Anatoly Iksanov, the general manager of the Bolshoi Theatre, has been dismissed by the Russian Ministry of Culture.
Iksanov has presided over the Bolshoi for nearly 13 years, and was contracted to stay until the end of 2014. But his tenure has been wracked with scandal, crowned by the acid attack on the Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director, Sergei Filin.
While the Bolshoi’s official newsletter makes no causal connection between his dismissal and that attack, it states that under his reign the “combination of conservatism and innovation was not harmonious” and the “public scandals . . . have moved to the criminal sphere and became more important for the mass media than the creative activity of the theatre”.
It is well known that Iksanov was in conflict with one of the Bolshoi’s principal dancers, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who had accused him of mismanagement and of abusing the dancers’ rights. Tsiskaridze was a rival of Filin’s, and for a time was suspected of committing the acid attack. He was fired in July. Another recent conflict was with principal dancer Svetlana Zakharova. She was scheduled to dance (with American resident guest artist David Hallberg) in Cranko’s 'Onegin' – the first time that ballet (an adaptation of a famous Russian novel) had been performed in Russia. But she refused to dance following a rift with management.
The Bolshoi denies any connection between these clashes and Iksanov’s removal.
The Bolshoi newsletter praises Iksanov for having brought the Bolshoi Theatre from “a Soviet theatre into a European one”. He is also credited with presiding over the difficult task of the renovation of the historic theatre, and for his “marvellous intuition” in bringing together artistic collaborators. Commentators seem surprised by the suddenness and the timing of his dismissal, which occurred just a few days before the ‘Onegin’ season. Iksanov is quoted as having asked for his own dismissal back in April.
He has been replaced by Vladimir Urin, until now the artistic director of the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre.
- KAREN VAN ULZEN