Russian ballet star breaks ranks over switch at top school
Stuart Williams
MOSCOW, Stuart Williams- One of Russia's most adored ballerinas spoke out vehemently on Wednesday against the appointment of outspoken dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze to head its top ballet school, in a controversy that could spiral into a major scandal.
Diana Vishneva, a star dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg, became the first high-profile figure to publicly criticise the appointment of Tsiskaridze to head the Vaganova Ballet Academy in Saint Petersburg.
Tsiskaridze was dismissed by Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in June after giving highly critical interviews over the January acid attack on the troupe's artistic director Sergei Filin.
The appointment of such a controversial figure to head the legendary Vaganova Academy sent a shockwave through the Russian ballet world.
"I very much hope that this is not the end of a great school," Vishneva, a People's Artist of Russia, the country's highest artistic award, told the RIA Novosti news agency.
"There was no real reason for the change in leadership and there was no discussion with anyone from the Saint Petersburg ballet world," she said.
"The rector of the Vaganova Academy needs to be a person who has the necessary education for this. It should not be forgotten that this is a school for children and its leader should be morally irreproachable."
Vishneva, herself a graduate of the Vaganova who like many of its students rose to world fame, said she was indignant over the "unceremonious nature" of the change in leadership of the academy.
Her stance was backed by another high-profile Mariinsky soloist, the character dancer Ilya Kuznetsov who said people "were in shock but no one can do anything."
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky presented Tsiskaridze as the new Vaganova head on Monday and also named celebrated Mariinsky ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina as its artistic director, even though she has yet to retire from the stage.
'Ripped out the heart and soul'
The change meant the ousting of the previous rector Vera Dorofeyeva and artistic director Altynai Asylmuratova, a Kazakh-born dancer who was the greatest ballerina of the late Soviet era.
By removing Dorofeyeva and Asylmuratova, "the bureaucrats have ripped out the heart and soul of the academy," Kuznetsov told the Rosbalt news agency.
The appointment of the Moscow-based Tsiskaridze is also hard to stomach for the Saint Petersburg ballet elite, who pride themselves on the differences in style between the Mariinsky and Bolshoi.
The controversy over the dramatic change at the head of the Vaganova Academy is the latest scandal to hit the Russian ballet world, which is already reeling from the attack on Filin.
Pavel Dmitrichenko, the Bolshoi soloist who is accused of organising the acid attack, went on trial in Moscow this week and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Arguably the most legendary ballet school anywhere in the world, the Vaganova Academy traces its history back to 1738 and takes its current name from the great ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova who taught there in the 1920s.
It has produced scores of star dancers over the years, including iconic ballerinas like Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina and male dancers the likes of Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The changes appear linked to complaints by the hugely prominent artistic director of the Mariinsky, the pro-Kremlin conductor Valery Gergiev, that the academy was not producing students of sufficient quality.
Gergiev has also proposed merging the Mariinsky and the Vaganova into a single cultural centre, an idea that met with horror in some quarters.
"If this is what Valery Abisalovich (Gergiev) needs, if it is fine to use measures of a repressive nature, then I am prepared to quit," Kuznetsov said.
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The appointment of such a controversial figure to head the legendary Vaganova Academy sent a shockwave through the Russian ballet world.
"I very much hope that this is not the end of a great school," Vishneva, a People's Artist of Russia, the country's highest artistic award, told the RIA Novosti news agency.
"There was no real reason for the change in leadership and there was no discussion with anyone from the Saint Petersburg ballet world," she said.
"The rector of the Vaganova Academy needs to be a person who has the necessary education for this. It should not be forgotten that this is a school for children and its leader should be morally irreproachable."
Vishneva, herself a graduate of the Vaganova who like many of its students rose to world fame, said she was indignant over the "unceremonious nature" of the change in leadership of the academy.
Her stance was backed by another high-profile Mariinsky soloist, the character dancer Ilya Kuznetsov who said people "were in shock but no one can do anything."
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky presented Tsiskaridze as the new Vaganova head on Monday and also named celebrated Mariinsky ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina as its artistic director, even though she has yet to retire from the stage.
'Ripped out the heart and soul'
The change meant the ousting of the previous rector Vera Dorofeyeva and artistic director Altynai Asylmuratova, a Kazakh-born dancer who was the greatest ballerina of the late Soviet era.
By removing Dorofeyeva and Asylmuratova, "the bureaucrats have ripped out the heart and soul of the academy," Kuznetsov told the Rosbalt news agency.
The appointment of the Moscow-based Tsiskaridze is also hard to stomach for the Saint Petersburg ballet elite, who pride themselves on the differences in style between the Mariinsky and Bolshoi.
The controversy over the dramatic change at the head of the Vaganova Academy is the latest scandal to hit the Russian ballet world, which is already reeling from the attack on Filin.
Pavel Dmitrichenko, the Bolshoi soloist who is accused of organising the acid attack, went on trial in Moscow this week and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Arguably the most legendary ballet school anywhere in the world, the Vaganova Academy traces its history back to 1738 and takes its current name from the great ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova who taught there in the 1920s.
It has produced scores of star dancers over the years, including iconic ballerinas like Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina and male dancers the likes of Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The changes appear linked to complaints by the hugely prominent artistic director of the Mariinsky, the pro-Kremlin conductor Valery Gergiev, that the academy was not producing students of sufficient quality.
Gergiev has also proposed merging the Mariinsky and the Vaganova into a single cultural centre, an idea that met with horror in some quarters.
"If this is what Valery Abisalovich (Gergiev) needs, if it is fine to use measures of a repressive nature, then I am prepared to quit," Kuznetsov said.
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