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Bolshoi Director Is Removed After Scandals Latest Twist at Bolshoi: Director Is Pushed Out
(about 7 hours later)
MOSCOW — The general director of the Bolshoi Theater, Anatoly Iksanov, was removed from his post on Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture announced at a news conference at the theater, after a series of public scandals that started in January with a shocking acid attack on the ballet company’s artistic director. MOSCOW — The Ministry of Culture abruptly removed the general director of the Bolshoi Theater on Tuesday in an apparent effort to put an end to the string of scandals there that began in January, when a masked man sneaked up to the ballet’s artistic director and threw acid in his face.
His replacement is Vladimir Urin, the director of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater. Mr. Urin, 66, is credited with rebuilding and expanding Moscow’s second-biggest ballet theater and is considered highly unlikely to prompt controversy. The ousted official, Anatoly Iksanov, who led the Bolshoi, Russia’s most revered theater, for 13 years, looked grim as he sat at a podium during a hastily arranged news conference. The culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, explained the dismissal by saying of Mr. Iksanov, “Human strength and ability, even of the most superlative professionals, has its limits.”
Though many observers had expected Mr. Iksanov to be removed at the end of the season, the announcement came abruptly, days before the much anticipated premiere of “Eugene Onegin,” a ballet choreographed by John Cranko based on the verse-novel by Aleksandr Pushkin. After the acid attack in January, Mr. Iksanov was drawn into a poisonous standoff between factions at the ballet, and many observers expected him to be replaced before his contract ended in 2014. But Tuesday’s announcement was jarring for its timing — in midseason and three days before the much anticipated premiere of the ballet “Eugene Onegin,” which is based on the verse novel by Pushkin and choreographed by John Cranko to the music of Tchaikovsky.
The production has already been fraught with trouble. Last week, the prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova reportedly refused to dance after a casting reshuffle removed her from the lead role of Tatiana on the ballet’s opening night. “He feels his mission is completed, and maybe on top of this, the recent half-year was very tough for him,” Katerina Novikova, the Bolshoi’s spokeswoman, said of Mr. Iksanov. “I am sad that it is happening this way, and at this time. He did an amazing job; he should have been leaving this theater differently, not like he is leaving today. He should be leaving like a hero.”
Officials at Tuesday’s news conference lavished Mr. Iksanov with praise for his 13-year stewardship of the theater. For his part, Mr. Iksanov looked grave and said nothing at all about the decision, limiting his remarks to thanking “friends and colleagues” who were present. Mr. Iksanov’s replacement is Vladimir Urin, 66, a particularly noncontroversial figure who is credited with rebuilding Moscow’s second-tier theater, the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater. Ballet insiders universally praised the choice of Mr. Urin but noted the daunting challenge of taking on leadership of the Bolshoi now.
Mr. Urin was equally serious, saying that accepting the position was “not a simple decision at all” and that he had initially refused it. “This was long expected, and we just couldn’t understand why it was not happening,” said Valeria Uralskaya, the editor of Ballet magazine here. “Most likely no one was agreeing to take on such a huge organism as the Bolshoi Theater that is in such a state of decay.”
“I think it is very important that this transition from one leader to another will happen in a civilized way — normally, calmly, in a businesslike way — and not in the way that it sometimes happened, when leaders found out they had been removed from their posts through the mass media,” he said. Mr. Iksanov was named general director of the Bolshoi in 2000, and his contract was to expire in December 2014. He has said that he hoped to use the remaining time to select and train his successor. The last months, however, have brought wave upon wave of negative publicity.
Mr. Urin’s talent for managing scandal was tested in 2005, when the artistic director of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Ballet mysteriously disappeared and was presumed murdered during a visit to Prague while on business unrelated to the theater. The most recent bout came just last week, when the prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova withdrew from “Eugene Onegin” after a casting reshuffle removed her from the lead role of Tatiana for the opening-night performance. Ms. Zakharova — who is a member of Russia’s Parliament — “demonstratively” walked out of a rehearsal hall after discovering the casting change, Izvestia reported in a newspaper article.
On Tuesday, he told a hastily assembled group of journalists that he was “not planning any revolutions, and realize fairly well that in this theater, as any other, one person alone can do nothing.” Mr. Iksanov had a more rancorous clash with Nikolai Tsiskaridze, 39, a popular dancer whose complaints about the theater’s leadership boiled over into open conflict after the acid attack on the artistic director, Sergei Filin. In June the Bolshoi announced that it would not renew its contract with Mr. Tsiskaridze, a step that risked angering both rank-and-file fans and politically influential elites — including the wives of several Kremlin oligarchs — who wanted to see Mr. Tsiskaridze rise through the Bolshoi’s ranks.
He added, “I hope that most people working in this theater — talented, wonderful people — will be united with me, and only together can we solve the problems that the Bolshoi – like any other big collective — is facing.” In an interview early this year Mr. Iksanov reflected on how risky it was for administrators to be drawn into conflicts with performers.
Mr. Iksanov was named general director of the Bolshoi in 2000, and his contract was to expire in December 2014. He has said that he hoped to use the remaining time to select and train his successor, to assure that his long-term plans for the theater — which extended to 2016 — would be carried out. “When there is a conflict between an artist and an administrator, of course everyone is on the artist’s side,” he said.
The last months, however, have brought several waves of negative publicity for the theater. In January, a masked man threw acid in the face of Sergei Filin, the company’s artistic director, causing third-degree burns to his eyes. A dancer, Pavel Dmitrichenko, later confessed to hiring two accomplices to carry out the attack, though he said he had only expected the men to beat Mr. Filin. Mr. Tsiskaridze said little about the news of Mr. Iksanov’s removal, but it was clear that he was not in mourning. “What can I say? He dug his own grave,” he wrote in a text message.
In June, the Bolshoi announced it was ending its contract with its most prominent male dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, 39, whose complaints about the theater’s leadership boiled over into open conflict after the attack on Mr. Filin. Mr. Tsiskaridze’s fans have held two small protests in his defense. Asked about Mr. Iksanov’s removal on Tuesday, Mr. Tsiskaridze replied, “What can I say? He dug his own grave.” The acid attack and its aftermath have resulted in a growing list of losses to the company.
The last straw, observers say, may have come in the form of a conflict with Ms. Zakharova, who is a deputy in the Russian State Duma as well as a revered dancer. After she was not included in the “first cast” for “Eugene Onegin,” Ms. Zakharova walked out of a rehearsal hall and deleted notices of her performances on her personal Web site, the newspaper Izvestia reported. Mr. Filin remains in a clinic in Germany, where he has undergone a long series of surgeries aiming to restore his eyesight. A lead soloist, Pavel Dmitrichenko, has been in custody since he confessed to hiring two accomplices to carry out the attack on Mr. Filin. Mr. Dmitrichenko’s girlfriend, the ballerina Anzhelina Vorontsova, announced last month that she had resigned from the company. The ballet also ended the contract with its company manager, Ruslan Pronin, an ardent supporter of Mr. Dmitrichenko’s.
In an interview early this year, Mr. Iksanov said that for at least three years rivals had been pressing the Ministry of Culture — and, ultimately, Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev — to remove him. He also reflected on how risky it was for administrators to be drawn into conflicts with performers. Vadim M. Gayevsky, a leading dance scholar, spoke admiringly of Mr. Iksanov’s tenure at the Bolshoi on Tuesday and described his dismissal as “ugly.” If he had a failing as general director, Mr. Gayevsky said, it was that he was too lenient.
“There is a widespread opinion among the unenlightened people — when there is a conflict between an artist and an administrator, of course everyone is on the artist’s side,” he said. “This poor artist is being terrorized, they want to kick him out. See how bad the administrators are. This is natural, all people think like this — there are bureaucrats and there is a creative person.” “There was no strong artistic director, and the troupe began to take liberties,” Mr. Gayevsky said. “The theater acquired the spirit of freedom, but it ended in scandal.”
The announcement Tuesday was met with a surge of commentary that reflected deep polarization among fans and members of the company. Some cheered. But a theater critic, Grigory Zaslavsky, described Mr. Iksanov’s exit as a loss to Russian culture and said that the parade of scandals should be seen as a focused campaign whose goal was “the seat of the general director.” Mr. Medinsky also hastily retired two major museum directors in the last week, in addition to Mr. Iksanov. In an interview with Radio Liberty, the theater critic Marina Timasheva said Mr. Iksanov might well have remained in his post were it not for Mr. Medinsky.
Writing on Facebook, Mr. Zaslavsky praised Mr. Urin, but said he faces many of the same problems. “The troubles which he will encounter are not far away,” he wrote. “The first test of his strength will be, of course, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who from the change of leadership, I can imagine, expects an invitation to return.” Ms. Timasheva praised the theater’s artistic state. “The horror is something else,” she said. “A few people understand the opera, the ballet and the set design, but very many people understand the scandals.”

Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting.

Noah Sneider contributed reporting.

 
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 9, 2013Correction: July 9, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the theater where Vladimir Urin is the director. It is the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater, not the Stanislavisky and Nemirov-Danchenko Music Theater.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the theater where Vladimir Urin is the director. It is the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater, not the Stanislavisky and Nemirov-Danchenko Music Theater.