Goodbye, Chernyakov

While the name of the director Dmitry Chernyakov is becoming more and more for the world's opera platforms of the first row (only in the last two months- the debut in the meter , the opening of the season to La Scala , it gradually disappears from Russia. That is, the very name-for more than ten years, has been at the same time as a symbol of abuse and hope-so far as well. But the reality is that there is nothing to watch from Chernyakov’s works.

In the three largest opera theaters of the country - the Big, Mariinsky and Novosibirsk - a lot was delivered. And it seems like 6, 8, 12 years in our concepts for the performance is not a period. Boris Godunov, born in 1946, lives in a large - and nothing.

But on the posters of the big one you will not see even a very recent “Ruslan” (the performance needs to be mounted for three days, and the theater cannot stand idle - the Ministry of Culture demands to increase quantitative indicators), not like “Votzeca”, “Don Zhuan” or “Rear”. All of them left for various, quite respectful reasons.

In the memory of the Novosibirsk Theater, Chernyakov productions, especially the Aida and Macbeth, will remain examples of inaccessible heroic achievements, which, probably, will be told to children and grandchildren. But what does this have to do with real life?

From the bottomless repertoire bowels of Mariinsky, where nothing throws away and where there are still three Chernyakov performances-“Kitezh”, “Life for the Tsar” and “Tristan”-suddenly once a year or two, like a dead man from the coffin, one or the other rises. But it’s even scary to imagine in what condition! Montirers do not remember where what part of the scenery is, and the choir - from which scenes to get out. These are no longer performances or even memories of them.

Why did it happen? The point, of course, is not only in such understandable and convenient things for Facebook, things like inertness, envy, evil forces and the absence of a prophet in his fatherland. But the fact that the traditional system of the repertoire opera theater for Russia (which has not gone away, although the borders are open and everyone already knows what happens differently) is very poorly coexisting with Chernyakov performances. Honestly, it is actually with all the performances that require thoroughness-whether it is musical, perpetitive-it gets along poorly. But especially with Chernyakovsky. Which each time must be meticulously rehearsed and mounted for a long time on stage. It is very problematic to introduce new performers, because each role was discharged specifically for the one who sang to the prime minister, but what if he was, if he was on tour, got sick, aged?

That is, of course, you can somehow get out, push, hold these performances with the last forces-but this requires additional will and desire. And now, it seems, the moment comes when they are not left.

Tomorrow, the large time will show the “Onegin”, the legendary performance, decorated with a scandal with the participation of Galina Vishnevskaya at his birth in 2006 and has since served the hallmark of the Bolshoi Theater and his former leadership around the world. This is Chernyakov’s most circulating performance, he passed almost a hundred times, visited Riga, Paris, Tokyo, Milan, Ljubljana, Beijing, London, Madrid, Athens, Tel Aviv, was flooring, recorded on DVD . In general, it was a sin to complain, he lived well.

But the fact of the matter is that it seemed that this performance of Chernyakov, unlike the rest, became more likely disposable image projects for victories on the Golden Mask. Approximately like the previous performance of Pokrovsky, which has existed since 1948. For me, it was such an unconditional Moscow value, which is not ashamed to invite foreign friends. To which I thought to take a child when he finally grows up and reads Eugene Onegin. This performance developed a fate that was different from other Chernyakov productions. He quite fit into the life of the Bolshoi Theater (especially since he smoothly moved from the classical repertoire system to a more compromise block). Due to his stormy touring life, Onegin always remained more or less under the supervision of the author and did not fall apart, despite the incredibly complex and masterly blind scenes, where one could not make a mistake for a centimeter. He did not lose, and sometimes even won new soloists from entering (especially with Lenski was lucky - Andrew Goodwin, Alexei Dolgov), always gathered full halls. For tomorrow, of course, there are also no tickets for a long time. Fresh and hot review of a belated viewer, demonstrating how much else is read, wanders along Facebook these days: nothing else was erased and voyable.

Nevertheless, they say goodbye to Onegin at the Bolshoi Theater - not forever, but for an indefinite time. The official version is this: the performance still played, its author is unhappy with such a state of things, but with his own cliffs cannot escape and do it. So let the performance rest a year or two, and then Chernyakov promised to return and find time to restore it. Just for this case, there is a beautiful civilized word Revival .

That is, it is too early to pour tears. But there is a sediment. We do not believe in any revolutions in Russia. So be that as it may, but it is the departure of the last Chernyakov name that marks the new era in the Bolshoi Theater.

Only the Mikhailovsky Theater, led by Vladimir Kekhman, shakes the situation. Something, and will, desires, and, most importantly, the excitement of this person is in abundance. He already gives sensational interviews - in the fall he plans to rent Trubadur's production . And if everything comes true, then the theater on the art Square will be in the foreseeable future the only Russian owner of Chernyakov’s products of normal quality.