The cutest

Awarded the Crystal Turandot Award

The theater season has not yet ended, but the first theater award based on its results has already been awarded. For sixteen years now, “Crystal Turandot” has been awarded in June, and the fact that in recent years Moscow theaters have been releasing premieres until August does not bother anyone - here the holiday has always been considered more important than formalities. This award is the oldest among Moscow ones and, probably, that’s why in recent years it began to call itself “Moscow’s highest theater award,” judging by default that if no one else, including the Moscow STD “Highlight of the Season” prize, declared itself the highest, then the place vacant. However, despite the pretentious self-name and the presence of a jury, “Crystal Turandot” has always been most like a home party, where the founder of the award, Boris Petrovich Belenky, presents his personal prizes.

In previous years, all this looked especially impressive because the presentation took place in Kuskovo, with a concert in the gilded hall of the Sheremetev estate, fireworks over the lake and a banquet in the middle of a French park. There were few invitees other than the laureates themselves and the press, so the event was stylized as a count's holiday with a concert by serfs.

This year the award ceremony was moved to the Tretyakov Gallery for the first time. Those invited for the solemnity were admitted through the main entrance of the tower on Lavrushinsky Lane, allowed to climb a carpeted staircase lined with girls in flowerbed dresses, and during the congress, guests were left to stroll through two specially fenced off halls of the exhibition right up to Ivanovo’s “Appearance of Christ to the People.” The well-dressed audience, almost like in a textbook picture, crowded around waiting for someone to come out of the central doors and invite them into the banquet hall . But the main event was out of harm’s way moved to the less precious Engineering Building; the presentation itself took place in a classic conference hall in the style of the 80s, making the former count’s holiday look like a Soviet event. However, this did not bother anyone; on the contrary, without the golden decoration the actors felt much more familiar, and stories about who “split” whom on stage sounded at ease.

Everything went as usual: the overripe Chinese princess was portrayed by Maria Aronova, who once received a crystal figurine for the best debut, and a matchmaker was assigned to her, this time played by Roman Madyanov. Turandot fought with the annoying matchmaker and proposed to herself various theater figures of different genders and ages as grooms, reading lines from reviews in the form of a riddle. The answer, that is, the name of the laureate, was announced by Boris Belenky.

The most attractive thing about “Crystal Turandot” is that although the decisions of its jury sometimes look strange, there is never any “politics” in them, as in “big” awards like the “Golden Mask”. If you gave it, it means you liked it, so thank you. Sometimes you get the feeling that prizes are given out on the basis of cuteness. For example, Mikhail Derzhavin is very handsome - he was given the award “For Honor and Dignity,” which he probably would not have received soon as part of another award. It’s also funny that for “Turandot” there seem to be no rules and what is not allowed in other places, although one really wants to, is possible here. For example, give as many as two awards for best actress: the lovely Irina Pegova for the role of happy Moscow in Karbauskis’s play from “Tabakerka” and the grandiose 87-year-old Alla Kazanskaya for the role of the mother in “The Beauty Queen” of the Vakhtangov Theater. Or, which is completely out of the question, give the award for best actor to the very actor who is leading the ceremony, Roman Madyanov (the homeless Kalina in the play “Cuba, My Love” at the Stanislavsky Theater).

It’s also good that the “Turandot” awards usually don’t miss out on the favorites of the season: this time Dmitry Krymov received the award for directing (“Demon. View from above” at the “School of Dramatic Art”), and for the best performance - “The Most Important "Evgeny Kamenkovich in the Fomenko Workshop. And now, even if these performances, participating in all sorts of other competitions, for some reason do not receive awards, it will not be so offensive: they already have the “highest theater award in Moscow.”

Dina GODER