In the building at the corner of earthen Val and Upper Radishchevskaya streets, an amazing one is located. He successfully survived the test of both fame and split, and today continues to defend the right to his own vision and reading, carefully preserving the traditions of his founding director, Yuri Lyubimov. The performances of "Taganka" are distinguished by the bright personalities of the actors, the gambling and intellectual game, the use of the entire palette of arts in the productions: music, dance, circus.
The theater was officially founded in 1946 and experienced its second birth in 1964 with the arrival of the legendary director Yuri Lyubimov. In those years, Moscow experienced a real surge in cultural life - a whole galaxy of young ambitious actors appeared in the capital, delighting the audience with new productions. But even against this background, Taganka immediately managed to loudly declare itself: the first performance by Yu. Lyubimov, “The Good Man from Sezuan” based on the play by Bertolt Brecht, instantly glorified the theater and still collects full houses. The theater continues to admire the past of Taganka, where the legendary Vladimir Vysotsky, Valery Zolotukhin, Veniamin Smekhov played and where the best performances of that time were staged.
The era of Lyubimov and Vysotsky
The Taganka Theater revived the traditions of Vakhtangov and Meyerhold. His bold performances were filled with a sense of creative freedom: they were always distinguished by an innovative approach and topical reading of a work of art. Yuri Lyubimov, familiar with the systems of E. Vakhtangov and, combined these concepts in his work and introduced elements of Brecht's epic theater into them. The viewer was actively involved in what was happening on the stage, feeling like a full participant in the action.
Most of the performances were staged without a curtain, with minimalist scenery and complex technical structures. Leading artists of the country worked on them: S. Barkhin, D. Borovsky, E. Kochergin, E. Stenberg. Together with Yuri Lyubimov, they created the history of "Taganka", releasing resonant performances - "A Hero of Our Time" (according to), "Antimirs" (according to A. A. Voznesensky), "The Master and Margarita" (according to M. A. Bulgakov), banned by the censorship "Alive" (according to B.P. Mozhaev) and many others.
The Taganka actors, bright and multifaceted, demonstrated a variety of talents: excellent vocal skills, plasticity, pantomime; in some productions, even shadow theater was involved. Many of them made their debut on this stage and received national recognition and fame: Alla Demidova, Boris Khmelnitsky, Anatoly Vasiliev and others. But, perhaps, one of the brightest stars of the theater was Vladimir Vysotsky. Each of his roles became a real event in the cultural life of Moscow; performances with his participation gathered incredible sold-out crowds with long queues for an "extra ticket". In 1971, Hamlet staged by Lyubimov with Vladimir Vysotsky in the title role, Alla Demidova as Gertrude and Veniamin Smekhov as Claudius thundered throughout the country.
The split and the search for a new path
theater building
The theater building was rebuilt from the Vulkan cinema, one of the first in Moscow. In the 70s - 80s of the XX century the theater was reconstructed. For this work, the authors of the project - architects A. Anisimov, Yu. Gnedovsky, and others - received the State Prize of the USSR and the Prize of the International Academy of Architecture. Nowadays, the theater has three halls with stages for 800, 500 and 150 seats. The main stage is a transformable hall. In 2015, Vysotsky Street appeared next to the theater, on which the State Cultural Center "V. S. Vysotsky Museum" is located in house number 3.
2016-2019 moscovery.comThe Moscow Taganka Theater may lose a significant part of its repertoire. The founder and former artistic director Yuri Lyubimov intends to ban his original performances from being played. And this is not the only conflict. Some of the Taganka actors believe that only the return of Lyubimov can save the theater. But the other part of the troupe categorically disagrees with such a prospect.
The experiment without Yuri Lyubimov failed. This is how the five leading actors of the Taganka Theater began their press conference. They organized this meeting with journalists to say: in their opinion, the former permanent artistic director should return to his native theater.
"After many months of anguish, lies, distortion of facts, I would like to say: without the Beloved, this theater cannot develop," said actor Timur Badalbeyli.
The personality of Yuri Lyubimov not for the first time gives a reason to hold a press conference. Today, here are those who expressed completely opposite opinions back. Then the actors fought for the departure of the artistic director from the theater.
“What angered Yuri Petrovich and his wife was that somehow these “disgusting creatures”, “miserable bugs” and “cattle” suddenly started talking, and moreover, they make claims, ”the actor Felix Antipov said then.
Today, the actor Felix Antipov says that he deeply regrets what he said: "It turned out not to be Senka's hat. For a year and a half the theater was looking for something of its own, but these paths turned out to be dead ends. I am not very pleased with the performances that we have after Yuri Petrovich."
The actors are critical of the new leadership of the theater. However, they emphasized several times that they did not express the opinion of the troupe, but their own. And they refused to speak to whom they addressed the criticism by name. They just clarified - this does not apply to the former director of the theater Valery Zolotukhin.
“Unfortunately, a certain group of self-proclaimed managers broke through to the leadership of the theater. The slogans under which they came confused us: so that the spirit of Yuri Petrovich is gone, we will build our theater, so our theater began to deteriorate,” said actor Timur Badalbeyli.
There was a split in the theater troupe. While some of the actors want to return Yuri Lyubimov, others have collected signatures against the return of the former artistic director. They assure us that lately the theater has begun to flourish.
“Most of the team does not want to work anymore, I have letters here,” says the head of the troupe, Honored Artist Ivan Ryzhikov. “Over the past two years, the theater has released 6 premieres, we have enough strength and opportunities to support the repertoire and life of the theater.”
Yuri Lyubimov himself announced a few days ago that he was forced to ban the showing of his author's performances at Taganka due to their deteriorating quality. And in the playbill of the theater only for March, there are several legendary performances of the director, which he staged decades ago: "The Good Man from Cezuan", "The Master and Margarita", "Tartuffe". Then Vysotsky, Demidova, Smekhov, Zolotukhin played in them.
The founder of Taganka, Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov, decided to leave the theater in July 2011 after a conflict with the troupe. Valery Zolotukhin became the new director and artistic director, but recently, due to health reasons, he was forced to resign. Vladimir Fleisher became the director, but the question of appointing the artistic director of the Taganka Theater has not yet been considered.
"If you want to build your own theater, then it should be called differently. It should no longer be the Taganka Theater. And if we remain the Taganka Theater with a living creator and this creator cannot even enter this theater - this is blasphemy", - said actor Dmitry Vysotsky.
At the end of the press conference, the organizers contacted Yuri Lyubimov himself to find out his opinion about a possible return.
"This issue will be decided on the 29th. And apparently, the Minister of Moscow will take this into account, I hope. This is your official statement," he said.
The meeting of Yuri Lyubimov with the head of the Department of Culture of Moscow, Sergei Kapkov, may put an end to this issue.
Many facets of the 20th century fit in one person. His father-in-law was the legendary commander Vasily Chapaev, he worked with Yuri Lyubimov and Vladimir Vysotsky. His first film role was cut short by the bombing on June 22, 1941. He is almost 95, and he drives up to 200 kilometers a day on his Zhiguli
son of exiles
I am the son of exiles, my father was exiled from Ukraine to the Arkhangelsk region. The Donetsk region needed a forest, and the party decided everything very simply, 18 carts were packed full of young peasants and sent to the North. Fall down the forest. My father was pushed into one of the carriages, he just got under the arm.
You know, approaching 95 years of my earthly existence, I came to the unshakable conclusion that the source of evil deeds is a person. There is no more imperfect creature on Earth than man, and I am sure that there will not be.
My father miraculously returned alive to Donetsk, the peasants made him a niche in the car with timber, as narrow as a hole, gave him several bottles of water and some crackers. So he was in this wooden crypt for 10 days and went home.
We lived simply prohibitively harshly, someone "knocked" that the father was an enemy of the people, and our family had to flee to Taganrog, the fact that we survived, I consider it a real miracle. But even in such an atmosphere of general fear, I was always drawn to acting, I read a lot, I was never shy of the public. I went to a theater group, I was praised for the role of a boy in the play "Borodino".
After one of the performances, the director of the city theater approached me and unexpectedly offered me the role of Damis in the play "Tartuffe" by Molière. The success was amazing, then the viewer immensely believed everything on the stage. In the auditorium, tantrums were almost a common occurrence.
Director Yuri Alexandrovich Zavadsky came to us in Taganrog, he worked in Rostov-on-Don, he had a simply wonderful theater. Vera Maretskaya, Rostislav Plyatt, Nikolai Mordvinov played there. So, Zavadsky watched one of our performances and unexpectedly said to me: "Young man, would you like to learn to be an artist?" I remember that I only managed to breathe out that this is the biggest dream of my life.
Telegram from Dovzhenko
That year, there were 300 people who wanted to enter the Rostov Theater School for a course with Zavadsky. I was enrolled, and for housing we were rented rooms in the private sector. It so happened that Seryozha Bondarchuk and I lived in the same room.
I remember he came up to me and said: "Oh, great art, let's unite with you in one room. You are an artist of the Taganrog Theater, and I am an artist of the Yeisk Theater." Thus began our student friendship.
Bondarchuk smoked, but there were not enough cigarettes, or rather, there was not enough money for them. He could tell me: "Mykola, let's go for a walk." And we called it "walking" - to go to the bus stop and collect bulls that someone did not finish smoking. We collected them, came home, he peeled it all, warmed it up on the stove and twisted the cigarettes. Then he smoked.
That's how life was, that's how we were. And our relationship with Bondarchuk was divorced by life: somewhere at the end of March, two relatively young people came to us, took a closer look at me, took a few photographs and left. A week later I receive a telegram: “I ask you to urgently come to audition for the role of Andrei in the film Taras Bulba.” Signed by Alexander Dovzhenko.
On the same day, our friendship with Sergei Bondarchuk ended, as you understand, not on my initiative. This is not holy art. Alas...
The picture was filmed in Kyiv, flew in by plane, they put me in a chic hotel and told me to rest until tomorrow. I was completely blown away by everything. Then they cut me "under the pot", and soon the shooting began.
The song cured
I met the war in Kyiv, on the set of this picture. I remember early in the morning I heard a noise, a scream, shots. I opened the door to the balcony, I see how a plane with crosses on its side flies on such a low-level flight. A sleepy military man came out onto the neighboring balcony.
I ask: what is it? "The maneuvers of the Kyiv military district, close to the combat situation," he replies. And literally after these words, bombs flew on sleeping Kyiv ...
I went to the Kiev military enlistment office and asked to go to the front. “Where were you born?” they ask. He replied that he was in the village. He asked to join the cavalry, they say, he acted in films for a month and was trained in horse riding.
The horse saved my life in 1942 on the Bryansk front. Not far from the famous Bezhin Lug, we came under mortar fire, and one of the mines exploded under the croup of my horse Cavalier, he, the poor fellow, died, and I was wounded, but alive.
There was also a shell shock, I could not speak for a long time, I almost did not hear anything. He was treated in one of the hospitals in Moscow, but the hearing did not return. The doctors allowed me to walk, and somehow I made my way to Red Square. Suddenly a song burst out: "Get up, huge country, get up for a mortal battle ..."
And a miracle! I heard it, I got goosebumps. That's how my hearing came back. Isn't it a miracle? For me, the most brilliant works of the Great Patriotic War remain the song "Holy War" and Alexander Tvardovsky's poem "I was killed near Rzhev" ...
Work for Lyubimov
I worked at the Stanislavsky Theater. The troupe included front-line artists. Petr Glebov, Arkady Kruglyak, Lev Elagin, the atmosphere was very creative. Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov could read poetry for hours.
In general, my generation is a generation with a zero component of cynicism and commercialism. How do you think I got to the Taganka Theater? And then the Vaganov movement was very popular: people of art voluntarily went to the most difficult areas of work. I asked to work in "the worst theater in Moscow." Then the Drama and Comedy Theater on Taganka was simply torn apart by intrigues, squabbles and troubles. That's how in September 1963 I got into this theater. At the first meeting, I honestly told the troupe that I did not consider myself a good artist, but I would try to be a director. He promised to work honestly. And he kept his word.
Yuri Lyubimov? It was I who persuaded him to come to work at the Taganka Theater. I remember I really liked one of his performances. We met on a visit, on neutral territory. Yuri Petrovich came with actress Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, she was then his wife. We got talking. Lyubimov was called to Dubna, they promised housing there. I tell him that Dubna is almost 100 kilometers from Moscow, and the Kremlin is visible from the roof of our theater. In short, he agreed.
It was also necessary to convince the cultural and party authorities of Moscow. And it decided. Together with Lyubimov, a new degree of creativity and new performances came to the theater. Theatrical Moscow spoke about Lyubimov's performances. And not only Moscow...
Many of his productions had to be scratched out of the clutches of the censors, literally fighting for every scene and line. Lyubimov immediately rushed into the conflict, and I convinced, negotiated. This balance saved our common cause.
Lyubimov categorically did not want to hire Volodya Vysotsky: "Well, why do we need another alcoholic?"... And Vysotsky was recommended to me by his classmate, Taya Dodina. She said he was very talented.
Taya, - I tell her, - well, where will I take him? We have 50 people on staff, but actually 75!
She found words that touched me, and I invited Vysotsky to audition. He came, showed Chelkash, the hero of Gorky. It doesn't seem like much. Then Vysotsky takes the guitar and sings three songs. Lyubimov asks whose words these are. Volodya replied that it was him. That's where they parted...
I convinced Lyubimov to take him for three months, and then we'll see. Then we worked on "A Hero of Our Time", for the anniversary of Lermontov. Vysotsky was given a tiny role of a staff captain with one remark: "Nature is a fool, fate is a turkey, and life is a penny. Well, you are a fool, brother." He did everything brilliantly. And stayed in the theatre.
Vysotsky the demon did not let go
Volodya was an infinitely kind and reliable person, he always came to the rescue. How he helped me, the director, in endless construction and repairs is beyond words. One of his concerts opened dozens of doors ... Lord, we didn’t have anything with Vysotsky.
The next congress of the party. The theater receives delegations of communists from twenty-three countries of the world. Before the performance, my assistant comes running and says: "Vysotsky is not standing on his feet" ... God! I ran to the dressing room to Vysotsky, but he does not knit a bast. "Nikolai Lukyanovich, I'm sorry"... I slapped him on the back of the head like a kid: "Have you lost your mind?! The Politburo is in the hall!" In response - mooing.
I tell him: now we are going on stage - your task is just to stand with your head down. I'll do the rest. I will say that, unfortunately, the performance cannot take place: the artist Vysotsky has lost his voice. Make apologetic gestures, just don't fall off the stage. So they did. I promised to show the performance in three days (during this time, the voice promises to return to the artist Vysotsky). The hall stood up and deafened us with applause. None of the tickets were returned! After that, I put him in the car and sent him to the doctors I knew, who pulled him out more than once. Three days later the hall was full, and Vysotsky played brilliantly.
There were often tantrums with other theater artists: why did Vysotsky get away with everything ?! To be honest, sometimes I did not know what to answer. I remember, on tour in Leningrad, when another binge happened to Vysotsky, the troupe almost unanimously voted for his dismissal from the theater.
He could come up to me and say: "Nikolai Lukyanovich, let me go for three days. I need to fly to Magadan, gold miners pay 10 thousand for a concert." How could I not let him go? The car "Volga" was cheaper than he was paid for one performance! He returned, went to the commission, bought Marina Vladi a pendant for 6 thousand, and at the same time was absolutely happy. I, too, was happy from the realization that I had something to do with his peasant joy. And it pissed off a lot of people.
Here on tour in Poland - Vysotsky says that he cannot come. We learned that he was with Marina in France, at the Cannes Film Festival. There is a riot in the troupe!
"Hamlet" is announced, but there is no one to play. What to do? We introduce Valery Zolotukhin to the role of Hamlet - he played brilliantly. And Vysotsky immediately went to the next performance. This replacement had a very good effect on him ... Volodya perfectly understood that he was ill. But there are things absolutely diabolical, no medicine will help. He cried, fought, - the demon did not let him go.
After another incident with Vysotsky, Yuri Lyubimov threw me a huge scandal, shouting that I allow myself a lot, that he wants to finally take power into his own hands. To which I replied: "Yuri Petrovich, I have the honor." And left. Exactly a year they called me, offered help in finding a job. I answered that, as a war invalid, I had a good pension. I also drive a car, I can work as a taxi driver.
Finally, they persuaded me to become the director of the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. A very talented team gathered there: Alexey Petrenko, Oleg Dal, Elena Koreneva...
Vysotsky, of course, was loved. But the passions around were seething - not only like here, on the stage. Behind the scenes... Photo: RIA News
What is Chekhov wrong about?
Why did I return to the Taganka Theater again? Lyubimov! Lyubimov... He persuaded me to meet at the church on Frunzenskaya Embankment. Both drove up in cars. They stopped opposite each other. I think - the first will not come out categorically. I look, Lyubimov is leaving. I go out, say hello, and he says how they disorganized him, how they told him there about me ...
I returned only because I had an idea to build a theater complex there, a kind of stage Mecca, if you like ... According to my plan, an international theater school was to appear there, which would be led by Lyubimov and his students. But the school failed. And not my fault.
In our Taganka, serious and destructive passions were in full swing. Why destructive? At the bottom and core of all passions lay ambition...
Why did Alexander Kalyagin leave the theater? I appointed him to the role of Hamlet, and Lyubimov - on his hind legs! None. He invited a French actor for this role. And the theater lost Kalyagin. But Sasha built his theater.
You know, I don't agree with Chekhov: remember his famous saying that actors are sons of bitches? So, the most flawed people are artists. The hardest thing is to be an artist. An artist is such a profession, he is ready to sell anyone for applause. Condemn them? This is a terrible, little-understood state of the actor's essence. I think that Anton Pavlovich, although he was a genius, could not understand this.
On whose side was the truth in Lyubimov's conflict with the actors? Of course, on the side of the actors.
You see, Yuri Petrovich was given the Order of the Red Banner of Labor - after he was deprived of citizenship of the USSR. Give the winner. Who worked hard? How did you get on with overseas tours? To go to Bulgaria, the daughter of the then leader, Lyudmila Zhivkova, helped. Who knocked on those doors? Dupak!
Lyubimov did not understand many things, he shied away from them. Lyudmila Tselikovskaya told me: “Nikolai Lukyanovich, what are you explaining to him, he’s a fitter. When he doesn’t agree with me at home, I take off my shoe - and his shoes. Only then does he understand ...”
I immensely appreciate the contribution of Yuri Petrovich to the theatrical business in Russia, but I will never be able to understand how he could expel artists from the theater! The theater was created by actors, not Lyubimov. He didn't want to understand it.
When he died, on the day of farewell, I canceled my creative evening and went to say goodbye to Yuri Petrovich. He approached his last wife, began to speak words of sympathy - and she defiantly got up and walked away. I was simply dumbfounded... The friend said: "Well, you're a fool, brother Mykola. Why did you come up? Hoping to get through?"...
The main reason for my resignation from the post of director of the theater was the growing "grabbing" movements of Yuri Petrovich. It was hard to leave, like leaving my child. He gathered his front-line friends, drank a glass, asked them for advice. They said: "Kolya, go away ..."
From bandits to a psychiatric hospital
After that, I began to work on the Taganka Cultural Center and supervised the construction. We built the House of Artists in the center of Moscow, there were 10 apartments according to the project, creative workshops, a good hall with acoustics.
Bandits started coming to me. They spoke in plain text: give up the construction site or we will finish you off. They put the gun on the table and looked into my eyes. I told them: "Snots, get out of here. I was wounded three times at the front - do you think you will scare me with your gun?" But the pressure was so crazy that I had to leave Moscow immediately. Zhenya said that he was called to the shooting. He punished his deputy not to sign a single paper without me. But ... she was paid a decent amount - and she signed everything. I'm coming back, and there's such a mess...
My friends rushed me to a closed psychiatric hospital under an assumed name. They hid for two weeks. During this time, my deputy, who signed the papers for the bandits, went to another world: that is, she was helped to go there ...
Deep down I'm a lyricist
You can be friends with women without any "shur-mur". I had two of these. Olga Vasilievna Lepeshinskaya and Natalya Yurievna Durova.
I have known Olga Vasilievna since 1936, she is not only a brilliant ballerina, but a brilliant friend. I could call: "Nikolai Lukyanovich, stop by, read something to me." I stopped by, drank tea, read poetry, and Lepeshinskaya cried ...
He was a close friend of Natalya Yurievna Durova. She was a saint, tigers and lions crawled like kittens at her feet. I always said that the most terrible animal is man.
And my first wife was Vera Vasilievna Chapaeva, the daughter of the legendary division commander. She did not remember her father, but his spirit hovered in our family all the time. It was not easy to live with this spirit, and I left with one suitcase to meet a new love ... Raisa Mikhailovna worked as a simple waitress in our theater. We had crazy love and complete mutual understanding ...
Now I am a widower, I live alone, I still drive a car. Today I have clocked 120 kilometers - and I still need to go to two places. I live on full autonomy, my daughter is in the next entrance, she often comes and visits, but I still do it myself.
I understand that the arrow of the life compass is approaching the border of a "better world".
My beloved people have gone to that world, my wonderful granddaughter Nastya has already left. In the church I lost consciousness, and my girl was gone.
It often happens that I wake up at night and conduct internal dialogues with my departed.
No, I'm not crazy. I just have a lyric soul. Although life is a continuous prose.
Help "RG"
Nikolai Dupak, born in 1921. Group II invalid of the Great Patriotic War. For 25 years he was the director of the Taganka Theater.
He starred in 30 films, including "Love with Privileges", "Bumbarash", "The Only One". Honored Artist of Russia and Ukraine.
THEATER ON TAGANKA, The Moscow Taganka Theater was created in 1964 on the basis of the troupe of the Moscow Drama and Comedy Theater (organized in 1946), which included graduates of the Theater School. Schukin. Main directors: Yu.P. Lyubimov (1964–1984), A.V. Efros (1984–1987), N.N. Gubenko (1987–1989), Yu.P. Lyubimov (since 1989). Each of these names is associated with its own, stormy and dramatic period in the history of the theater.
The early 1960s were the time of the reformation of the Soviet theater. A new aesthetics was affirmed, the names of young directors O. Efremov, A. Efros, in Leningrad - G. Tovstonogov thundered. Theater, along with poetry, became the main art of the Khrushchev thaw period, a herald of new ideas, a stronghold of the liberal intelligentsia.
In 1963, the third year of the Shchukin School under the direction of Y. Lyubimov showed the play Good man from Sezuan B. Brecht. The aesthetics of the performance were sharply out of the directions that existed at that time; she proclaimed a vivid theatricality, the fundamental absence of a "fourth wall", a multiplicity, even redundancy of stage techniques, surprisingly fusing the spectacle into a single wholeness. It clearly felt the revival of the theatrical traditions of the dynamic 1920s, directed by V.E. Meyerhold and E. Vakhtangov. Y. Lyubimov was asked to head the Moscow Drama and Comedy Theater, and he reorganized its troupe from the graduates of his course.
Preparations for the opening of the renovated theater lasted for about a year. His sign was the portraits placed in the foyer of the theater: V. Meyerhold, E. Vakhtangov, B. Brecht, K. Stanislavsky. They continue to decorate the foyer of the theatre.
The Drama and Comedy Theater on Taganka opened on April 23, 1964 with a performance Good man from Sezuan. However, his cast was already somewhat different. Y. Lyubimov carefully formed the troupe of the theater, recruiting actors who were close to him in terms of aesthetic principles, ready to improve their technique, master new techniques and ways of stage existence. Probably, the main achievement of the first Tagankov performance is the impossibility of dividing the participants into “us” and “outsiders”: they all spoke the same language, preserving the unity of the performance’s aesthetics and enriching it with their personal and acting experience.
Thus began the first stage of life, probably, the most "loud" Moscow theater - the Taganka Theater. Here, the principles of the “sixties” were maximally reflected, about which B. Okudzhava sang: “Let's join hands, friends, so as not to disappear one by one ...” Lyubimov united writers and poets close to him in spirit in the production groups of his performances (A. Voznesensky, B .Mozhaev, F.Abramov, Yu.Trifonov), theater artists (B.Blank, D.Borovsky, E.Stenberg, Yu.Vasiliev, E.Kochergin, S.Barkhin, M.Anikst), composers (D.Shostakovich, A. Schnittke, E. Denisov, S. Gubaidulina, N. Sidelnikov). The artistic council of the theater became a special phenomenon, each of whose members had significant professional and public authority and was ready to defend Taganka's performances in the "highest" offices.
The main creative direction of Taganka was the poetic theater, but not chamber, but journalistic poetry. In a certain sense, this direction was “doomed to success”: it was the poets-publicists who gathered full stadiums of spectators and listeners in the late 1960s and became the idols of their contemporaries. It is no coincidence that two performances based on the works of A. Voznesensky were included in the repertoire of the theater - Antiworlds And Take care of your faces(the second of them was banned shortly after the premiere, which only added to the performance's popularity). Poetry performances were the mirror of the artistic program of the theater Fallen and alive, Listen, Pugachev etc. However, the spirit of free and socially significant poetry dominated in the productions of prose or dramatic works, a vivid stage metaphor full of modern allusions. So it was with performances Ten Days That Shook the World, And the Dawns Here Are Quiet, Hamlet, Wooden Horses, Exchange, Master and Margarita, House on the Embankment and etc.
The Taganka Theater gave rise to the huge popularity of its actors. Many of them began to act in films a lot (V. Zolotukhin, L. Filatov, I. Bortnik, S. Farada, A. Demidova, I. Ulyanova, etc.). However, the names of those Taganka artists whose cinematic life was less successful also became legendary. The clearest example is Z. Slavina, who practically does not have high-profile roles in the cinema, but, undoubtedly, was a star of the first magnitude in those years. And, of course, V. Vysotsky, whose fame was absolute, and as "scandalous" as the glory of the entire Taganka theater. The acting work of the theater amazed not only with its journalistic temperament and unusual way of stage existence, but also with the unique plastic development of images. So, for example, the famous Khlopushi monologue in the play based on S. Yesenin Pugachev V. Vysotsky performed, it seemed, beyond the physical capabilities of a person.
Y. Lyubimov's performances have always been, undoubtedly, the author's, and are distinguished by an extremely interesting work with the text. The author of many compositions was the then wife of Lyubimov, an actress of the Vakhtangov Theater, L. Tselikovskaya ( And the dawns here are quiet, Wooden horses, Comrade, believe... and etc.).
By the end of the 1970s, the Taganka Theater was becoming world famous. At the International Theater Festival "BITEF" in Yugoslavia (1976), the play "Hamlet" staged by Y. Lyubimov with V. Vysotsky in the title role was awarded the Grand Prix. Y. Lyubimov also received the first prize at the II International Theater Festival "Warsaw Theater Meetings" (1980). Many aesthetic techniques of the Taganka Theater have become truly innovative and have become classics of the modern theater (light curtain, etc.). D.Borovsky, one of the best set designers of our time, a permanent artist of the theater, made a huge contribution to the development of the visual image of the performances.
However, along with the artistic, the public, social authority of the Taganka Theater of that time is of particular interest. With each performance, his political sound became more acute and frank. Contradictory and ambiguous relations have developed between the theater and the official authorities. On the one hand, Y. Lyubimov took the position of an "official dissident": almost every performance of his made its way to the audience with difficulty, under serious pressure and being under the threat of a ban. At the same time, by 1980, the authorities built a new building for the Taganka Theater with modern technical equipment. Democratic, anti-petty-bourgeois and very complex aesthetic performances of the theater counted among their fans not only the liberal intelligentsia, but also the managerial, bureaucratic elite. In the 1970s, a ticket to the Taganka Theater became a sign of prestige among the so-called. "bourgeois" layer - along with a sheepskin coat, branded jeans, a car, a cooperative apartment.
This stage in the life of the theater was accompanied by loud scandals; even before the release of his performances were included in the context of the artistic life of Moscow. This state of affairs could not last long. In a certain sense, the death of V. Vysotsky in 1980 became a sign that marked the end of this stage in the life of the theater. In the same year, at the invitation of Y. Lyubimov, N. Gubenko returned to the Taganka Theater.
In the early 1980s the play Vladimir Vysotsky, dedicated to the memory of the poet and artist Lyubimov, was strictly forbidden to be shown. The next performance was also closed, Boris Godunov as well as rehearsals Theatrical novel. And in 1984, while Y. Lyubimov was in England staging a play Crime and Punishment, he was dismissed from the post of artistic director of the Taganka Theater and deprived of Soviet citizenship.
The staff of the Taganka Theater was completely at a loss. And at this time, the authorities are making a very strong political move, leading the theater to zugzwang, to a situation where under no circumstances could it win: A. Efros is appointed the main director. The creative individuality of A. Efros was very different, if not contradictory, to that of Y. Lyubimov. True, back in 1975, Lyubimov invited A. Efros to the Taganka Theater to stage cherry orchard. Then it was undoubtedly a step of solidarity with the disgraced director; and a one-time work of actors with a representative of a different aesthetic trend was regarded as enriching the creative palette of the team. But in 1984, a change in artistic direction would have meant a radical change in the entire aesthetic platform of the theater. However, the reasons for the deep conflict between Taganka and Efros in the mid-1980s were undoubtedly not creative, but social and moral: the main principle of the “sixties” was violated - unity.
Lyubimov himself regarded the arrival of A. Efros at Taganka as a strike-breaking and a violation of corporate solidarity. Some of the artists, joining his opinion, defiantly left the troupe (for example, L. Filatov). Few were capable of creative cooperation - V. Zolotukhin, V. Smekhov, A. Demidova. Most of the "Lubimov" artists actually announced a boycott to Efros. There were no right and wrong in this conflict: everyone was right; and they all lost too. A. Efros restored in the Taganka Theater The Cherry Orchard, put At the bottom, Misanthrope, Perfect Sunday for a picnic. And in 1987 A. Efros died.
N. Gubenko became the artistic director of the Taganka Theater at the request of the collective. He also led the two-year struggle for returning to his homeland and to the theater of Y. Lyubimov. In 1989, Yu. Lyubimov became the first known emigrant to whom citizenship was returned. His name was officially returned to the context of the artistic life of Russia; previously banned performances have been restored. However, the "return to normal" did not work. Y. Lyubimov could not devote as much time to the Taganka Theater as before - he was forced to combine work with productions under already concluded foreign contracts. The existence of the actors was also complicated by the then social upheavals associated with hyperinflation and a change in the political formation. The theater was once again divided. This time the conflict was growing with Y. Lyubimov.
In 1993, a significant part of the Taganka team (including 36 actors) separated into a separate theater under the direction of N. Gubenko. "Commonwealth of Taganka Actors" is working on the new theater stage. Y. Lyubimov, with the remaining and newly recruited actors, works in the old building. Among them are such "veterans" of Taganka as V. Zolotukhin, V. Shapovalov, B. Khmelnitsky, A. Trofimov, A. Grabbe, I. Bortnik and others.
Since 1997, Yu. Lyubimov has refused foreign contracts, having decided to devote himself entirely to the Taganka Theater again. After his return, he staged a number of classical performances: Feast in Time of Plague A.S. Pushkin, Suicide N. Erdman, Elektra Sophocles Zhivago (Doctor) B. Pasternak, Medea Euripides, Teenager F.M. Dostoevsky, Chronicles W. Shakespeare, Eugene Onegin A.S. Pushkin, theatrical romance M. Bulgakov, Faust I.V. Goethe. The repertoire also includes contemporary works: Marat and the Marquis de Sade P. Weiss, Sharashka according to A. Solzhenitsyn and others. The Taganka Theater is popular with the audience, however, this is undoubtedly a completely different theater.
In December 2010, Lyubimov resigned. The reason for his departure was a conflict with the troupe.
In July 2011, Valery Zolotukhin became the theater director and artistic director. In March 2013, Zolotukhin left the post due to health reasons.
The history of the theater began in 1911, when the electric theater of silent films "Vulkan" was opened on Taganka. Until 1964, at various times there were a branch of the Maly Theater, the Safonov Theater, the Moscow Comedy and Drama Theater.
In 1964, Yuri Lyubimov, a reformer of the Russian theater, was appointed chief director.
Yuri Petrovich updated the troupe and brought in young actors: Vladimir Vysotsky, Valery Zolotukhin, Alla Demidova, Leonid Filatov, Ivan Bortnik and other future famousx artists. Performances by Lyubimovmade Taganka one of the main theaters of the country, a "sip of freedom" for Soviet citizens.Some of them, including"The Good Man from Sezuan", "The Master and Margarita" and "Tartuffe" are in the repertoire to this day.
In 1984, Yuri Lyubimov had to go abroad. Anatoly Efros became the main director. He staged several performances, among which - "The war has no woman's face", "At the bottom" and "Misanthrope". After 5 years, Lyubimov returned to the leadership, but soon a split occurred, and part of the troupe organized a new theater - the Commonwealth of Taganka Actors.
In 2011, Yuri Petrovich left the theater, and Valery Zolotukhin headed the Taganka. Under him, 6 premiere performances were released, some of which - "The Venetian Twins", "Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man" and "No Years" - can be seen on the stage of the theater today.
In 2015, Irina Apeksimova became the director of the theater. The "Rehearsals" laboratory was launched on Taganka - a project thanks to which the troupe got acquainted with the younger generation of directors, and the repertoire was replenished with the performances "The Golden Dragon" by Lera Surkova, "8 (Eight)" by Sergei Chekhov, "The Elder Son" by Denis Bokuradze. In 2018, Maxim Didenko, one of the most sought-after Russian directors, presented a production of Run, Alice, Run based on the verses of Vladimir Vysotsky, and Alexei Frandetti’s immersive musical Sweeney Todd, the Maniac Barber of Fleet Street received three Golden Masks - the first in the history of the theater.
