intersection of genres, something in which we intertwine, in which we find common points, very relevant.
But this is a very small program. Last year, we invited the famous German director Heiner Goebbels with the musical play “When the Mountain Changed Its Outfit”, and now he has already staged “Max Black, or 62 Ways to Support Your Head with Your Hand” at the Stanislavsky Electrotheater in Moscow, based on notes books by Paul Valeria, as well as German and British philosophers.
- After the recent criticism of the principles of the Golden Mask Prize from both the Ministry of Culture and the so-called. public, has anything changed in his organization?
- Speaking of nominations, they change every year. Now we are talking about reducing their number. But this is the competence of the professional community, and there is only one founder of ZM - the STD of Russia. Since in 2008 an agreement was signed between the Ministry of Culture and the STD that there are two organizers of the award-festival, and each has its own competence. There were several workshops recently where we discussed what could be changed in the Masks organization. However,
anyway, this is an award of the theatrical union, an independent theatrical award and the voice of the professional community should be and is prevailing.
- But such respected professionals as directors Konstantin Bogomolov and Kirill Serebrennikov recently announced their refusal to participate in ZM, because they are not satisfied with the composition of its current expert council!
- We have already decided that the rotation of the expert council should be one hundred percent. This has never happened before, because it is very difficult to find a critic who can go on business trips across a huge country. But now we will try it, although it will not be easy.
Again critics will be able to work in this commission only after two cycles - for the third time. It's real.
And they also decided that a critic working on the staff of the theater could not be a member of the expert council. This is quite a pity, because many capable critics work in theaters, but at the same time they never voted and did not discuss the performances of their theater if they fell into the field of view of "ZM" ...
That is, we are looking for both compromises and agreements. This is a competition, a prize, and of course, not everyone perceives the results in the same way. Here all the same, the subjective points of view of experts, who then, when voting, come to some kind of final poster. But the rest of the critical community, perhaps not even very large, may not agree with her, believing that the performance they noted did not hit it, but it is beautiful ... Only the artistic director of RAMT and the wonderful director Alexei Borodin said, - listen, but it's a game, don't take it so seriously!
Yes, both the theater and the prize are a game, there are such rules of the game, and we follow them.
But this award is very important, because it still reflects the view of the professional community.
- Moreover, "ZM" covers not only the capital, but the entire Russian theatrical space?
- Necessarily! Experts watch 600-700 performances a year! And this is the hardest work, because the performance, which is finally selected, must be watched only live, and not on disk.
- By the way, did they insist on such a comprehensive coverage?
- Certainly. The presence of theaters from the regions is very important, and the regional theaters themselves are developing very well today. Maybe because they see what is happening - after all, we also bring the best performances to the regions, and provincial theaters come to Moscow. And it is impossible not to celebrate their work, to make a reservation: there are Moscow theaters - and all the rest. It can not be so. This is a single theatrical space. It was the creation of such a single theatrical space that Mask has been engaged in all these years.
- You have a purely personal motive here - are you from the Volga region, did you study and start your career in Novosibirsk?
— Yes, and I felt sorry for these people.
— And what is happening today in the theatrical life?
- I think,
theater in general is developing very interestingly and there has been no stagnation for a long time.
Just a few days ago we watched the performance of Timofey Kulyabin's "Three Sisters" of the Novosibirsk theater "Red Torch" - this is an amazing work! A completely new discovery of Chekhov, with the preservation of Chekhov's text. Excellent new work at the Bolshoi Theatre, including by foreign choreographers. For example, the stunning ballet "The Taming of the Shrew" to the music of Shostakovich, staged by the famous Jean-Christophe Maillot. Dmitry Krymov has a new premiere. A wonderful Midsummer Night's Dream appeared in the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater...
- And what about the subversives and innovators Klim (Vladimir Klimenko) and Boris Yukhananov, who not so long ago headed, respectively, the Moscow Center for Drama and Directing and the former Theater. Stanislavsky - now the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre?
- Yukhananov generally has a stormy, stormy life. "Blue Bird" goes on for several evenings. There are several more performances to the music of young composers (including Yukhanan's "A Steadfast Principle. A performance in three acts, two cemeteries and one concert"), and every evening there is a different piece. They put Castellucci, Heiner Goebbels, Terzopoulos. At the Gogol Center? Serebrennikov, together with director-choreographer Anton Adasinsky, has just released “Who Lives Well in Rus'” based on Nekrasov, and this is also very interesting.
- Since 2012, you have also been the director of the Theater of Nations, which works on a contract basis. Or is there still a permanent backbone of actors, and is it a kind of hybrid of stationary and contract theater?
“Not a hybrid, we don't have a troupe. It's just that specific directors choose actors, and there are several people whom they take into their performances. But our actors are still on contracts, and not for a season, but for a specific production. Therefore, the directors conduct a casting.
—Are you an adherent of the contract theatre?
for all the flowers to bloom.
There are different forms of theater and they must exist. Life is diverse, there is enough room for everyone, as a very famous conservative writer wrote to another progressive writer.
- How did you decide to take on both the award-festival and the famous theater?
- Of course, it's difficult. To be honest, I have a schedule all the time, and let's say, I have to read books on planes, in trains, at night. Nevertheless, both the Theater of Nations (TN) and The Mask are very interesting. And they are still somewhat similar, anyway TN is a project theater with its own performances and festivals. So
I was flying away now, I say to Mironov: "Zhenya, you are on the farm, I flew." And in "Mask" there is also a very professional team. People who do not need to chew anything, who do not need to be taught anything.
Actually, I didn’t plan to return to the theater after I had already worked in The Mask. But Yevgeny Mironov and I negotiated for a very long time, and I realized that he needed help after the reconstruction of the theater. It was necessary to create a team, to do logistics. And for three years now I have been working as a director at TN. The formation of the repertoire is one hundred percent engaged in Mironov and Roman Dolzhansky. A
I am only engaged in economic, administrative and other activities so that the theater can realize what the artistic director plans. So that the performances were going on, and there were projects.
Such, for example, as work with various socially unprotected segments of the population, people with disabilities.
We touch on socially sensitive topics. They released, say, the play “It's easy to quit” about drug addicts, in which not actors played, but people who went through this story of drug addiction. The experience was useful, because the performance gathered a lot of young people, and they heard from their peers what they went through. And it was scary. Then we carried out the project “Touched” (the author of the idea is Evgeny Mironov, the producer is Ingeborga Dapkunaite. - N.M.), with the Foundation for the Deaf-Blind. These are people who only have a sense of touch. The performance with the participation of both very famous actors and non-professionals is played at different venues. And now, together with the Institute. Serbian want to make a project that also deals with diseases such as Alzheimer's.
— Does the theater also have a Small Towns Festival?
- And Mironov came up with it a long time ago, even before the opening of the theater. I must say that this is a huge contribution to the development of Russian small towns. Thanks to the laboratories, master classes that we hold there, as well as the final festival, their performances began to appear in our Mask, because the level is good.
And TN is the base for the International Festival-School "Territory", and the next "Territory" ended just a few days ago. The main spectators and participants of the festival are students of theatrical and creative universities in Russia and neighboring countries. Classes are being held. And this is an opportunity not only to listen to very famous and major theatrical figures, actors and directors, but also to work out some very specific disciplines with them. And to see performances, which, of course, will not reach the hinterland.
- Do you feel lately the pressure of those "activists", that "public", which for some reason is always always offended in some way?
“You know, the public is a loose concept. Because, as a rule, there are several people who are unhappy with something. Well, dissatisfied with what to do! We are all different and evaluate certain phenomena and processes differently.
At the Theater of Nations, thank God, the situation has not yet reached such a situation as at the Novosibirsk Opera with Tannhäuser. But after all, there she was also provoked, it's not done so easily. Spread specially.
I don't know who was behind this. It is unfortunate that in the end the artistic director of the theater, the talented conductor Ainars Rubikis, left. The theater was still wonderful, with such an informal repertoire, unexpected performances, finds ... And this theater has always been known, and not only in Russia. You know, everything is reborn. Nothing lasts forever, everything changes.
It's just that sometimes we react very nervously, simply because it happens in front of us, right now. But the processes are lengthy, and today it is like this, but tomorrow it will be different ...
P.S.: Already after our conversation with Maria Revyakina, the appeal of the chairman of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia Alexander Kalyagin to the young and talented with the call - "Humble pride!" appeared in the media and social networks. “I hope you understand that we will never convene an expert council that absolutely everyone will approve,” he writes. “…I want to urge everyone: respect yourself, respect the opinions of your colleagues, respect opposing aesthetic views. No one has the right to usurp theatrical aesthetics, to declare that this is the main thing, and this is secondary. Time will put everything in its place. It is important that talented performances remain in history, and not scandals, squabbles, boorish remarks on social networks and various manifestations of intolerance.”
P.P.S..: Are individual outbreaks of a disease called intolerance merging into an epidemic? Which did not bypass the talented owners, it seems, of the strongest immunity? And are we really witnessing another episode of the eternal plot of Shvartsev's "Dragon" again?
