Valeriy Gergiev has been officially appointed head of Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theater. His predecessor declared himself against the war in Ukraine.
Conductor Valeriy Gergiev has been officially appointed head of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The move sparked new concerns about politicization and censorship in Russian culture. Valeriy Gergiev also retains his previous position as director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, becoming the head of two major Russian theaters.
The previous director of the Bolshoi, Vladimir Ourin, presented his “voluntary” resignation, without specifying the reasons. The media clearly see the consequences of his anti-war sentiments. Vladimir Ourin was among Russian cultural figures who, at the end of February 2022, signed a letter to Putin demanding an end to the war in Ukraine. Later, Vladimir Urin admitted the increase in censorship in Russian cultural life.
Valeriy Gergiev is considered an unwavering ally of the Russian president. According to Gergiev himself, they have known each other since the beginning of the 1990s. The new head of the Bolshoi never spoke out against the “special military operation” and, due to the absence of an anti-war position clearly, he was dismissed from his position as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in March 2022, a position he had held since 2015.
