"National Household of Russia"

At the end of last week, at the visiting meeting of the Ministry of Culture “On the implementation of the Fundamentals of the State Cultural Policy of the Russian Fet”, First Deputy Minister of Culture, Vladimir Aristarkhov, spoke with strict criticism of the National Theater Prize and the Golden Mask festival, accusing the organizers of the forum of consistent propaganda of performances, “ provoking the elements of Russophobia, and contempt for the history of our country and contempt for the history of our country. Consciously going beyond the moral framework ”and doubting the need to finance the festival by the state budget. In the final of his speech, Mr. Aristarkhov invited the theater community to answer the question: “With whom are you, masters of culture? With the people or against the people? " COLTA . RU publishes the results of a survey of leaders of leading Russian theaters telling about their own attitude to the Golden Masca.

Valery Fokin

artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Theater

The most valuable in this project is that the Golden Mask was positioned and has always been an expression of the independent opinion of expert communities of professionals about works representing the modern art process. This has strengthened the authority of the “masks” as a really highest professional theater award.

The lack of ideological and aesthetic bias (the shift of expert councils, the composition of the jury and its chairmen), the system of nominations (reflecting the fullness of theatrical forms), the coverage of theaters - both regional and metropolitan, the high bar of criteria, which comes, out of the "level of world standards" - all this really made it possible to dynamize theatrical life in our country.

The role of a “mask” in the revival and activation of touring activities is very important. The show in the regions of the best achievements of the Russian theater and, in turn, the presentation of regional theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg - in these projects, Mask, of course, is at the forefront of the domestic cultural process.

The unity of the competition and the festival is another positive feature of this project. The variability of various kinds of special awards and prizes is also positive, which allow us to support both various kinds of undertakings, phenomena and achievements, and special, individual merits of the largest figures of the Russian theater.

The Golden Mask remains in the minds of Russian society one of the few truly independent civilian social undertakings.

Lev Dodin

Artistic Director of the Small Drama Theater - Theater of Europe

The Golden Mask unites the theater community of Russia, its metropolitan and regional components, which is fundamentally important, because historically - both before the 1917 revolution, and under the Soviet regime - there was, in my opinion, a catastrophic gap between the capital and provincial theaters, primarily in the field of prestige and fame. It exists today, when a serious theater is consciously or unconsciously suppressed from the field of public interests by lightweight, purely commercial projects, especially show business and generally mass art. Finally, the festival in the form in which it developed and matured, is opposed to the more and more growing tendency to evaluate the work of the theater from the point of view of only commercial profitability. In addition, the Golden Mask remains in the minds of Russian society one of the few truly independent civilian social undertakings - that today, when the country's leadership says so much about the need to structured civil society, is extremely important.

Kirill Serebrennikov

Artistic Director of Gogol Center

Frankly, I had no one to have anything to do with the Golden Mask. This award has always stubbornly ignored my performances, especially those that I myself considered successful, and those that got into the competition, each time became the subject of disputes and scandals among experts. One “mask” - as if by combination for the work of one of the past seasons - I refused to take in protest, the other - for “scumbags” - still had to take so as not to offend the jury and those who fought for the performance. This is not my festival, this is not my community, I skeptically look at its difficulties and disassembly inside it. But the new Zhdanovism that has come is so disgusting and dangerous for the theater as a whole that I express the words of support to everyone who makes this prize and festival. They work, do, create, and these "Aristarchs" can only break. Accusations of Russophobia, immorality and other “sins” of leading directors - laureates of the award of recent years - Sergey Zhenovach, Valery Fokin, Leo Dodin - this is just a shame. This illiterate and stupid official must be driven over until he finally broke firewood.

Andrey Mighty

Artistic Director of the Great Drama Theater. G.A. Tovstonogov

I sincerely admire the team of the Golden Mask, admire their organizational talent, indefatigability, some incredible love for the theater and the people creating it. For which they bow to them, respect and love.

Every year, the Golden Mask sets the highest bar of professionalism, organizing in Moscow a show of the best performances of the country. “Mask” is always a test of your artistic compliance with the requests of today. The assessments of the members of the expert councils and the jury “Masks” set priorities, determine the main trends in the development of theatrical art of the country for next year.

Of course, they will always be dissatisfied. The Golden Mask will be reproached for injustice, in the subjectivity of experts or jury, in tendencies and other sins. In my memory - and I received my first “mask” 15 years ago - there was no year for the storm of indignation after the next competition. And this, unfortunately, is the property and costs of any competitive bonus.

Of course, there is no limit to perfection, and there are things that, probably, can and should be adjusted. There is something for which the “mask” can be criticized. But it is impossible to deprive the theater community of the possibility of a professional competition, the opportunity to correlate themselves with colleagues “on the Hamburg account”, to understand your place on the country's theatrical map.

Konstantin Bogomolov

director

All theatrical figures know that tour is a dangerous thing. On tour with people, sometimes terrible metamorphoses occur. Quietly becomes a rowdy, a family man becomes a womanizer, there are also ugliness. In a word, people of culture on business trips appear completely unexpectedly and, as a rule, unculturally. But this is not their fault. This is a business trip. Therefore, I would write off everything to the visiting meeting.

Henrietta Yanovskaya, Kama Ginkas

Moscow Youth Theater

Having nothing, of course, against state awards, they must say that they are fundamentally different from the Golden Mask award: the former evaluate the civil service, the second - a contribution to the art of the theater. The state prize is given by mysterious officials or close critics. The Golden Mask awards the theatrical community with greater or less objectivity.

The Golden Mask project is already useful for the fact that the young director, artist or artist nominated for this prize, and even more so received it, receives confirmation that he is noticed and his search is evaluated. For a young theater worker, a complex or super -vein, this is extremely important.

No prizes are never objective. In addition to the struggle of groups, strategic and political motives intervene here. Even the Nobel Prize has long ceased to be objective, believing that if the prize was given a “yellow” continent, then it is time to give the continent “black”. Even Akhmatova was not awarded Nobel, as Joseph Brodsky always called this prize.

When asked a young artist, which is better - a nomination or a bonus, the wise Igor Yasulovich replied: of course, nomination. Those who cannot be noticed are nominated. And then the case of theatrical policy.

Mask is engaged in the institutionalization of the domestic theater.

Mikhail Ugarov

The artistic director of the Theater. DOC "

The Golden Mask forms and carries out the theatrical life of Russia - it must be very, it must be said, motley. Mask is engaged in the institutionalization of the domestic theater. We will not take large theaters, because they have enough strength and to present themselves to the “city and the world”, but, for example, the story of the Prokopyevskaya drama: if not for the experts of the Golden Mask, who would know that there is this theater and this, in the end, the city? But nevertheless, it is now applied to the map of Russia. The Mask creates this map, which over the years is greatly changing - moreover, it turns out that many large Russian cities are generally outside this map. Well, for example, Nizhny Novgorod is absolutely not it, and who is to blame for this? Honestly, sometimes seeing what is happening there, you think that Nizhny Novgorod itself is to blame. Such a statement of the picture year after year is very important - it provides an opportunity for professionals and an expert community, and the so -called ordinary people to navigate what is happening in the theater process.

Evgeny Pisarev, Anna Volk

Moscow Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin

The value of the festival and the Golden Mask contest is the ability to see, hear, find out, understand what is happening in the theater process of the country today and what to wait tomorrow. Capital theaters understand that life is outside the district road - and sometimes much more saturated and interesting than the Moscow Ring Road seems from the inside. Needless to say, for the Mask regional theaters is often the only opportunity to meet with the Moscow public, the press, the professional community and get its assessment.

Now it seems that the Golden Mask has always been - and should always be, remaining a constant of the theater process of our country.

The independence of the “mask” is important from anyone, except for the professional community represented by the Union of Theater Workers as the founder, critics in expert councils and practitioners - in the jury. The Golden Mask is a prize of not officials, but professionals, theaters. Her motto is independence and subjectivity in the best meaning of these words.

Alexey Borodin, Sofya Apfelbaum

Ramt

Despite all the disputes and disagreements inevitable in the creative environment, the authority of the Golden Mask is unconditional for the theater community. That “data bank”, a cut of theatrical seasons that the “mask” has accumulated over two decades of its work, is a living story of the domestic theater. Discussions about what to be “mask” has been carried out from the day of its foundation. The festival is constantly modified, more and more nominations appear, programs, changes are made to the work of experts - all this is necessary so that the “mask” does not turn into a static ritual.

Evgeny Marcelli, Yuri Itin

Drama theater named after Fedor Volkov

The Golden Mask is the national treasure of Russia. If it is impossible to objectivity in art with the advent of a “mask”, a criterion set by professionals of a critical workshop, which determines the most striking events of the theater season. The competition arising from the definition of laureates is a stimulating, and not destructing factor in theatrical life. The festival creates a space in which the whole theatrical country gathers in the capital for a month in the capital - this is an invaluable experience in the exchange of living information, living communication, experience, if you like, unity.