The first director of the Taganka Theatre. Favorite Theater of Lyubimov: the history of the Taganka Theater

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.

The Taganka Theater was founded in 1946. But his real story begins almost two decades later, when Yuri Lyubimov took over as chief director. He came with his graduation performance, which caused a resonance from the very first show. on Taganka, involved in the productions of Lyubimov in subsequent years, became known throughout the country. Among them are Vladimir Vysotsky, Valery Zolotukhin, Leonid Yarmolnik.

Short story

The theater was founded a year after the end of the war. Then it was called differently. The first production at the Drama and Comedy Theater, the main director of which was A. Plotnikov, was a play based on the work of the writer Vasily Grossman.

Yuri Lyubimov, who took Plotnikov's place in 1964, came to the theater with his students. The first performance of the new director was The Kind Man from Sichuan. The leading actors of the Taganka Theater at that time were Boris Khmelnitsky, Anatoly Vasiliev, Alla Demidova.

Lyubimov regularly updated the troupe. He gave preference to graduates of the Shchukin school. So, in the mid-sixties, Vladimir Vysotsky, Nikolai Gubenko, Valery Zolotukhin came to the theater. A few years later, the director invited Ivan Bortnik, Leonid Filatov, Vitaly Shaposhnikov to the troupe.

heyday

The Taganka Theater soon became known throughout the country as the most avant-garde. Lyubimov almost never uses scenery. His productions cause incessant controversy among critics. Actors of the Taganka Theater become real stars. In the sixties and seventies, every Soviet intelligent person dreams of getting into Lyubimov's productions.

In the eighties, Yuri Lyubimov went abroad. During this period, the popularity of the theater falls. Nikolai Gubenko becomes the leader. Then, after the return of Lyubimov from exile, the theater undergoes a reorganization. For several years, the position of artistic director has been occupied by Valery Zolotukhin.

Today, the actors of the Taganka Theater are Dmitry Vysotsky, Anastasia Kolpikova, Ivan Bortnik and others.

Vladimir Vysotsky

The theater has gone through different times. The composition of the troupe was constantly updated. But the name of this actor, even more than thirty years after his death, is forever associated with him.

Vladimir Vysotsky has been an actor at the Taganka Theater since 1964. He was involved in sixteen years of work in fourteen productions. In a few of them - in the lead role. However, the theater is partly obliged to Vysotsky for such a loud glory that swept throughout the Soviet Union. Millions dreamed of getting into the production of Hamlet. However, not even every inhabitant of the capital managed to purchase the coveted ticket.

For the first time, Vladimir Vysotsky appeared on stage as the Second God in the production of The Good Man from Sichuan. Then there were works in such performances as "Anti-Worlds", "Ten Days That Shook the World", "The Fallen and the Living". In 1966, the premiere of "The Life of Heliley" took place. In this production, Vysotsky played the main role.

"Hamlet"

Actors of the Taganka Theater, who played in the production based on Shakespeare's work:

1. Vladimir Vysotsky.
2. Veniamin Smekhov.
3. Alla Demidova.
4. Natalya Sayko.
5. Ivan Bortnik.
6. Alexander Filippenko.

The play premiered in 1971. The production received many positive reviews, despite the fact that it was innovative for the Soviet theater scene. In addition, it was easy to consider criticism of the authorities that existed at that time. The role of Hamlet for Vysotsky became, according to many, the pinnacle of his acting skills. At the same time, some modern critics believe that the actor succeeded in this role, with the exception of the famous monologue "To be or not to be", the key to the plot. Vysotsky, according to professionals, could not play a doubt. This actor could only "be".

"Crime and Punishment"

The play premiered in 1979. Raskolnikov was played by Alexander Trofimov. Boris Khmelnitsky took the stage as Razumikhin. The Taganka Theater was the most visited in Moscow. And the production based on the work of Dostoevsky aroused no less public interest than the performances of Hamlet and The Life of Galileo. A year and a half after the premiere, the performer of the role of Svidrigailov passed away. On July 25, 1980, the Taganka Theater, whose playbill was known to all the capital's theater-goers for the next few days, was closed to the audience: Vladimir Vysotsky died. The performances were canceled, but not a single person returned the ticket to the box office.

Valery Zolotukhin

This actor played more than twenty roles in the Taganka Theater. Including in the play "Vladimir Vysotsky", which premiered in 1981. Actors of the Taganka Theater involved in this production:

1. Ekaterina Varkova.
2. Alexey Grabbe.
3. Anastasia Kolpikova.
4. Anatoly Vasiliev.
5. Tatiana Sidorenko.
6. Sergei Trifonov.

In 2011, Zolotukhin was appointed director of the theater. This event was preceded by a scandal caused by disagreements between Lyubimov and the actors. Two years later, Zolotukhin left the post of director. At the end of March 2013, the actor and director passed away.

Anatoly Vasiliev

This actor came to the theater in 1964. He acted in films a little, but was involved in most of Lyubimov's productions. Anatoly Vasiliev is an actor of the Taganka Theater, who devoted more than fifty years to it. The last production in which he played was a play based on Kafka's phantasmagorical work "The Castle".

Other actors

Leonid Yarmolnik worked at the Taganka Theater for several years. He was involved in only a few performances. Among them are Rush Hour, The Master and Margarita, The Fallen and the Living.

Vitaly Shaposhnikov has been an actor at the Taganka Theater since 1968. In 1985 he moved to Sovremennik. But two years later he returned to the walls of his native theater. Shaposhnikov played foreman Vaskov in the production of "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", the main role in the play "Emelyan Pugachev". After the death of Vysotsky, the actor went on stage in the role of the scoundrel Svidrigailov. Also, Vitaly Shaposhnikov was involved in the performances "Tartuffe", "Mother", "Fasten your seat belts."

Boris Khmelnitsky played Woland in a production based on Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. He also has theatrical works in such performances as "The Life of Galileo Galilei", "Pugachev", "Three Sisters".

Dmitry Vysotsky has been an actor at the Taganka Theater since 2001. Involved in the following performances:

1. "Venetian Twins"
2. "Woe from Wit".
3. "Eugene Onegin".
4. "The Master and Margarita".
5. "Arabesques".
6. "Lock".

In the performance based on the famous work of Mikhail Bulgakov, Vysotsky plays the main role.

"The Fallen and the Living"

The play premiered in 1965. It is dedicated to the writers and poets who participated in the Second World War. Poetic works by Mayakovsky, Tvardovsky, Svetlov were used in the performance. Mikhail Kulchitsky - a young poet who died at the front in 1943 - played the role of Pavel Kogan - the author of romantic works, who also did not return from the battlefield - was played by Boris Khmelnitsky.

"House on the Embankment"

In 1980, Yuri Lyubimov staged a performance based on the novel by Yuri Trifonov. In those distant Soviet years, this was a rather bold act. Much was known about the Stalinist terror of the thirties, but it was dangerous to talk about these tragic pages in Soviet history so loudly. The premiere of "House on the Embankment" was an exciting event in the cultural life of Moscow. The main roles were played by Valery Zolotukhin and

"Doctor Zhivago"

The premiere of the performance based on the novel, for which the author was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965, took place two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The director managed to preserve the unique poetics of Pasternak. The production used the music of Alfred Schnittke.

Other performances that once went on the stage of the Taganka Theater:

1. "Electra".
2. "Teenager".
3. "Medea".
4. The Brothers Karamazov.
5. "Sharashka".
6. "Socrates".

"The Master and Margarita"

Yuri Lyubimov is the first theater director who brought the plot of a great novel to the stage. The production uses works by composers Prokofiev, Strauss and Albinoni. The performance has been running for more than a quarter of a century. Reviews of the audience about him are different: from negative to enthusiastic. However, Lyubimov's staging style has always evoked mixed responses from the public.

The masters in the performance are played alternately by Dmitry Vysotsky and the role of the protagonist's beloved is played by three actresses: Maria Matveeva, Alla Smirdan, Anastasia Kolpikova. Pontius Pilate is played by Ivan Ryzhikov. Other actors involved in the production:

1. Alexander Trofimov.
2. Nikita Luchikhin.
3. Erwin Haas.
4. Sergei Trifonov.
5. Timur Badalbeyli.
6. Alexander Lyrchikov.

"Viy"

The premiere of the performance based on Gogol's most mystical story took place in October 2016. This production is an unusual combination of texts by the Russian classic and compositions by musician Venya D'rkin, who passed away in 1999. Khoma Bruta is played by Pannochka - Alexandra Basova.

What performances does the Taganka Theater present in 2017?

Poster

1. "Elsa" (January 14).
2. "Venetian Twins" (January 15).
3. "Vladimir Vysotsky" (January 25).
4. "Golden Dragon" (January 26).
5. "Faust" (February 1).
6. "Old, old fairy tale" (February 5).
7. "Master and Margarita" (February 7).
8. "Eugene Onegin" (February 11).

"We want Kibovsky or one of his deputies to listen to us and agree with our arguments. against the appointment now of any artistic director of the theater. Now is not the time for this,” said Felix Antipov, chairman of the artistic council.

ON THIS TOPIC

The troupe motivates its decision by the fact that the theater is to be overhauled and the performances are played on other people's venues. "There won't be any premieres now anyway. The main thing is to make repairs, and there you can think about the artistic side of things", Antipov explained.

Note in early March, actress Irina Apeksimova was appointed the new director of the Taganka Theater, who replaced Vladimir Fleischer in this post. After that, it became known that several employees of the theater wrote a letter to the Department of Culture with a request to appoint Yevgeny Gerasimov, chairman of the Moscow City Duma commission on culture, as artistic director. However, most of the troupe did not support this candidacy, which caused a conflict in the theater.

According to Antipov, in the near future Apeksimova will go to see Kibovsky with a request to postpone the appointment of an artistic director. We add that after the departure of Yuri Lyubimov from the theater in 2011, the director and artistic director was Valery Zolotukhin, who died in 2013. Since then, the theater has no artistic director.

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”, about which B. Okudzhava sang, found their maximum reflection: “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, set 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.