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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Bolshoi tries to quell scandal after halting ‘Nureyev’ premiere

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MOSCOW: Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre was battling to calm a storm of speculation on Monday after cancelling the world premiere of a ballet about star dancer Rudolf Nureyev just three days before opening night.


The ballet was to open on Tuesday at the legendary Moscow theatre, with a bevy of international critics in the audience.


But on Saturday the Bolshoi said the premiere had been postponed with no future date set — a move critics said was unprecedented in the theatre’s modern history.


On Monday, the theatre’s general director Vladimir Urin announced that the premiere would now be held on May 4, telling a packed news conference that he and artistic director Makhar Vaziev had pulled the show because of poor performances in rehearsals.


“In terms of the quality of the ballet, we realised it was bad,” Urin said, adding that the theatre’s management was “completely despondent”.


But a rehearsal Saturday nonetheless showed a “very serious leap in quality”, he said, and the ballet will now have its premiere on May 4.


The ballet has been hotly anticipated given Nureyev’s legacy, after his defection to the West and


his death from an Aids-related illness in 1993.


It was created by one of Russia’s most innovative theatre and film directors, Kirill Serebrennikov, whose home and Moscow theatre were recently searched in a probe into alleged embezzlement of state funds.


Neither Serebrennikov nor the choreographer Yury Posokhov was present at the news conference, and Vaziev said nothing.


Rumours have swirled that Urin was furious at the show’s artistic content — reportedly featuring nudity and male dancers in drag — or that he received a call from government officials to pull the show.


Bolshoi ballerina Maria Alexandrova wrote on Instagram: “The last time this happened in the theatre was in the 1930s,” during Stalin’s Great Terror.


Urin denied the rumours, saying “there are no other circumstances here,” while adding that Serebrennikov’s run-in with the authorities did not—play any role.


But he acknowledged receiving a call from Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, known for his conservative views, though he said he was simply asking how to comment to journalists.


Medinsky had a “long conversation with Urin but a ban is not the ministry’s style of working,” his spokeswoman said on Monday.


Urin said “there definitely will be arguments” over the ballet, since Nureyev is an “ambiguous figure with a complex fate, and telling this story will be quite difficult.”


The cancelled premiere means “reputational losses undoubtedly, but for us the quality of the ballet is more important,” he said. — AFP


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