Mikhail Messerer is the chief choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater. Mikhail Messerer: “Work should bring joy

Mikhail Messerer Career: Dancer
Birth: Russia
On July 4 and 15, the Bolshoi Theater will show the last premiere of the season - the one-act ballet "Class Concert". In fact, the performance, in which the daily exercise of ballet dancers is turned into a fascinating spectacle, appeared at the Bolshoi back in 1963. It was choreographed by the outstanding dancer and great ballet teacher Asaf Messerer. Today his nephew Mikhail is working on the restoration of the lost ballet.

During the years of the first "Class Concert" he was a student at the choreographic school. Then he became an artist of the Bolshoi Theater. In the early 1980s he asked for asylum in the West. Nowadays Mikhail Messerer is one of the most sought-after teachers in the world. After the lesson, where all the stars of the Bolshoi Ballet worked hard, Izvestia correspondent Svetlana Naborshchikova met with Mikhail Messerer.

Question: When teaching a class at the Bolshoi, what do you pay attention to first?

Answer: To what was lost in the 1970s and 1980s, when, in my opinion, not the best changes took place in the Moscow school. These are musicality, expressiveness, punctuality of positions.

Q: You are always teaching at the Royal Ballet of Great Britain. How does a class in London differ from a class in Moscow?

A: In London you can’t help but build something in full swing. In Moscow this has always been commonplace, although nowadays some things have improved. When I was at BT, women practiced only in soft shoes. There was no talk of using pointe shoes in class. Today, I see, without talking, they put on pointe shoes and work. Well, not one hundred percent, but almost one hundred percent. In London there is “almost” no such thing. Just like if you are a professional trial lawyer, you will not give half-knowledge advice to a client.

Q: You finished science not at 12.00, as expected, but at ten minutes past twelve. Can the British trade union challenge this very surplus? Well, let's say that the artists have reworked it.

A: But they stayed of their own free will! And the hall was free. The dancers dance all the way to the end of the lesson, and it would be insulting to rudely stop the classes. Therefore, when developing a lesson project, I remember that at the end I need to add a couple of minutes for masterly tricks. Asaf Messerer did this all the time, and you will see it in the “Class Concert”.

Q: Did you give your cousin Maya Plisetskaya a class?

A: No such opportunity presented itself. We met last year in London, when the rehearsal for her anniversary evening was underway in Covent Garden. I warmly applauded her youth. She looked simply amazing.

Q: It's obviously a family thing. For example, you won’t be given your 59 years. How do you keep fit?

A: Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out with diets, but I don’t drink or smoke. Many people are aged not by years, but by depression. I consider myself a happy person and I try to see only the good sides in everything in people, countries, cities.

Q: Your mother, ballerina and teacher Shulamith Messerer, looked wonderful even at 95. I remember when she was awarded the next prize, she demonstrated a few steps with great grace.

A: Almost until the last days, my mother was in excellent shape, she swam in the pool almost every day. At the age of 95, she boarded an airliner alone and went around the world to teach. And under no circumstances was she afraid of “losing everything and starting all over again from the beginning.” This line from Kipling, translated by Marshak, was her motto.

Q: There are rumors that in the recently published memoirs of Shulamith Messerer, passages that talk about Maya Plisetskaya’s difficult relationship with her and with her own mother are cut out.

A: This is not true. The book has a subtitle: "Fragments of Memories." Mom herself chose what she considered most significant for herself and for the reader.

Q: Let's return to her motto; it has direct relevance to you. Having escaped from the USSR, you lost everything and started all over again.

A: Exactly. You can say that I landed on a distant planet and my spaceship crashed upon landing. In the early 80s it could not have occurred to me that it would be permissible to return.

Q: When did it become clear that the ship was still operational?

A: In 1993. In Athens, on the central square, I ran into Dima Bryantsev (in 1985-2004, the founding choreographer of the K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater. “Izvestia”). He said: “Misha, why don’t you come and teach classes at my place?” I took a risk and don't regret it. At the Stanislavsky Theater I met my future wife, ballerina Olya Szabados. Now we have a seven-year-old daughter.

Q: In what condition did you find the Bolshoi Theater?

A: I came back to the Bolshoi two years ago at the invitation of Alexei Ratmansky. It was still in the old building. Outwardly, not much has changed there since I ran away: the same furniture, the same carpets. But people have become different. The administration, in any case, worked clearly.

Q: A couple of years ago you said that, although you are a patriot of the Bolshoi Theater, you consider the Mariinsky Ballet to be the best in the world. Are you still of the same opinion?

A: I don't want to compare. These are great ballet companies and both companies have grown a lot in recent years. Both have people who work, at least, it feels like 23 hours a day, and this is the key to global success.

Q: How does Russian ballet look compared to foreign achievements?

A: In my opinion, he is still at the forefront of the planet, especially when it comes to the classical repertoire. Few foreign dancers can perform Swan Lake the way Russian ballerinas dance it. I know this exactly, because I taught in most troupes in the world. There is almost one theater in the West where I have not worked, the New York City Ballet. But Azary Plisetsky, my cousin, taught lessons there.

Q: When was the last time the Messerer-Plisetsky family got together?

A: Less than a year ago, on the 90th birthday of my uncle Alexander Messerer. He is an engineer by profession, but he loves the theater very much. All relatives flew in, some from Australia, some from America, some from Switzerland. I flew in from London. There were Azariy, Boris Messerer, Bella Akhmadullina... The evening was wonderful. If we, relatively young, could forget some of our distant relatives, then Alexander Mikhailovich remembered everyone. He knows everyone by name and helps everyone. And he always helped. I stood in all the queues for Maya when the family was evacuated in Sverdlovsk.

— You restored the Laurencia, now the Flame of Paris. What value do you see in pre-war Soviet choreography?

— Each of these ballets was a special, high point in the repertoire among other performances created during that period. “Laurencia” and “Flames of Paris” are valuable because they are well tailored and tightly sewn, they are interesting choreographically, and the language is skillfully chosen for each performance. But in principle, it is a pity to lose the ballets of that period because, without knowing your past, it is difficult to move forward. It is necessary to move forward, but we must do it in such a way that future generations will not accuse us of doing this to the detriment of our own heritage. All over the world, national theaters remember their choreographers, honor them, and try not to lose their ballets. Take England, America, Denmark and so on. At some point, we lost a huge layer of performances; only “The Bakhchisarai Fountain” and “Romeo and Juliet” at the Mariinsky Theater were preserved. That is, of what happened over the many decades of development of Russian art under the communists, most simply disappeared. In my opinion, this is unfair. “Laurencia” and “Flames of Paris” are also successful because they contain characteristic dances, the work of mimic artists, and pantomime. Not a conventional pantomime of the 19th century, but a live dance acting game, which the ballet theater came to at that moment. I think it's good for ballet dancers to remember and practice this. It would be a shame if the genre of character dance or the ability to act completely died out. Young artists have heard that there is such a thing as an actor’s image, but they don’t really know what it is. In addition, at that time many scores were written specifically for ballet, but there are always not enough of them, there is always the question of what to stage. And there is also the question of foreign tours - there is no need to explain how important they are for our theater: we brought classics to London, our Swan Lake, Giselle, and modern ballets by Nacho Duato and Slava Samodurov, but most of all they attract the English public these “damned drama ballets”. “Laurencia” was received well, and now they are waiting for our “Flame”.

Ballet surname

Mikhail Messerer belongs to a famous artistic family. His mother, Shulamith Messerer, was the prima of the Bolshoi Theater in 1926-1950, then taught at the Bolshoi. For her performance of the main role in "The Flames of Paris" she was awarded the Stalin Prize. In 1938, when her sister Rachel (a silent film actress) was arrested, she took her daughter, Maya Plisetskaya, into the family. The famous Bolshoi dancer, and then teacher and choreographer, was Mikhail Messerer’s uncle, Asaf Messerer. Another uncle, Azary Messerer, was a dramatic actor and director of the Theater. Ermolova. Mikhail Messerer's cousins ​​are artist Boris Messerer and teacher-choreographer Azary Plisetsky.

- There is such a point of view that what has remained for centuries is the best, there is no need to restore what was destroyed. We only need to build new things. What do you feel about it?

— We need to build spacious modern buildings, but why destroy ancient mansions?! Build nearby. And there is so little left of that period in ballet! I'm not saying that all the performances of that time should be restored. But I wanted to bring back the highest achievements of the art of ballet of those decades to a new life. I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that in architecture some things from each period have been preserved - it hasn’t happened that everything was deliberately destroyed. But in this case, almost everything was destroyed simply because they decided that it was bad. Everything that was done was bad. And it began to be believed that supposedly it only started well in the sixties. I strongly disagree with this. Much of what was done in the sixties did not become classics, but simply became outdated - unlike Laurencia, for example. As I already said, the Mariinsky Theater has preserved “The Bakhchisarai Fountain” by Rostislav Zakharov and “Romeo and Juliet” by Leonid Lavrovsky. The audience enjoys these performances. When in recent years they gathered their strength and brought “Romeo and Juliet” to London, it was a gigantic success. But two titles are not enough. And I’m glad that now we’ve managed to somehow improve the situation and recreate a number of performances. Six years ago I was invited to the Bolshoi Theater to stage “Class Concert” by Asaf Messerer - it was Alexei Ratmansky’s idea. Then the general director of the Mikhailovsky Theater, Vladimir Kekhman, asked me which “Swan Lakes” I knew (however, at first I offered him modern versions - Matthew Bourne, Mats Ek), and he chose the “old Moscow” “Swan Lake”, a performance from the same era. Then “Laurencia” arose - from the idea to celebrate the centenary of Vakhtang Chabukiani (I thought: what could be better than restoring the ballet of Chabukiani himself?).

— When the artists performed this performance on stage before and after the war, do you think they correlated what was happening on stage with reality?

- Certainly. In the thirties, many certainly sincerely believed in the ideals of a bright communist future and took it seriously. Now one of the important tasks for me is to convince our artists to believe in the revolution when they are on stage. At least for the two or three hours that the performance lasts.

— When you and your mother, the famous ballerina Shulamith Messerer, remained in Japan, becoming “defectors” in 1980, did you think that someday you would study Soviet ballets?

- No, I couldn’t have dreamed this in a bad dream - and not in a good dream either. But later, after thirty years of living in London, when he began to come to Russia to work, he asked: have you restored anything from that era? For example, I restored the “Class Concert” in the West, but what have you done? “Flames of Paris”, “Laurencia” is the same? It turned out that no, they had not restored it. It seemed strange to me - a gaping hole in history. But in 1980, no, I didn’t think so. I understand that now my work looks like a paradox - after all, I left for freedom from communist dictatorship. But I distinguish between the political and artistic sides of the matter. I hope that with my biography no one will accuse me of sympathizing with that cannibalistic regime. But the most talented people were creating at that time, such as Vainonen and director Sergei Radlov. Many were repressed - like Radlov or the librettist of “The Bright Stream” Adrian Piotrovsky. No one ever knew whether they would give the Stalin Prize or send them to the Gulag, and sometimes both happened, and in different orders. I also understand perfectly well what seas of blood were shed during the French Revolution, what sacrifice the French people made on the altar of freedom, but it is no coincidence that the French celebrate Bastille Day every year. The ideals of equality are close to every European. And the ideas of the struggle for freedom are eternal.

— Choreographer Vasily Vainonen, who staged “The Flames of Paris” in 1932, is practically unknown to modern audiences - with the exception of “The Nutcracker,” which is performed at the Moscow Musical Theater and performed by students of the Vaganova Academy on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater. What do you think was the main thing in his choreographic style?

— Remarkable musicality, ability to play with rhythms, amazing skill in varying musical accents, ability to put on syncopation. Everything is simply and talentedly staged, and, of course, he has not lost touch with his predecessors - for me this is a very important quality: he has a clear thread with the work of Alexander Gorsky, Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa.

— Did you dance in “The Flames of Paris” when you worked at the Bolshoi Theater?

— I participated in “The Flames of Paris” as a boy in a number that I deliberately did not restore now, because, in my opinion, it would be superfluous today. I performed the role of the little blackamoor in the ball scene in the royal palace, but now only Cupid dances to this music.

- As far as I understand, in the prologue you slightly changed the motivation - in 1932, the Marquis de Beauregard attempted to honor the honor of a peasant girl and arrested the father who stood up for her, now he orders the man to be punished only for collecting brushwood in his forest...

- There were many versions of the libretto, Vainonen changed the performance all the time - from 1932 to 1947. So, for example, in 1932 you can find a fragment where at the royal ball not only the Actress dances, but the Singer, her understudy, also sings, and exactly the same thing happens during the Actor’s performance. Gradually, everything changed and was brought into some more compact form, in which it reached the time when I saw this performance in the 60s - I saw it several times and remember Georgy Farmanyants, Gennady Ledyakh, I remember the first performance of Mikhail Lavrovsky. And now I’ve cut some things myself.

- What exactly?

— That episode at the beginning of the play when the marquis’s soldiers beat the heroine’s father - before they arrested him and took him to the castle, and the peasants and Marseilles broke down the gate with a log, stormed the castle and liberated it. There were still a lot of prisoners in the casemates, they were releasing everyone, and the aristocrats hiding there were being taken away on a cart, apparently to the guillotine. I omitted all this, thinking that Vainonen and Radlov in our time, too, would probably cut out this part - it would look heavy, but I wanted the performance to go on in one breath. In addition, there was practically no choreography.

— Oksana Bondareva and Ivan Zaitsev, who performed the main roles in “The Flames of Paris” (though in different casts), have just triumphantly performed at the International Moscow Ballet Competition. Did they ask you for time off?

- Yes, they asked for time off at the last moment. They did not have the opportunity to prepare comfortably, unfortunately, because Oksana was being introduced to the role of Juliet and literally a couple of days after her performance the competition had already begun. She rehearsed almost 24 hours a day, preparing for the competition almost at night. I warned her that it was dangerous - her legs were not made of iron, but she believed in her victory. Well done, she won - and winners are not judged.

— Many directors of troupes do not like it when their artists leave for the competition. Do you think competition in general is useful or harmful?

— Useful, I myself participated in competitions. After passing the competition, you become a better performer. This is especially important for those who believe that they do not go on stage often enough. This is an additional exam. Having passed this exam, you grow creatively, you believe in yourself more if you dance successfully.

- But if the artists danced successfully, there is always a chance that other theaters will steal them from the director?

- Yes, this aspect also exists. But I don't think about it now. Mostly, artists don’t leave us—they come to us. However, there were isolated cases when artists left our corps de ballet for a better position at the Mariinsky Theater. They believed that I was not giving them games, and - “well, here you go, we’ll go to the Mariinsky Theater!” But we have a large corps de ballet - if the Mariinsky Theater needs help, you are always welcome, there are still extra ones.

— By the way, Angelina Vorontsova came to you from the Bolshoi Theater. Tell me, when did you first see her on stage and was there an idea to invite her to the theater earlier, before this whole tragic story happened with Sergei Filin and the accusation of attempted murder against Angelina’s boyfriend Pavel Dmitrichenko?

— I haven’t seen Angelina on stage before. And it all happened somehow at one moment: school teacher Vorontsova approached us, saying that Angelina had left the Bolshoi Theater - would we be interested in taking her? I was in Moscow and watched Angelina. We discussed financial possibilities with our director Vladimir Kekhman - whether we could accept a ballerina. He confirmed that yes, it was possible to do this, and the issue was resolved positively. I'm glad. Vorontsova looks great on our stage. She is very good both in the role of Jeanne and in the role of the Actress. She has some kind of life-affirming energy, her art can be described by paraphrasing the poet: “As black thoughts come to you, Uncork a bottle of champagne. Or look at Angelina’s dance.”

— Angelina danced wonderfully at the premiere. But they told me that she got into the first cast by pure chance, because a colleague who was supposed to dance this role, the role of a court Actress who sympathizes with the rebellious people, wanted to improve her costume and accidentally ruined it so much that it could not be restored by premiere. How often does it happen in the theater that ballerinas change something without warning anyone?

— I will not comment on this case, but I will say that sometimes prima ballerinas and premieres allow themselves to adjust the costume. This happened and is happening in any theater in the world - starting with Vaslav Nijinsky. But I don’t allow this, and in this sense there are no problems at Mikhailovsky.

— In all the theaters of the world? That is, in« Covent Garden“Does this happen too?

- Someone tried to cut it - both here and at Covent Garden, and at the Paris Opera, and somewhere else. But these are the rarest cases. Rudolf Nureyev was spotted doing this.

- Well, he ran the theater himself.

— No, even before I became a director. But such things simply need to be done with the participation of the production designer. I always tell artists when they ask to change something in a costume: guys, this is not with me, this is first with the production designer. Maybe he will find the best option for you - so that you feel good and the performance too.

— At the same time, I have not heard an unkind word about you from any artist in your theater - in this case, you are an exception to the theatrical rules. What is the secret of leading a troupe, how to make sure that they don’t hate you?

“People see when you treat your business with soul, when you don’t breed a harem and when you care about the artists and try to do good for everyone. And although it is impossible to do well for everyone in any case, you need to try. That they love me is very strange. I'm quite tough sometimes in my decisions. And the artists understand this. Maybe they just value fairness.

- Firstly, it’s true - we have very beautiful women in the troupe, and the men are not bad at all, and secondly, it will be easier for her to accept the remark.

- And if you are still very unhappy with the ballerina or dancer, can you shout?

- No, I won’t shout at a person. But there are times when at a rehearsal people really can’t hear, the microphone is acting up, the signalmen adjust it in such a way that it can only be heard in the hall, and I think that it can also be heard on stage, but this is not so. You just have to strengthen your voice - after all, you are often dealing with a large group of performers. You're not supposed to yell at people. For a dog you can.

— Do you have a dog?

- No, I don’t practice.

— What should the chief choreographer of a theater never do?

- Scream. And you can’t be dishonest with artists, because once or twice you may deceive someone, and then no one will trust you. At the same time, you need to be diplomatic and pedagogical: it is fundamentally important not to offend people. The combination of these qualities is to be honest, open and at the same time try not to traumatize the artists’ psyche; artists are sensitive people.

— What should the chief choreographer do?

- For example, you need to attend performances, not everyone does this. You need to know by heart the strengths and weaknesses of each member of the troupe. And we must try to draw up a schedule so that the artists do not overexert themselves and this does not affect their physical strength and psychological well-being.

— Quite recently, Vasily Barkhatov was appointed director of the opera at the Mikhailovsky Theater. Have you already met him and will you intersect in your work?

“We were introduced to each other, but I, of course, knew about his work, saw his work and recently congratulated him on the success of The Flying Dutchman in our theater. And of course, there are operas in which ballet participates, so I will soon collaborate more closely with it.

— What will the next season bring?

— At the beginning of the season, we will begin rehearsing the ballet “The Nutcracker” staged by Nacho Duato; the premiere will take place in December. After this, Nacho also promised to stage his famous ballet White Darkness - a ballet dedicated to his sister, who died of a drug overdose. Whiteout is cocaine. After this, we have plans that Vladimir Kekhman recently announced to the press: in parallel with White Darkness, I would like to restore Konstantin Boyarsky’s ballet “The Young Lady and the Hooligan” to the music of Shostakovich. This is also a ballet of the Soviet period, which was created in our theater, and, in my opinion, it is also worthy. In addition, we would like to make a new version of “The Corsair” with Katya Borchenko - our prima ballerina and, by the way, a woman of phenomenal beauty - in the title role. And if there is time left, we will stage the ballet “Coppelia” - a title that, in my opinion, should be performed in our theater. Like “Vain Precaution”, I would like to premiere “Vain” in March. But it is not by chance that I use the subjunctive mood in a number of cases: plans will still be adjusted. The fact is that, unlike other theaters - Stanislavsky, Bolshoi, Mariinsky - there was no reconstruction of the backstage area. We are constantly running into infrastructure limitations. And we are simply forced to always do everything quickly and clearly, without wasting time. If we had at least one more rehearsal room, it would be easier for us.

— Will your theater appear in Moscow or will it be possible to see the triumph of the French Revolution only by going to St. Petersburg?

— We are negotiating, so perhaps we will bring you something from our repertoire.

Timekeeper

Mikhail Messerer was born in 1948, graduated from the Moscow Choreographic School in 1968 (class of Alexander Rudenko) and joined the Bolshoi Theater troupe. He toured extensively with the Bolshoi and as a guest soloist with other troupes. In 1980, taking advantage of the fact that they were in Japan at the same time, Mikhail Messerer and Shulamith Messerer asked for political asylum at the US Embassy. After that, they settled in London and began working at the Royal Ballet of Great Britain. (In 2000, Elizabeth II granted Shulamith Messerer the title of lady for her work in English ballet.) In addition, Mikhail Messerer, as a teacher and expert in the Russian school, was constantly invited by the best theaters in the world - he taught at the Paris Opera, the Béjart Ballet, La Scala, the main theaters in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Tokyo Ballet, the Chicago Ballet, the National Ballet of Marseille and other companies. From 2002 to 2009, Messerer was a guest teacher at the Mariinsky Theater. Since 2009 - chief choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater. In 2007, he restored Asaf Messerer's Class Concert at the Bolshoi Theater. In 2009, he staged at the Mikhailovsky Theater the legendary “Old Moscow” “Swan Lake” (choreography by Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, Alexander Gorsky, Asaf Messerer), in 2010 - the ballet “Laurencia” (choreography by Vakhtang Chabukiani), in July 2013 - the ballet “Flames of Paris” (choreography by Vasily Vainonen). Mikhail Messerer is married to ballerina Olga Sabadosh, a former artist of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater, and now of the Covent Garden Theater in London. Olga and Mikhail are raising a 13-year-old daughter, Michelle, and a 4-year-old son, Eugene.

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Born on December 24, 1948 in Moscow in the family of ballerina Sulamith Messerer. In 1968, he graduated from the Moscow Academic Choreographic School (a student of Alexander Rudenko) and entered the ballet troupe of the Bolshoi Theater, where he studied with his uncle, Asaf Messerer, in the artistic improvement class.

Repeatedly performed as a guest soloist with other theaters: Leningrad State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after S.M. Kirov (now Mariinsky), Perm State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after P.I. Tchaikovsky, with the Prague National Theatre.

In 1978, he received the specialty of teacher-choreographer, graduating from GITIS, where he studied with R. Zakharov, E. Valukin, R. Struchkova, A. Lapauri.

In 1980, during a Bolshoi Theater tour in Japan, he and his mother asked for political asylum at the US Embassy and remained in the West.

Works as a guest teacher at the American Ballet Theater (ABT), the Paris National Opera, the Béjart Ballet in Lausanne, the Australian Ballet, the Monte Carlo Ballet, Milan's Teatro alla Scala, the Roman Opera, the Naples Teatro San Carlo, the Florence Opera, the Royal theater in Turin, Arena Theater (Verona), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), in the ballet companies of Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Tokyo Ballet, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet , Chicago Ballet, National Ballet of Turkey, Gothenburg Ballet, Kullberg Ballet, National Ballet of Budapest, National Ballet of Marseille and other companies.

He worked in troupes led by Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Roland Petit, Maurice Bejart, Mats Ek, Jean-Christophe Maillot, Rudolf Nureyev.

From 1982 to 2008 - permanent guest teacher at London's Royal Ballet, Covent Garden. He went on tour with this troupe in Russia, Italy, the USA, Japan, Argentina, Singapore, Israel, Greece, Denmark, Australia, Germany, Norway, China.

From 2002 to 2009 - guest teacher at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

Since 2009 - chief choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater, since 2012 - chief guest choreographer of the theatre.

Among the productions carried out by Messerer at the Mikhailovsky Theater are Swan Lake (2009), Laurencia (2010), Don Quixote (2012).

Choreographer Mikhail Messerer, in an interview with DP, recalled how as a child he played with Vasily Stalin’s airplane, and told how the general director of the Mikhailovsky Theater Vladimir Kekhman refers to the title “banana king”.

Where did the Messerers begin as a famous artistic family?

From my grandfather Mikhail Borisovich. A dentist by profession, he was an incredibly theatrical person. Of his eight children, five became prominent artists. The eldest - Azariy - was an outstanding actor. On the advice of Vakhtangov, he took the sonorous pseudonym Azarin Azariy. Mikhail Chekhov wrote to him: “You, dear Azarich, are wise with your talent.”

Next is Rachel. A stunningly beautiful woman, a silent film star, under the pseudonym Ra Messerer played a dozen leading roles in the 1920s. Having married Mikhail Plisetsky, she became Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya. Next in age is Asaf Messerer. He is the first person in our family to go to ballet. The prime minister, Asaf, was perfectly professional and achieved virtuosity unprecedented at that time. He invented many of the movements that almost everyone does now. Then he became a famous teacher, for 45 years he taught an advanced training class, where all the stars of the Bolshoi Theater of the 1950-1960s studied: Ulanova, Plisetskaya, Vasiliev, Liepa...

Finally, my younger sister is Shulamith, my mother, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater and USSR swimming champion. I remember there was a prize at our house - a figure of a swimmer - in 1928 my mother won the All-Union Spartakiad.

The next generation is the children of Ra and Mikhail Plisetsky: Maya, Alexander and Azary. All three danced at the Bolshoi Theater. Alexander died quite early. After the Bolshoi, Azary went to Cuba, now he is a teacher in the famous troupe of Maurice Bejart Bejart Ballet Lausanne. Everyone knows about Maya (Plisetskaya - Ed.). Asaf's son is theater artist Boris Messerer. Just as Maya’s marriage with Rodion Shchedrin is known, so is Boris’s marriage with Bella Akhmadulina, who passed away not long ago.

They say that the relationship between your mother and Maya Plisetskaya was not cloudless.

After we fled from the Soviet Union (1980 - Ed.), my mother crossed out everything unpleasant from her memories of her family and left only the positive, and spoke about everyone with love. Mom adored Maya. When her father, a prominent Soviet official, was shot and her mother was sent to the Gulag, Maya lived with my mother, who raised her and made sure that the girl continued to study at the Bolshoi Theater school. And when they came to take Maya to an orphanage for the children of enemies of the people, where, of course, there could be no talk of any ballet - that is, the world would have lost the great Plisetskaya - my mother lay down on the threshold: “Over my corpse!” Can you imagine: in 1938! As they told my mother, the only legal way to escape the orphanage was to adopt (a stupid word, but that’s what it is, not adopt) Maya. Which is what she did. When people disowned their husbands, wives, parents, children, my mother went and pushed through this adoption. Mom was a heroine!

Your mother, People's Artist of the RSFSR, laureate of the Stalin Prize, was supposed to dance according to her rank government performances. Have you seen Stalin from behind the scenes?

After all, I was born in 1948, and he died in 1953. But Vasily Stalin came to visit his mother before he was arrested after the death of his father. He, being a general and commander of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District, was friends with her. And our granddaughters, already the third generation of Stalins, visited us when I was three or four years old. I still remember my favorite toy - an amazing airplane from Vasya Stalin.

Svetlana Alliluyeva came, who was a theater lover and was also friends with her mother. When my mother and I ran away from Soviet power in Japan in February 1980 and flew to New York, Svetlana was one of the first to meet us. The wisest woman, she told me how to behave in exile - I simply obeyed these instructions, remembered her advice and turned to them internally many times.

How did you decide to escape from the USSR?

Of course, it's difficult to decide. Although my mother and I discussed this for a long time. Young people today cannot understand that time. It was disgusting to endlessly hear lies from the box, from colleagues. People were forced to constantly lie to each other and, in the end, lie to themselves, forcing themselves to believe how much they adore the regime, fearing that otherwise the lies would not be very convincing. When the Bolshoi soloist Sasha Godunov remained in America, upon the troupe’s return to Moscow, at a meeting everyone was obliged to brand him a “renegade scoundrel.” I remember the chief choreographer of the theater, Yuri Grigorovich, gave a speech, at which the artists of my generation later laughed for a long time: “He will slide into the same place where their Leningrad predecessors Makarova and Nureyev ...” And what could he, poor man, say?

The main sensation of the last Russian ballet season was the transition from the Bolshoi to Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev...

I have the deepest respect for the Bolshoi Theater, for its director Mr. Iksanov, I myself am from the Bolshoi, I have many friends there, so I don’t think it’s right to comment on this. But it seems to me that it is important for Russian art that the guys have a base in Russia, and not move, say, to New York.

But can we say that they invested their talent and fame in the Mikhailovsky Theater?

Of course, this is a most valuable acquisition for our theater.

This season they danced your “Swan Lake”, “Laurencia” and new editions of “La Bayadère” and “Don” Quixote". It is clear what you, a teacher, can give them. What do they give you?

Working with them is a pleasure. Even during rehearsals, sometimes it takes my breath away - I turn into a grateful spectator, I have to force myself to make comments, for which, undoubtedly, there is a reason. I myself always try to learn from my students. Both Sylvie Guillem and Tamara Rojo - I name star names because they are famous, but sometimes even a beginner girl or a young boy has something to learn. And you need to learn from your colleagues all your life, you can’t stop.

How are responsibilities distributed between you and the artistic director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet? Theater Nacho Duato?

Our theater has its own path. The development vector of our troupe is to become the most modern in Russia, and preferably in Europe. To this end, Nacho stages performances: he transfers his famous works and creates new ones. What could be better for our artists than to work with the luminary of modern choreography? I myself do not compose new texts; my specialty is classics. It is important to me that the quality of its performance is not inferior to the quality of modern choreography. Our teachers and tutors help me a lot. But no matter how wonderful the tutor is, he will inevitably pull in his direction. Everyone is a creative person, and he knows exactly what is best. And if his equally outstanding colleague has the opposite view on the same thing, someone has to make a decision. If you don’t follow the performance as a whole, it will fall apart into shreds.

Domestic ballet conservatives believe that all the best lies in the Soviet past. But longing for that time - this is an ordinary longing for youth. How to draw the line between what is truly valuable and junk, remembered from childhood, and therefore beloved?

Yes, perhaps, youth is better than old age... But it is wrong to dwell on what happened in your best years. Arriving at the Mikhailovsky Theater, I first suggested to the director that they stage “Swan Lake” by Mats Ek or Matthew Bourne. However, he chose the classic “Old Moscow” edition of Alexander Gorsky, which I really know and love from childhood. And this decision of Kekhman turned out to be correct, the performance turned out to be successful.

How do you find a common language with Kekhman, a man from a completely different environment and experience?

But he has been in this position for 5 years, of which I have been closely observing him for four years. There are no ideal people, but I must note that it’s hard for me to imagine a better theater director. One could expect organizational talent from him, a businessman (Vladimir Kekhman owns a fruit importing company - Ed.), but the fact that a person would understand so much about musical theater in the shortest possible time, and in the smallest detail, was a pleasant surprise.

It seems to me that Kekhman began to understand the subject better than many of the professionals around him.

Moreover, all these years it has been customary to write about him: “The Banana King took up the theater...”

As for this stupid label, firstly, his business is not only bananas, and not even just fruits, and secondly, Volodya treats such things with self-irony. He, thank God, has a wonderful sense of humor, which distinguishes him favorably from many directors with whom life brought me together in the West. True, if he encounters the slightest sloppiness, then people become not amused... He never shouts, this is not his management style, but sometimes one look from him is enough.

Kekhman recently announced that your "Flames of Paris" will be released in January 2013. That is, you continue line of restoration of Stalinist drama ballets.

Working for 30 years in the West, from the outside I saw a gaping hole: wonderful performances of the 1930s-1950s were lost in Russian ballet. Therefore, I welcome you, who restored “Spartak” and “Shurale” by Leonid Yakobson. This does not mean that only such performances should go on, but it is not good to lose them. If someone accuses me of being retrograde, I will not accept this reproach. Four years ago, having headed the Mikhailovsky Ballet, I immediately agreed with the French choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot to stage his brilliant “Cinderella” with us, that is, Mikhailovsky was the first to invite him to Russia. And only now Bolshoi invited him to the production. I also reached an agreement with the young English choreographers Alistair Marriott and Liam Scarlett - they had just shocked London audiences and critics with their work in a program dedicated to the long-time artistic director of the Royal Ballet, Monica Mason.

Short

Mikhail Messerer is the main guest choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Theater. One of the most respected ballet teachers in the world. He worked at Covent Garden, the American Ballet Theatre, the Paris Opera, La Scala, the English National Opera and other ballet companies in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia. Among his productions at the Mikhailovsky Theater: “Swan Lake”, “Laurencia”, “La Bayadère”, “Don Quixote”.

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