Yuri Lyubimov

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Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov
Юрий Петрович Любимов
Yuriy Lyubimov.jpg
Born (1917-09-30) 30 September 1917 (age 95)
Yaroslavl, Russian Republic
Occupation Stage actor, theatre director
Years active 1935 – present
Spouse(s) Katalin Lyubimova
Website
www.lyubimov.info

Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov (born 30 September 1917 in Yaroslavl) is a Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally-renowned[1] Taganka Theatre which he founded in 1964[2][3]. He is one of the leading names in the Russian theatre world.[4]

Contents

Biography[edit]

Yuri Lyubimov was born in Yaroslavl in 1917. His grandfather was a kulak who fled to Moscow to escape arrest during the collectivisation. Lyubimov's father, Petr Zakharovich, was a merchant, who worked for a Scottish company, and his mother, Anna Alexandrovna, was a half-Russian and half-Gypsy schoolteacher. They moved to Moscow in 1922, where both were arrested. Lyubimov studied at the Institute for Energy in Moscow.

He was a member of Mikhail Chekhov's Second Moscow Art Theater from 1934 to 1936. During the 1930s, he also met and had a brief chat with Vsevolod Meyerhold, the famous avant-garde director. Lyubimov worked in the Song and Dance Ensemble of the NKVD, where he met and befriended Dmitry Shostakovich, Nikolai Erdman and many others.[5]

After service in the Soviet Army during the World War II, Lyubimov joined the Vakhtangov Theatre (founded by Yevgeny Vakhtangov). In 1953, he received the USSR State Prize. Lyubimov started teaching in 1963 and formed the Taganka Theatre the following year. Under Lyubimov, the theatre rose to become the most popular in Moscow, with Vladimir Vysotsky and Alla Demidova as the leading actors.

In 1971 Shakespeare's Hamlet became one of the highly successful and much acclaimed productions of Lyubimov.

Long a Soviet underground classic, Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita was finally brought to the Russian stage at the Taganka in 1977, in an adaptation by Lyubimov.[6]

According to B. Beumers, the major innovations Lyubimov has brought to the theatrical history are the creation of a new theatrical genre, the portic theatre, in which all evolves around one metaphor, and the creation of a new form of dramatic material, which incorporates the historical and biographical context.[7]

After Vysotsky's death in 1980, all of Lyubimov's productions were banned by the Communist authorities. In 1984, he was stripped of Soviet citizenship. Thereupon Lyubimov worked abroad before returning to the Taganka Theatre in 1989. His staging of Eugene Onegin premiered in the Taganka on his 85th birthday to much critical acclaim.

While in the West he maintained a busy directing career. In the US he directed Crime and Punishment at Arena Stage and Lulu at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 1983 he directed Crime and Punishment in London, winning the Evening Standard Award for Best Director. His effort to re-stage his famous The Master and Margarita at the American Repertory Theater failed to materialize due to a disagreement with the management of that company.

In June 2011, before a performance of Bertolt Brecht's play 'The Good Person of Szechwan' in Czech, the actors of Taganka refused to rehearse unless they were paid first. Lyubimov paid the money and left the theatre. "I've had enough of this disgrace, these humiliations, this lack of desire to work, this desire just for money", he told.[8] Lyubimov retired from the theatre the following week. Two leading actors of theatre, Dmitry Mezhevich and Alla Smirdan,[9] as well as some administrative assistants,[10] followed Lyubimov. Dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Demons" by Lyubimov premiered the next year.

In June 2013 Lyubimov staged Prince Igor of Alexander Borodin at Bolshoi Theatre, which had warm reception by audiences and critics.[11]The new Prince Igor is shorter with Lyubimov cutting out some parts of the opera. According to Vassily Sinaisky, the Bolshoi chief conductor, such a new structure of the opera was conceived to make it more dynamic and intense.[12]

Lyubimov has staged over 100 dramas and operas. "People tried to stick me with the label of political theater. But that's wrong. I was engaged in an aesthetic, in the expansion of the palette — what shades could be added in working with space and style," he says.[13] After his interview with Lyubimov, Leonardo Shapiro concludes that “Lyubimov is probably best known for his daring theatrical adaptations of poetry and novels and his successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) run-ins with Soviet Premiers and Ministers of Culture over forbidden material.”[14]

As an actor he performed in 37 plays and 17 films, and several remain classics today.

Vladimir Visotsky dedicated some of his famous songs (included It's Not Evening Yet[15]) to Yuri Lyubimov.

Awards[edit]

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Russian Wikipedia.

Selected filmography[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hat hunted off head, BBC, 2000
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ Russian playwright Yuri Lyubimov quits theatre company, BBC, 27 June 2011
  5. ^ Happy 95th Birthday, Yury Lyubimov! 30 September 2012, By John Freedman, The Moscow Times
  6. ^ The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre (CUP 1988)
  7. ^ Yuri Lyubimov: Thirty Years at the Taganka Theatre, by B. Beumers, 2004, p. 6
  8. ^ Russian playwright Yuri Lyubimov quits theatre company, BBC, 27 June 2011
  9. ^ Зарубежные гастроли Театра на Таганке могут не состояться - Юрий Любимов, ITAR-TASS, 2011
  10. ^ Четыре сотрудника Таганки покинули театр вслед за Любимовым, Izvestia, 2011
  11. ^ В Большом прошел премьерный показ "Князя Игоря" в постановке Любимова. 09.06.13, Vesti (in Russian)
  12. ^ The Prince Igor Opera Gets Revamped
  13. ^ Happy 95th Birthday, Yury Lyubimov! 30 September 2012, By John Freedman, The Moscow Times
  14. ^ Shapiro, Leonardo http://bombsite.com/issues/34/articles/1404, BOMB Magazine Winter, 1991. Retrieved on May 31, 2013.
  15. ^ Владимир Высоцкий. 1968 год
  16. ^ Some of the Titles and Awards of Y. P. Lyubimov
  17. ^ Grande Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella della solidarieta italiana Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov.

External links[edit]

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