The Phantom of the Operatives

How the church and the state sacked a Siberian theater director

Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser was staged by director Timofei Kulyabin in the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater in December 2014. Unfortunately, the play suffered numerous complaints from the Russian Orthodox Church and lawsuits. On March 29, managing director Boris Mezdrich was fired from the theater, and the opera was later removed from the theater’s repertoire. Meduza briefly outlines the most important things you need to know about the Tannhäuser case.

An Orthodox Church metropolitan lodged a complaint with the prosecutor’s office without having seen the play. In January 2015, Metropolitan bishop Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Bersk complained about the play without having seen it. His understanding of the play’s content was based on third party sources, as a result of which he determined that it could be considered “offensive to believers,” since it allegedly “defiled” the image of Jesus Christ. Since then, Metropolitan Tikhon consistently criticized the production and urged the faithful to attend a rally in a “state of prayer” on March 29. The church official warned that anyone who did not attend would be joining “the detractors of Christ.” He has not personally attended any of the protest rallies himself, however.

Kulyabin and Mezdrich were supported by Russian directors, actors and critics. In February, the prosecutor's office of Novosibirsk region initiated administrative proceedings against Timofei Kulyabin and Boris Mezdrich. The Russian theater community, in a rare display of unanimity, rallied against censorship and against the prosecution of the play’s producers. Oleg Tabakov, Mark Zakharov, Valery Fokin, Yevgeny Mironov, Kirill Serebrennikov, Oleg Menshikov, Chulpan Khamatova, Dmitry Chernyakov, Sergei Zhenovach, Irina Prokhorova, Galina Volchek and many others spoke out. The leading theater critics in the country also expressed their support, noting the artistic merits of “the deep, intelligent performance.”

The Ministry of Culture became the main enemy of the play. The court in Novosibirsk closed the case against Kulyabin and Mezdrich. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church began to complain to the Russian security services (the FSB), to the Investigative Committee, and to the Prosecutor General's Office. Church representatives warned that they would take the issue to the Kremlin. Now the main threat to the production comes from the Ministry of Culture. On March 29, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinskiy fired Boris Mezdrich, who had been ardently defending the show and his theater. Mezdrich’s departure was preceded by a public hearing at the Ministry of Culture about Tannhäuser, about how it “divided society” and showed disrespect towards religious people.

The wording of the Medrich’s dismissal: “…for failure to follow the instructions of the overseeing entity.” The Ministry of Culture announced that Boris Mezdrich was dismissed “for failure to follow the instructions of the [theater’s] overseeing entity.” (In the case of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, that entity is the Ministry of Culture). The exact list of those instructions has not been made public, there are reports that the producers were asked to make changes in the performance and to apologize publicly. Mezdrich said that he was also asked to cut funding for Tannhäuser. He refused to do so, and he also did not apologize. “My professional principles do not allow me to give up on plays and apologize to people who have never seen the opera,” said Mezdrich.

The new managing director is Vladimir Kekhman, also known as “The Banana King.”Vladimir Kekhman, who also heads the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg, was appointed managing director after Mezdrich was dismissed. Kekhman has been head of the St. Petersburg theater since 2007. The media often refers to him as “The Banana King” because he founded a fruit-importing company (JFC) in 1994. In 2012, a British court rules that Kekhman had gone bankrupt, and in March, his mansion in St. Petersburg was sold to repay his debts. Vladimir Kekhman expressed his opinion about Tannhäuser to the Ministry of Culture. He called the production “blasphemous,” said that it insults him as a believer, an Orthodox Christian and a Jew, and called for the play to be removed from the theater’s repertoire. Some Russian cultural critics have openly denounced Kehkman’s appointment and have voiced their distrust in Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinskiy.

Update: On March 30, the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration Magomedsalam Magomedov proposed to instate a new procedure of previewing and assessing state theater productions before they are staged for public audiences. The following day, the new managing director removed Tannhäuser from the theater's repertoire.