Yuri Lyubimov

 

I first heard the name Yuri Lyubimov when the famous event occurred at the Paris Opera in which he was to direct 'Pikavaya Dama' with Rozhdestvensky conducting. He had devised an unconventional production but news of this had leaked out and the Bolshoi conductor Zhuraitis got wind of it (I think he may have been conducting ballet at the house at that time) and denounced the whole thing to the Soviet authorities who promptly pulled the plug on Lyubimov. Rozhdestvensky resigned in solidarity.

Many years later Rozhdestvensky was to conduct 'Pikavaya Dama' at the Opera Bastille after all in a semi-unconventional by Konchalovsky I think.

Returning to Lyubimov who was considered one of the greatest directors in the USSR, an invitation was made a very long time after for him to direct 'Crime and Punishment' at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. Lyubimov took the opportunity to defect. The Russians were furious. There was talk of Lyubimov's 'crime' and how he could expect 'punishment.' 

At that moment Lyubimov was a very 'desirable property' and everyone was bidding for his services. The Royal Opera Covent Garden offered him 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' with Bernard Haitink and he accepted.

They began with 'Das Rheingold' and it was not long before word got out that everything was not going as well as everyone had hoped. 

Indeed I received a call one day in my office from Jenni Sullivan in the Artistic Administration office asking if I could get in touch with Natalia Petrovna Rozhdestvenskaya, the mother of Gennady Rozhdestvensky to ask her if she had a translation of 'Das Rheingold into Russian in her library because the rehearsals had come to a halt at a point where neither Haitink nor Lyubimov knew what was going on.

There was no translation sadly and the production failed. Lyubimov went no further with the cycle.

All that was very sad and Lyubimov never established the kind of career in the West everyone had hoped for and expected. He returned to Russia however and continued to work with success there until his death at the age of 97.

One memory remains of this great man. He told a story about how during a performance in his theatre in Moscow, a rat had appeared at the back of the stage and this small animal looking even smaller in such a big space as a theatre immediately engaged the attention of all the audience. I think he related this story to show how important every tiny gesture was in a theatrical production.