Valery Gergiev has been appointed the new director of the Bolshoi Theater

Valery Gergiev has been appointed the new director of the Bolshoi Theater

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Conductor Valery Gergiev was appointed general director of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater. This is reported by TASS. The contract with Gergiev is concluded for five years.

At the same time, Gergiev will retain the post of artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, thus leading the two largest opera and ballet theaters in the country.

The previous director of Bolshoy, Vladimir Uryn, was released from his post at his own request.

Valery Gergiev became the artist of the Mariinsky Theater in 1988. He is called the “shadow minister of foreign affairs”, representing Russia abroad, and also an active supporter of President Vladimir Putin. He was twice Putin’s confidant during presidential campaigns. In March 2022, Putin suggested to Gergiev to think about creating a joint directorate of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters, similar to the Directorate of Imperial Theaters, established in 1766 by Empress Catherine II.

  • In early March 2022, Gergiev was fired from the Munich Philharmonic, where he was chief conductor, for refusing to distance himself from the war with Ukraine. Gergiev is under the sanctions of Ukraine, in March 2022 he was banned from entering Lithuania. Earlier, Gergiev was listed by the Fund for Combating Corruption in the shortened TOP-200 list of corruptors and warmongers.

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