The people against Tannhäuser

I have just returned from hearings of two administrative cases in Novosibirsk. One was brought against the director of the local opera and ballet theater Boris Mikhailovich Mezdrin, the other against the young and, in my opinion, very talented director Timofey Kulyabin. The matter in question was the production of Richard Wagner’s opera “Tannhäuser,” which aroused the indignation of local zealots of Orthodoxy and prompted Metropolitan Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Berdsk to appeal to the prosecutor’s office. As a result, the court did not find any crime in these cases, and both of them were closed. I had the opportunity to appear in court as a witness for the defense and observe very interesting legal, aesthetic and religious conflicts there. I will share my analysis of what happened with Sova readers. In Novosibirsk, the “offended believers” lost, but in our country, unlike in Great Britain, there is no precedent law. And similar cases in other Russian cities (and, alas, it is impossible to exclude their occurrence) may not end so well for Russian art.

Timofey Kulyabin's performance "Tannhäuser" projects the problems raised by Wagner into our time. This approach is not unusual. Many directors, both Western and domestic, use it successfully. It is enough to name the production of “Tristan and Isolde” by Dmitry Chernyakov or the same “Tannhäuser” by Sebastian Baumgarten. By the way, Chernyakov, who is currently staging another Wagner opera, Parsifal, in Berlin, expressed bewilderment and indignation at the events in Novosibirsk. And he is far from alone; similar feelings were expressed by major cultural and artistic figures not only in Russia, but also abroad.

As you know, one of the themes of Wagner’s work is Tannhäuser’s atheistic challenge, his betrayal of high love for the sake of carnal pleasures, his condemnation by the Pope and the sacrificial love of Elizabeth, which saves the singer’s soul. These topics were picked up by Timofey Kulyabin and brought to the present day. From Minnesinger Tannhäuser becomes a film director who makes a film about the “hidden years” of Jesus Christ. According to his version, he spends this time in the grotto of Venus, but then breaks the net of carnal love and rushes into the world, where he performs his feat of the cross. The film causes a scandal at an international festival, the director is expelled from the profession, and he loses his mind. His mother Elizabeth is in despair. Thus, the hero’s atheistic gesture ends in his professional and personal fiasco.

So, the Novosibirsk director set himself the task of showing the difficult relationship that arises in our time between religion and art. And for this he turned to numerous Christian symbols. The use of Christian symbols in secular art, as we know, did not begin today. It permeates a significant part of the art of the New Age. It is simply impossible to imagine painting, literature, theater, and later cinema without Christian symbols and images. But being removed from the religious context, they lost their sacred meaning and were filled with new artistic content. For example, the Christ in “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,” which Ivan Karamazov tells in Dostoevsky’s novel, is not at all the Christ whom the author himself reveres, being a deeply religious person. This is a literary character that arose in the imagination of Dostoevsky. With its help, he solved his artistic and philosophical problems. Moreover, Dostoevsky made the figure of Christ a product of the imagination of his hero, Ivan Karamazov. Thus a double detachment emerged - a story told within a story, a fiction operating within a fiction. I am not going to compare the Russian classic with the young director, but he used exactly the same artistic technique. The film "Grotto of Venus", which is directed by its hero, director Tannhäuser, is the creative invention of the latter, while he himself is a figment of the imagination of director Kulyabin. Therefore, the image of Jesus Christ on the stage of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater not only had nothing in common with the Christ of the Gospel, it was twice removed from the religious context. It was an artistic invention of “double distillation.”

The symbol of the cross, which appeared on stage in the Novosibirsk production of Tannhäuser, deserves a separate discussion. It can serve as an excellent illustration of how the Christian symbol went beyond the boundaries of Christianity and entered the arsenal of secular culture. In fact, we will not see a religious meaning in Pasternak’s line “to love others is a heavy cross, but you are beautiful without wrinkles,” addressed to his beloved. The expression “to be crucified” took on the meaning of “to suffer for one’s beliefs” in almost all European languages. And this is exactly the meaning that director Kulyabin had in mind when his hero, with his arms outstretched, disappears on the couch in a feverish delirium after he was subjected to obstruction from the professional community. This happens against the backdrop of a large cross, which is part of the decoration. Thus, Kulyabin materialized the metaphor - director Tannhäuser suffers for his beliefs. But this metaphor has no more to do with religion than the above line from Pasternak’s poem. Moreover, the metaphor of the cross has long gone beyond the boundaries of European culture and acquired a worldwide resonance. I have heard the expression “he was crucified for his views” (he was crucified, that is, severely criticized for his views) more than once from Hindus, and from Buddhists, and even from Muslims and Jews, who do not treat the symbol of the cross in the best way .

A logical question arises: can completely fictitious images that have nothing in common with their religious prototype, as well as symbols that have lost their religious meaning and become universal metaphors, offend religious feelings? Alas, as the events in Novosibirsk show, they very well can. But this is in no way the director's fault. The reason for such hypertrophied vulnerability was, in my opinion, the extreme religious and aesthetic ignorance of the offended. I'll start with the first one. For a deeply religious person, the object of his faith is an absolute and unconditional reality, to which he is devoted with his mind and heart. He worships this Supreme reality by offering prayers to it. On the contrary, a product of fiction cannot have for a true believer the same ontological unconditionality as the object of faith. The ability to distinguish between appearance and truth is the key to sober faith. If a believer does not possess such skill, he becomes the object of numerous temptations and enticements. The task of shepherds is to teach their flock how not to become their victim. And be able to distinguish artistic fiction from sacred images. In this case, religious feelings will only become stronger and will not be distracted by all sorts of extraneous things. And to evaluate works of art, believers will rely on their aesthetic feelings, understanding that one of the main attributes of art - its conventionality - cannot in any way affect the unconditionality of their faith.

However, in the case of the Novosibirsk Tannhäuser, the aesthetic ignorance of the offended believers went even further. After all, by suing the director and director of the theater, they accused them of insulting their faith, whereas if anything “offended” it, it was a work created by a fictional character - the director Tannhäuser, to whom his creator himself Timofey Kulyabin’s attitude is far from clear. That is, they made the grossest of all possible aesthetic mistakes - they identified the author with his character. I remember they teach you not to do this in literature classes in high school. Indeed, how can we adequately evaluate a work of art if we believe that the author himself is directly responsible for the sins of the hero? Let's say that Stavrogin's blasphemy is the sin of Dostoevsky himself. But this is exactly what happened to the Novosibirsk opponents of Tannhäuser. They identify the fictional hero of the opera with the director Kulyabin, moreover, with the director of the theater Mezdrich. The situation is, frankly speaking, absurd. However, aesthetic education is already a cultural task. And here broad prospects are opening up to move from confrontation between religion and culture to their fruitful dialogue.

The work of Timofey Kulyabin, in my opinion, was an important step in this direction. The director managed to create a tragic image of a talented artist who, in pursuit of a masterpiece, challenges not only everyday conventions, but also religious dogmas. The artistic allusions and images that Kulyabin used recreated a broad picture of the complex relationship between religion and art in the modern world. Tannhäuser's film "The Grotto of Venus" brings to mind the film "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Martin Scorsese, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, which at one time caused protests from believers. It also talked about the carnal temptation of Christ, which he eventually overcame. The poster for the film "Grotto of Venus" is reminiscent of the poster for Milos Forman's film "The People vs. Larry Flynt", which also caused a mixed reaction from the public. It is generally accepted that these are talented films (both Scorsese and Forman are classics of modern cinema), but controversial. Kulyabin creatively borrows easily readable images from them. But not at all in order to offend the religious feelings of the audience, but in order to place his hero in a recognizable cultural context. Both the figure of Christ and the scandalous poster serve understandable artistic purposes. They cause resentment among other stage characters (episode at a film festival). The viewer is free to share this indignation or, on the contrary, disagree with it. But this is nothing more than an artistic device that has nothing to do with religion and belongs entirely to culture. At the same time, such an artistic expression can give impetus to the dialogue between religion and art, which our society so needs. It will help believers to realize the conventionality of art, which does not at all encroach on their faith and cannot offend it. And for non-believers to think about religious values ​​and the role they can play in people’s lives.

The Novosibirsk production of Kulyabin and the reaction of some of the local believers, led by the Metropolitan, to it raises another problem that goes beyond the scope of the opera production as such. We are talking about how two unconditional values ​​coexist in our country: freedom of religion and freedom of speech. According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, they are designed to balance each other; it is no coincidence that they are mentioned in neighboring articles. On the one hand, believers are free to express their religious beliefs (Article 28), on the other, citizens are free to express their thoughts and views (Article 29). However, the situation in Novosibirsk could easily upset this delicate balance in favor of the plaintiffs, violating the right of citizens to free expression of views. In this case, it is the artist’s right to freedom of creativity. Fortunately, this did not happen. The court made a fair decision, which opens the door to normal dialogue between art and religion and, I hope, will help strengthen civil harmony in society.