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Shock as Bolshoi cancels world premiere of Nureyev ballet Shock as Bolshoi cancels world premiere of Nureyev ballet
(about 17 hours later)
Russia’s Bolshoi theatre has announced the cancellation of next week’s world premiere of a ballet about Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev, staged by an outspoken director who has been questioned in a high-profile criminal investigation. Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre has shocked the ballet world by cancelling the premiere of a biographical show about the dancer Rudolf Nureyev at the last minute.
Nureyev was set to premiere at the Bolshoi on Tuesday in one of the most hotly anticipated stagings of the season. But in a move that has shocked the ballet world, the theatre said the show has been indefinitely postponed. No official reason was given for the sudden cancellation but it is rumoured that the production’s frank portrayal of Nureyev’s homosexuality could have been deemed inappropriate for the Bolshoi’s main stage.
The ballet is based on the life story of Nureyev, the superstar dancer who defected from the Soviet Union and found new fame in the west before dying from an Aids-related illness in 1993 at age 53. The Bolshoi is famous as much for extraordinary behind-the-scenes intrigue as it is for the world-class ballet and opera on stage. The last-minute cancellation of the most eagerly awaited premiere of the season is a fresh scandal for the theatre.
The performance is being staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, a theatre and film director who recently was questioned and had his home searched in an investigation into alleged embezzlement of state funding for the arts. Critics and theatre directors from across the world had been invited to Tuesday’s premiere but on Saturday the Bolshoi announced that all performances of Nureyev would be replaced with an old favourite, the ballet Don Quixote. No official reason was given and the Bolshoi’s spokeswoman, Katerina Novikova, declined to comment. The theatre said it would hold a briefing on Monday to explain the decision.
One of Russia’s most innovative and successful directors, Serebrennikov has previously staged a ballet based on Mikhail Lermontov’s Hero of Our Time at the Bolshoi. A video was posted online of the theatre’s general director, Vladimir Urin, telling the troupe that the ballet was pulled as it was “not ready”. However a number of artists disputed this and footage posted on Facebook showed sustained applause from those present at Friday’s dress rehearsal, mainly theatre insiders.
Serebrennikov has fallen out of favour with Russia’s cultural authorities in recent years and has denounced increasing censorship of the arts. Supporters of Mr Serebrennikov reportedly said his questioning was politically motivated. “The strangest thing here is how close Nureyev came to a premiere. Why wasn’t it postponed earlier?” asked Simon Morrison, a music historian at Princeton University who has recently written a history of the Bolshoi. He said “the frisson of intrigue, political or otherwise” has become part of the Bolshoi brand over the years, adding that he expected the production to make it to the stage eventually.
The Bolshoi said the dress rehearsal scheduled for Nureyev on Monday had been cancelled and the premiere set for Tuesday has been “postponed to a later date” which was not specified. “The dancers are understandably apoplectic. But this is an expensive show with a new score and I personally can’t see it all going to waste,” said Morrison. However, any future performances are not likely to happen soon. A spokesman for the theatre said the production would appear “no earlier” than the 2018-19 season, as next season is already fully timetabled.
Serebrennikov did not answer his phone on Saturday afternoon. Nureyev, regarded as one of the greatest ballet dancers in history, began his career at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg but defected to the west in 1961. He died from an Aids-related illness in 1993 at age 53. The ballet, a new work composed by Ilya Demutsky and choreographed by Yuri Possokhov, tells the story of the dancer’s life.
The theatre’s management was set to give a press conference on Monday on the reasons for the show’s postponement. Much about the content of the ballet had been kept secret and the final dress rehearsal on Friday was shrouded in secrecy. Sources inside the theatre said the production did deal explicitly with Nureyev’s sexuality.
The details of Serebrennikov’s production had been kept tightly under wraps, with even the name of the dancer performing the main role a secret, Tatiana Kuznetsova, ballet critic for the Kommersant newspaper, wrote Saturday. Homophobia is widespread in Russia and the country has a law banning “homosexual propaganda among minors,” essentially making public displays of gay affection illegal. Earlier this season a touring production of Written on Skin, a contemporary opera by the British composer George Benjamin, featured a brief gay kiss – but that was on the Bolshoi’s new stage, not the hallowed main stage which is usually reserved for traditional productions.
She also reported on rumours that the production includes male dancers in dresses as well as portrayals of public personalities who are still alive. The director of Nureyev was Kirill Serebrennikov, a theatre and film director who has earned a reputation for edgy stagings that run against the conservative line promoted by the Kremlin and culture ministry. He has become increasingly critical of government censorship in the arts and was recently detained and questioned by Russian security services, allegedly over the embezzlement of government funding. Most in the arts world believe the case to be politically motivated.
She called it “the main event of the ballet season in Russia, and possibly in the world”, with critics from all over the world set to attend the premiere. Serebrennikov had already staged a ballet adaptation of Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time at the Bolshoi, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel, which he transformed into a biting satire on Kremlin politics. Serebrennikov has not made any public comment on the decision to postpone the ballet.
In May Serebrennikov’s flat and the state-funded Gogol Centre theatre he heads in Moscow were raided by investigators in a probe into alleged fraud over state funding for arts. The Bolshoi has been mired in scandal over the years and the ballet troupe has earned a reputation as a hotbed of intrigue and rivalries. This came to the fore most dramatically when one of the dancers was convicted of ordering an acid attack on the ballet’s artistic director, Sergei Filin. Pavel Dmitrichenko was jailed for six years in 2013 for organising the attack – which left Filin’s sight damaged – but was released on parole last year.
Serebrennikov himself was questioned as a witness, while the accountant and a former director of a company he founded were arrested.
Serebrennikov’s supporters called the raid a politically motivated attack on the independence of the arts, and the Bolshoi general director Vladimir Urin wrote to President Vladimir Putin to complain about the handling of the investigation.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report