Have you never been to the BDT? No? Unfortunately, I also did not have the opportunity to attend live performances of the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Tovstonogov. No matter how you say “halva,” it won’t make your mouth any sweeter, but once you say “Khanuma!” This performance rightfully became business card theater, which today celebrates its 93rd anniversary.
It's amazing what great actors there are in different time this theater brought together on its stage: Georgy Tovstonogov, Kirill Lavrov, Efim Kopelyan, Oleg Borisov,Pavel Luspekayev, Oleg Basilashvili, Tatiana Doronina, Svetlana Kryuchkova,Nina Usatova, Olga Volkova…
Fortunately, we can remember them from their roles in films and television plays.
I won’t talk about the actors in detail, I just want you to remember them today, at least some….
Boris Babochkin - is not perceived as an actor, but as a living legend, a hero civil war and favorite character in Soviet cinema of the 1930s Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. For us, he remained the hero of one role.
Lyudmila Makarova- just recently celebrated her 90th anniversary on the stage of the theater, she still plays on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater and, although she had a huge number of roles, for us she is forever Home Hanuma our country. How many times has this performance been shown on television? I don’t know, but all things are postponed when I hear “It’s a sin to be alone.... It’s a sin to be single...!”
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Lyudmila Makarova yesterday, today and always |
Efim Kopelyan- even if you haven’t watched “The Elusive Avengers”, “Eternal Call” or “Straw Hat”, then the whole country knows the voice of “Seventeen Moments of Spring”. After the release of this film, the artist jokingly began to call himself “Efim Zakadrovich.” The actor came to the BDT even before Tovstonogov and worked in the theater until the end of his days together with his wife, Lyudmila Makarova.
Evgeny Lebedev- his first role on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater - Mademoiselle Kuku in the play "Nameless Star". What's that about "mamzelle"! This actor brilliantly played “enemies” (how I hated his Romashov in “Two Captains” as a child!) and heroes (the films “Mercy Train” and “Blockade”), a touching drunkard (“Energetic People”) and even... a horse ! Kholstomer is one of his best roles in the play “The History of a Horse” based on L. Tolstoy.
Scene "with a glass" from the play "Energetic People"
Recently, an evening in memory of the actor was held at the Bolshoi Drama Theater in honor of his 95th birthday, and in 2000 the Evgeny Lebedev Prize was established - a bronze figurine of the actor in the role of Canvasser...
Nina Usatova- a real Russian Woman: confident, strong, decisive and so kind, homely, cozy. She is good in any role: from a village aunt (the film "Island") to a landowner in love (A. Ostrovsky's play "Whim!") and from the aunt from Next, and to the mother in the film "Pop". Truly a popularly beloved actress: on her 60th birthday she received an amazing gift - to shoot from the cannon of the Naryshkin bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
"The Tureen or Boiling Passions"
How can we not remember her when talking about this theater, the actress, without whom it is simply unthinkable for the audience! Her father Bruno Freundlich played on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, and it is pointless to list the roles of Alisa Brunovna herself, they are all known and loved by us immensely!
Alisa Freindlich- queen of the stage, queen of the cinema, queen always and in everything.
Tours of the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Tovstonogov's performances in any city always end up sold out; great masters have played and continue to play on his stage. I would like to sincerely congratulate the theater troupe on their birthday and wish not only creative success, but also new actors worthy of this stage.
What performances of this theater would you like to see again? What roles of BDT actors did you like?
House of Count A. S. Apraksin -
Maly Theater - neo-baroque
emb. R. Fontanki, 65
Pam. arch. (federal)
1878 - architect. Fontana Ludwig Frantsevich
Theater A. S. Suvorin
1901-1902 - architect (AH) Hammerstedt Alexander Karlovich - reconstruction
Academic Bolshoi Drama Theater named after. Tovstonogov
2011-2014 - reconstruction and restoration
KB ViPS (KB High-Rise and Underground Structures) - project
Customer - Federal State Institution North-Western Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration
The theater building, combining stylistic elements of Baroque and Renaissance, was built by Count A. S. Apraksin (1878, architect L. F. Fontana) and leased to the Directorate Imperial theaters as an auxiliary stage for performances Alexandrinsky Theater. In the 1880-90s. The theater was rented by various entrepreneurs for drama and operetta performances. The following speakers performed here: E. N. Goreva, M. T. Ivanov-Kozelsky, E. Rossi, E. Duse, S. Bernard, J. Mounet-Sully and others. In 1901, the building was destroyed by fire, but was soon restored.
In 1895-1917, the theater of the literary and artistic society, known as Maly or Suvorinsky, operated in the building, named after the chairman of the society, the actual owner of the theater A. S. Suvorin. Created in 1895 as a private theater of the Literary and Artistic Circle (since 1899 ...society). After the death of Suvorin, from 1912 it was called the A.S. Suvorin Theater. The theater managers relied on the invitation famous actors, staging fashionable and new plays. The theater introduced the name of M. Maeterlinck and the plays of E. Rostand to the Russian public. Stimulating the development of modern domestic drama, the theater held annual competitions for new plays.
In 1918-1920 the Jewish Chamber Theater-Studio operated.
In 1919-1920 - Small dram. theater.
Famous film critic, artistic director Russian programs Moscow International Film Festival Irina Pavlova is a theater specialist by training. It so happened that she had the opportunity to observe life early famous theater from the inside. Irina Pavlova shared with Lenta.ru her memories of Georgy Tovstonogov, the actors and performances of the Bolshoi Drama Theater.
Photo: Sergey Vdovin / Interpress / Global Look
: I joined the BDT at the age of 14 and lived a huge part of my life with this theater. Tovstonogov reigned there unconditionally. And it wasn’t even about the power he had in the theater, but about how much his every word meant to everyone who worked at the BDT. In the theater they talked about Goga all the time. Even from fleeting conversations it was clear that he was a king and a god. Arbiter. That the distribution of roles in the new performance is either execution or elevation to the rank of general.
Lenta.ru: Have you ever heard anyone complain about him? Many actors later admitted that they were offended by him - he did not give roles for a long time.
Sometimes he didn’t give it. But I don’t think there was any malicious intent in this. He simply proceeded from considerations of production necessity. Well, for example, he was looking for Prince Myshkin, although there were options - the actor was rehearsing and probably would have played the premiere. But Tovstonogov saw the film “Soldiers” with the unknown Innokenty Smoktunovsky and shouted: “Here he is!” Overnight, Smoktunovsky became a star. And what happened to the actor who rehearsed Prince Myshkin? He drank himself to death. Gone.
It turned out differently with Oleg Basilashvili. He came to the BDT from the Theater. Lenin Komsomol, together with his then wife Tatyana Doronina. She had already come to the BDT with the rank of a rising theater star - after “The Factory Girl” in the same St. Petersburg Lenkom, she was immediately invited to the main female role in the play “Barbarians”, and until 1965, before the role of Andrei Prozorov in “Three Sisters”, he had only modest episodes on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater. But after Chekhov’s premiere, Basilashvili “woke up famous.”
Tovstonogov summoned Oleg Borisov from Kyiv. He had this sign: if the troupe lacks some color, look in the Kiev Russian theater, and you will find your actor there - Kirill Lavrov came from the Kiev theater to the BDT, from there Tovstonogov “discharged” Pavel Luspekayev, from there Valery later came Ivchenko.
Remember Oleg Borisov in the cinema before the Bolshoi Drama Theater? “Baltic Sky”, “Chasing Two Hares”. Role " character actor"brought him success, and perhaps if he had stayed in Kyiv then, he would have been an outstanding comedian... And in the BDT they took him as a tragic actor! And so Tovstonogov “marinated” him. Although Borisov brilliantly played Ganya Ivolgin in “The Idiot”! But after it - nothing, only inputs. The actor was about to leave the theater and had already written a statement.
Georgy Tovstonogov shakes hands with Oleg Borisov at the premiere of the play "King Henry IV" (1969). In the photo from left to right: Vladislav Strzhelchik, Oleg Borisov, Efim Kopelyan, Georgy Tovstonogov
At this time, Tovstonogov was preparing the play “Henry IV”, the main role was rehearsed by a good, intelligent, smart actor, who did not succeed at all. Tovstonogov removed him from the role of Prince Harry and appointed him to the role of young Oleg Borisov. And everything immediately fell into place. When this sarcastic, arrogant guy with an unpleasant, fractional laugh appeared in the play, all his partners in the play began to live differently. Actors are like matches in a box: one caught fire and they all burst into flames.
However, despite the “tyranny,” membership in Tovstonogov’s troupe was valued. The director himself called his regime a “voluntary dictatorship.”
When Georgy Aleksandrovich came to work at the BDT, he was given carte blanche: he could fire anyone, regardless of rank and regalia. He fired many. But two “troublemakers” remained in the theater, both People’s Artists. They wrote carts about him to the regional committee. He was immediately informed about this on the sly. What would ninety-nine directors out of a hundred do in this situation? Both would have been kicked out. What did Tovstonogov do? He gave the elderly actress two luxurious roles, and staged an almost benefit performance for the actor-informer. A real director values a good actor, even if that actor commits unseemly acts. And if the actor is mistaken, if he is used, with all his orders and medals, to feel like the master in the theater, then he just needs to explain who is the boss in the house. Why part with him? Where will you find something like this later? And the slanderous actor played Aesop in Tovstonogov. And then, according to the memoirs of Dina Morisovna Schwartz, in Goga’s office he fell to his knees and asked for forgiveness. How did Georgy Alexandrovich behave? "What are you speaking about?! I don’t know anything... Why are you asking for forgiveness?” He knew everything. But I didn’t consider it possible to even discuss it, much less accept an apology – even more so. This is how his “tyranny” developed.
They left him. Several very good artists have left. They, of course, did not disappear, nothing bad happened to them. But none of them had such achievements in the theater as with Tovstonogov. And they went to good theaters To good directors. Doronina, Yursky, Tenyakova... It is enough to compare what these actors had and what became in order to understand what Tovstonogov’s “dictatorship” was based on. The actor sees his particulars and does not see the whole. The only exception to this rule, perhaps, was Oleg Borisov. But his theatrical fate, despite the brilliant works of Efremov, Dodin, Heifetz, did not turn out as it could have.
They say that he did not “fraternize” with the actors; he communicated as if through a glass wall. And he was friends with Kopelyan and Luspekayev. How was friendship expressed?
It wasn't a wall. Distance. He communicated with Kopelyan, considered him one of the most smart people in Leningrad (which was pure truth). Evgeny Lebedev was his relative. He simply loved Luspekayev and saw his fantastic talent. The Tovstonogovs' house was quite closed and impenetrable. Even if they went to Natella Alexandrovna, it was the other half. So there weren’t many people entering his house. And there was no one entering his head.
Has your attitude towards Tovstonogov changed over time?
Not everything is always visible to a person from the outside. And often not everything is visible from the inside. Sometimes it seemed to me that something indecent, even disgusting, was happening! Well, for example, on the small stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, director Mark Rozovsky was rehearsing the play “Kholstomer”. The play based on Tolstoy's novella was written by him himself, very bright and original. Evgeny Alekseevich Lebedev, who was rehearsing the main role, mumbled like a maniac: “These will be the new “Physticians”!”
And Tovstonogov’s “The Bourgeois” was not just a great performance, but a programmatic one. The performance belongs to the category that makes a reputation not only for the director, but for the theater as a whole. Georgy Alexandrovich came and looked. And he said: “Well, transfer it to big stage" We started rehearsing at big stage, and it turned out: on the big stage the performance was falling apart. Georgy Alexandrovich makes several key amendments, changes emphasis, and instead of an avant-garde performance, a tragedy was suddenly born literally before our eyes.
Scene from the play "The Bourgeois" (1968) From left to right: Vladimir Recepter - Peter, Kirill Lavrov - Nil, Lyudmila Sapozhnikova - Polya, Nikolai Trofimov - Perchikhin
Photo: Maxim Blokhin / TASS Photo Chronicle
In general, Tovstonogov was already listed as the production director on the poster. "The Story of a Horse" became a hit of the season. Rozovsky, naturally, was not happy with what had happened... And many young critics (including myself) considered this whole story unseemly. But Rozovsky later staged this performance himself in another theater. And then everything became clear to everyone. And me too. And I stopped exclaiming: “It’s a shame to steal a performance!”
In general, Tovstonogov was the main director of the country at that time, whether anyone liked it or not. Despite the fact that Efros, Lyubimov, and Efremov worked with him at the same time.
On the stage of the BDT, Tovstonogov created not just a unique art world, full of incredible directorial insights and paradoxical solutions. He created fantasy world feelings, he raised a galaxy of great actors. After all, even those who left him experienced his influence all their lives, the influence of this amazing personality, endowed with some kind of inhuman intuition.
Is it just the actors?
How are actors created? Great actors are made by great performances. Not fashionable, not spectacular - great. He pulled something incredibly important out of any play, and the actors were the conductors of this important thing. The handsome Vladislav Strzhelchik (before Tovstonogov was listed as a “tailored actor”) played the ancient old man Gregory Solomon in Arthur Miller’s “The Price” so that the audience at every performance cried along with the hero... And Svetlana Kryuchkova is Aksinya, literally choking with love in "Quiet Don"...
I haven’t seen the play “Five Evenings” with Charcot, Kopelyan, Lavrov and Makarova. I only heard an incomplete audio recording. But how was all this supposed to be on stage, live, if the old sound recording literally makes your heart stop?
Tovstonogov came to the BDT, and the first thing he did (unlike most other directors) was stage a commercial play. "The Sixth Floor" based on the play by Gery. The general public flocked to him. The performance was multi-figured and took up two-thirds of the troupe. Unknown artists suddenly became famous. After that, he makes the play “Senor Mario Writes a Comedy” by Aldo Nicolai. Nobody really knew this name. But the very fact that an Italian play was staged here led to the fact that everyone rushed to the theater like catechumens. It was impossible to force anyone into the theatre, whose performances just recently, before Tovstonogov’s arrival. He worked with the city. He not only performed performances, he also seduced. He was a seducer! And suddenly - one performance after another: about Prince Myshkin, about the Bessemenov family. About a frivolous woman living on the second floor, to whom the entire Bessemenov family strives, and of whom the loving and misunderstood father is insanely jealous. Everyone wants to go to her, where they dance and sing, and not to where it’s stuffy and dad teaches all the time. And they don’t feel sorry for this dad, but his dad is wonderful... The same thing happened with “Barbarians”. The play turned out to be about the fact that everyone wants to be loved, but they themselves don’t know how to love... And his “The Fox and the Grapes” with Policemako in leading role– it was some kind of amazing hymn to freedom! Aesop's final phrase "Where is your abyss for free people?!” always accompanied by an ovation, simply a roar from the audience!
I don’t know if Tovstonogov squeezed out of himself a slave, drop by drop, as Chekhov put it. But the fact that he squeezed out the slave, the cattle, the redneck from his spectators, from society - this is completely obvious to me. I experienced this myself. You came to his theater as anyone, and left as a person longing for an ideal. It was there that I understood, as nowhere else, that culture is a system of taboos. That there are things that cannot be done, and that’s all. And if you want it so much that it’s unbearable, do like Tolstoy’s father Sergius - cut off your finger. It really distracts you from unworthy desires, you know!
The generation that grew up watching Tovstonogov’s performances has squandered these taboos. For many years they wasted, flogged, got rid of these taboos for their own convenience - but, fortunately, they never completely got rid of them. Because it was hammered into people with nails forged by director Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov at the Leningrad Academic Bolshoi Drama Theater.
The famous Bolshoi building drama theater, which is located on the Fontanka, was erected in 1877. Its customer was Count Anton Apraksin. It was originally conceived as a theater venue, and was supposed to become an auxiliary stage at Alexandrinka. For a long time the building was rented by the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters. At the end of the 19th century, it came under the jurisdiction of the Literary and Artistic Society, founded by playwright Alexei Suvorin. In 1917 the building was confiscated Soviet authority, in 1920 the Bolshoi Drama Theater was founded here.
Architect Ludwig Fontana, who built the building commissioned by Count Apraksin, chose an eclectic style. Appearance combines it character traits Baroque and Renaissance. Just 10 years after its construction, the building underwent a number of small changes, and at the beginning of the 20th century, a large-scale reconstruction was carried out, during which the stage space was greatly increased. The concept of lighting the building's interiors has completely changed. IN Soviet years part of the spectator foyer was converted into a small stage.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the issue of major renovation of theater premises became acute. The last reconstruction of the famous theater was completed in 2014.
History of the troupe
The founders of the Petrograd Bolshoi Drama Theater can be considered Maxim Gorky and one of the oldest Moscow Art Theater actresses, Maria Andreeva, who held the position of Commissioner for Entertainment Institutions of the Soviet North. In 1918, she officially signed the decision to open the BDT. To the troupe of the new theater group entered best actors Soviet era. Myself Alexander Benois became the main artist of the theater.
Already in 1919, the theater played its first premiere. It was Schiller's play Don Carlos. The theater received a building on Fontanka only in 1920, and before that the performances took place in big hall Conservatories.
“The theater of great tears and great laughter” - this is how Alexander Blok defined the repertoire policy of the BDT. At the beginning of its journey, the theater, accepting the works of the best world and Russian playwrights for production, brought revolutionary ideas to the public that were relevant to the time. The main ideologist of the BDT during the first years was Maxim Gorky. Since 1932, the theater officially began to bear his name.
In the early 30s, Konstantin Tverskoy, a student of Vsevolod Meyerhold, became the main director of the theater. Under him, the repertoire was supplemented with productions modern dramaturgy. Plays by such authors as Yuri Olesha made the theater closer to modern times.
In 1936, Tverskoy was arrested and later executed. After this, the time came for a constant change of artistic management of the theater. Many of its creative leaders were repressed and were replaced by others. This could not but affect the quality of the productions and the condition of the troupe. BDT began to lose its popularity and status as the leading theater in the city. During the Great Patriotic War The troupe continued its activities during the evacuation, and after breaking the blockade, it returned to Leningrad, where it began providing leisure facilities for hospitals.
The creative stagnation of the theater lasted until the post artistic director in 1956 Georgy Tovstonogov did not occupy. He completely reorganized the BDT, updated the troupe and attracted a new audience to the site. During the thirty-three years of his leadership, the theater troupe was replenished with such stars as Zinaida Sharko, Tatyana Doronina, Natalya Tenyakova, Alisa Freundlich. Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Pavel Luspekayev, Sergey Yursky, Oleg Basilashvili shone on the BDT stage.
After the death of the great master, the star troupe changed its main directors several times, among whom were Kirill Lavrov, Grigory Dityatkovsky, Temur Chkheidze.
In 2013, the BDT was headed by one of the most bright directors modern Russian theater- Andrey Moguchiy. His first performance, “Alice,” based on the works of Lewis Carroll, with Alice Freundlich in the title role, immediately won the most prestigious theater awards in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Ended in 2014 large-scale reconstruction BDT buildings - thus the theater was updated not only artistically, but also architecturally. While preserving its historical appearance, it significantly modernized its technical base.
Currently, the theater has three operating stages - the large and small stages in the main building on Fontanka, as well as the Kamennoostrovsky Theater, known as the “second stage of the BDT”.
During the last three-year reconstruction of the BDT, unique bas-reliefs, drawings and stucco moldings, the existence of which was previously unknown, were discovered inside the building under several layers of plaster and paint.
Having carried out a major renovation of the building, the builders preserved intact such memorable objects as the office of Georgy Tovstonogov, as well as the interiors in the dressing rooms, where the greats left their autographs on the walls and ceiling theater people our time.
One of the most famous Russian drama theaters in 2015 was awarded the National Theater Award “Golden Mask” in the “Puppet Theater” category, since one of latest prime ministers BDT was classified by experts not as a dramatic genre, but as a puppet genre. The play “When I become little again” based on the works of Janusz Korczak was staged on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater by the outstanding Russian puppeteer director Evgeniy Ibragimov.
On Friday, a meeting of the troupe of the Bolshoi Drama Theater was held at the Kamennoostrovsky Theater in St. Petersburg, at which the name of the new head of the BDT was announced. It was director Andrey.
“The candidacy of Andrei Moguchy has been agreed upon with the artistic council of the theater,” the Minister of Culture casually introduced the new leader.
"There is a feeling that it is beginning new stage. A new director comes - God grant that it will benefit people, that the audience will like it, that’s why we make performances,” the artist told Gazeta.Ru. Shtil believes that a single stage for the BDT and Alexandrinka will become “a competition between two schools in in a good way“, but changing anything in the BDT must be done carefully, with an eye on traditions.
Moguchy is a St. Petersburg resident, he is 51 years old, a multiple winner of the Golden Mask award, holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd degree.
People started talking about Andrei Moguchy in the early 90s, when the Formal Theater created by him appeared, uniting young actors, musicians, and artists looking for new forms of art.
First famous work The production of the play “The Bald Singer” became powerful. With the Formal Theater, the director traveled all over Europe, participated in festivals in a dozen countries, after which he staged several performances at the Baltic House, synthesizing modern and traditional art. For “School of Fools” Moguchiy received the main theater award St. Petersburg "Golden Sofit" and Grand Prix Edinburgh Festival. In 2004 he became a production director at the Alexandrinsky Theater. Here Mighty became famous for the play “Petersburg” based on the work. This performance was performed on white nights in the courtyard and in the museum halls of the Mikhailovsky Castle: The Mighty is characterized by experiments that spatially expand theater stage(“The Bald Singer” he showed to the audience in a residential area of Leningrad, against the backdrop of real new buildings, and “” - on the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square). On the big stage of Alexandrinsky, the director staged the performances “Ivans”, “Izotov”, “Happiness”. Young people and artists of the older generation played them side by side.
“Mighty makes technologically and visually complex productions, close to the movement called “artist’s theater,” says a theater critic, “in his latest works he works with video projection on a previously unseen level.”
Andrey Moguchy will have to prepare the theater for its return to the thoroughly restored BDT building on the Fontanka embankment (it is planned that the reconstruction will be completed in the fall).
Now the Bolshoi Drama Theater team performs on the stages of the Kamennoostrovsky Theater and the Palace of Culture named after. Gorky.
Let us note that, according to rumors, Moguchiy agreed to head the BDT only on the condition that the Ministry of Culture would grant him absolute administrative and creative power, in particular the right to personally form the troupe.
The last time such a sovereign owner of the BDT was Georgy Tovstonogov.
“When Tovstonogov himself was appointed to the BDT, and Lyubimov to Taganka, it apparently looked no less revolutionary,” Berman said, adding that he considers Moguchy a strong leader who will certainly win the respect of theater artists and will be able to resist conservatives within the troupe. who consider themselves the guardians of the “legacy of the great Tovstonogov.”
It is noteworthy that in the current BDT troupe there are many actors who worked with Tovstonogov. This folk artists USSR Oleg Basilashvili and, People's Artists of Russia, Georgy Shtil, Honored Artist of Russia. How they will accept a new artistic director is still unclear. For example, on the sidelines of the theater, a Gazeta.Ru correspondent accidentally overheard the following opinion:
“Mighty is a theater of the absurd, naked people will walk on stage upside down, and paper balls will be shot at the audience from rubber machine guns. Do you see Basilashvili or Kryuchkova in such a performance?”
