The Bolshoi Theater has canceled performances in May of the ballet A Hero of Our Time directed by director Kirill Serebrennikov, the theater’s press service reported.
Instead of Serebrennikov’s ballet, Edward Clug’s production of The Master and Margarita will be presented. The reasons for the schedule change are not specified, tickets purchased previously are valid.
Serebrennikov commented messages about the cancellation of the performance with a quote from the novel “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov: “Schizophrenia, as they say.”
Serebrennikov staged the ballet A Hero of Our Time shortly after the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the novel of the same name, Mikhail Lermontov. Premiere of the show took place in 2015. ballet next year received theater prize “Golden Mask” in three categories.
The administration of the Bolshoi Theater filmed production of the Spring 2022 screening. Soon the theater put the performance back on the schedule, but deleted from the list of authors the name of Serebrennikov.
At the end of March 2022, a Moscow court overturned the probation of Kirill Serebrennikov, who had previously been convicted of a particularly massive fraud in the Seventh Studio case. Shortly after, the director left Russia. After that he made a number of public statements against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In May 2022, the Bolshoi Theater canceled Performances in May of the ballet “Nureev” by Serebrennikov. In November, the Chekhov Art Theater in Moscow deleted the name of the director of the program for his production of “Forest”.
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation at the end of October called “Absolutely logical” is the disappearance of posters of the names of cultural figures who “gave up on Russia in difficult times”. The department said the corresponding request comes from the Russian company.