Putin, Vladimir V

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares99 Views

    ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin’ Review: Putting Putin’s Rise Onstage

    by

    The best-selling, much discussed French novel is now a play. It gives a similarly humanizing view of the Russian leader and his inner circle.Perhaps it was just a matter of time before Vladislav Y. Surkov became a stage character. Surkov, an influential ideologist who spent two decades in the orbit of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, once trained as a theater director; in 2011, the novelist Eduard Limonov described Surkov as having refashioned Russia “into a wonderful postmodernist theater,” according to the London Review of Books.“The Wizard of the Kremlin,” a new French production directed by Roland Auzet, makes a pointed case for Surkov’s pivotal role in Russian, and international, politics. Staged through Nov. 3 at La Scala Paris, a fairly new Right Bank playhouse, it is an adaptation of a French novel that sold over half a million copies after Russia invaded Ukraine, in 2022.The book, a fictionalized account of Surkov’s life and career, was the work of a former political adviser to Italy’s government, Giuliano da Empoli. (An English translation was released by Other Press in 2023.) In France, the book was so popular that some worried it could shift national policy toward Russia.Onstage, it’s easy to see why. Philippe Girard plays the lead role as an expressive, eccentric figure, often sympathetic. Vadim Baranov, as Surkov’s fictional alter ego is called, loves rap music, Allen Ginsberg and Jackson Pollock, we learn, and speaks in dark quips. (“What’s a Soviet duo? A quartet who went abroad.”)Yet throughout, Baranov also sheds light on the ruthless rise of Putin’s party and the roots of the president’s power. “The destiny of Russians is to be governed by descendants of Ivan the Terrible,” Baranov says near the beginning.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Netflix Becomes a Broadway Producer With Peter Morgan’s ‘Patriots’

      by

      The streamer is co-producing a play about Putin’s Russia from the creator of “The Crown” while also developing a screen adaptation.Netflix, the streaming behemoth that has evolved from mailing out DVDs in red envelopes to becoming a hugely important player in the entertainment industry, is embarking on a new adventure: producing on Broadway.The company will pick up its first Broadway credit this spring as a producer of “Patriots,” by Peter Morgan, the creator of the hit Netflix series “The Crown.” The new play is about an oligarch who was an early supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but then fell out with him and wound up dead.Even before “Patriots” begins its Broadway previews on April 1, Netflix is already in the early stages of developing a screen adaptation of the story, according to Emily Feingold, a Netflix spokeswoman.“Patriots” will be Netflix’s first Broadway credit, but not its first stage venture. The company is actively involved as a producer of “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a play now running in London that is a prequel of sorts to the popular Netflix streaming series. The “Stranger Things” production is expected to come to Broadway, but the timing and other specifics are unknown.Netflix’s foray into Broadway producing comes at a time when the entertainment industry has been aggressively working to monetize intellectual property — adapting popular titles and franchises on many different platforms, including not only film, television and stage but also books, video games and immersive experiences.Broadway has long had the attention of Hollywood studios — Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal have been particularly active in pursuing stage adaptations of their films. And for some time now, the recording industry has been actively involved on Broadway, seeing the stage as another way to repurpose pop song catalogs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Life Imitates Art as a ‘Master and Margarita’ Movie Stirs Russia

      by

      An American director’s adaptation of the beloved novel is resonating with moviegoers, who may recognize some similarities in its satire of authoritarian rule.By all appearances, the movie adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s cult favorite novel “The Master and Margarita,” in Russian theaters this winter, shouldn’t be thriving in President Vladimir Putin’s wartime Russia.The director is American. One of the stars is German. The celebrated Stalin-era satire, unpublished in its time, is partly a subversive sendup of state tyranny and censorship — forces bedeviling Russia once again today.But the film was on its way to the box office long before Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and imposed a level of repression on Russia unseen since Soviet times. The state had invested millions in the movie, which had already been shot. Banning a production of Russia’s most famous literary paean to artistic freedom was perhaps too big an irony for even the Kremlin to bear.Its release — after many months of delay — has been one of the most dramatic and charged Russian film debuts in recent memory. The movie refashions the novel as a revenge tragedy about a writer’s struggle under censorship, borrowing from the story of Bulgakov’s own life. The emphasis, for many Russians, has hit close to home. And, for some defenders of Putin, too close.“I had an internal belief that the movie would have to come out somehow,” the director, Michael Lockshin, said in a video interview from his home in California. “I still thought it was a miracle when it did come out. As for the response, it’s hard to expect a response like this.”Michael Lockshin, right, the movie’s director, with Tsyganov during the production of the movie.Mars MediaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Putin Ally Valery Gergiev to Lead Bolshoi Theater

      by

      The Russian maestro, who heads the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, will also control the Bolshoi in Moscow, replacing Vladimir Urin, who spoke out against the Ukraine war.Valery Gergiev, the star Russian maestro and prominent supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin, was tapped on Friday to lead the storied Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the Russian government announced .The move will expand Mr. Gergiev’s dominance at the pinnacle of Russia culture. He already serves as the artistic and general director of the nation’s other premier performing arts institution, the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. In Moscow, he will replace Vladimir Urin, the Bolshoi’s general director since 2013, who signed a petition last year expressing opposition to the war in Ukraine.Russia’s government said in a post on Telegram that Mr. Gergiev would serve a five-year term under an order signed by Prime Minister Mikhail V. Mishustin. The post said that Mr. Urin had been “relieved of this position at his own request.”In selecting Mr. Gergiev, 70, to lead the Bolshoi, Mr. Putin has rewarded a renowned musician and staunch ally who once endorsed his re-election and has appeared at concerts in Russia and abroad to promote his policies. The men have known each other since the early 1990s, when Mr. Putin was an official in St. Petersburg and Mr. Gergiev was beginning his tenure as the leader of the Mariinsky, then called the Kirov.Mr. Urin’s fate at the Bolshoi, which houses renowned ballet and opera companies, had been uncertain since his name appeared on the petition opposing the war. Mr. Putin at times seemed to hint that Mr. Urin’s days were numbered; in March 2022 he publicly asked Mr. Gergiev if he was interested in “recreating a common directorate” that would unite the Bolshoi with the Mariinsky.But Mr. Urin, 76, defied expectations for a time, maintaining his post even as other artists who denounced the war faced reprisals or left the country. He said in an interview with a Russian news outlet earlier this year that it was “not an easy time” for the Bolshoi.Mr. Urin announced his resignation to colleagues on Thursday after a performance of César Cui’s “The Mandarin’s Son” and Stravinsky’s “The Nightingale” at the Bolshoi, Russian news outlets reported.“Today I say goodbye to you, because today is my last working day at the Bolshoi Theater,” Mr. Urin said in a speech to his colleagues, according to a video that circulated online.After Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Gergiev, whose extensive international career once made him one of the busiest maestros in the world, has been persona non grata in the United States and Europe. His touring schedule dried up in the West, and he was fired by the Munich Philharmonic, where he had been chief conductor, because of his long record of support for Mr. Putin.After the invasion, many cultural institutions in the United States and Europe rushed to cut ties with Russian artists and institutions closely aligned with Mr. Putin, upending decades of cultural exchange that had endured even during the depths of the Cold War.The Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters faced cancellations of performances set for London, Madrid, New York and elsewhere, and a popular program to broadcast Bolshoi performances into more than 1,700 movie theaters in 70 countries and territories was suspended. Licenses to perform foreign works at Russian theaters expired, and some Russian choreographers and directors asked that their names be removed from works performed in Russia. Several Russian stars with ties to Mr. Putin lost work in the West, including the soprano Anna Netrebko and the pianist Denis Matsuev.Mr. Urin, who played a key role in steering the Bolshoi after the shock of the 2013 acid attack on the ballet director Sergei Filin, tried to maintain a sense of normalcy, pushing forward with performances of classics like the ballet “Giselle” and the opera “Eugene Onegin.” But the war created new complications. He said at one point that he could not stage works by artists who spoke out against the invasion because it might create a “serious negative reaction,” according to Russian news reports.Demand for performances at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky has appeared to remain strong. A stampede broke out outside the Bolshoi last month as several hundred people lined up to buy tickets for a popular holiday run of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” according to Russian news outlets.With the West off limits, the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky have turned to other overseas markets, including China, where Russian artists and cultural groups have been warmly received. Mr. Gergiev and the Mariinsky have led three tours in China this year; the Bolshoi appeared in Beijing over the summer.Alex Marshall More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      For Monetochka, a Moral Stand Started a Creative Climb

      by

      Before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Monetochka was on her way to becoming a superstar in Russia.She had released two hit albums of lyrical pop, secured ad deals with brands including Nike and Spotify, and was set to appear and sing a new song in the opening scene of Netflix’s first original Russian drama, a lush adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.”But President Vladimir V. Putin’s military action derailed everything.Netflix shelved the series. The big ad deals, which once comprised more than half of Monetochka’s income, disappeared. And, after making a raft of antiwar statements and fleeing Russia, she was branded a foreign agent in January.Yet the 25-year-old singer-songwriter — who now lives in Lithuania and is scheduled to perform at the Melrose Ballroom in New York on Sunday as part of a U.S. and European tour — said exile had removed the burden of worrying about what she says, and was worth the cost.“You can scream, yell, rant, write any songs or poems you want — and this, of course, means a lot to me,” said Monetochka, or “Little Coin,” whose real name is Liza Gyrdymova. “For me, this is such an important feeling, as an artist and a lyricist: freedom of expression.”Monetochka said she is still pursuing the same dreams, goals and plans in exile, but it is harder than before. Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesShe is just one of the many Russian music stars rebuilding their careers outside their homeland after taking a moral stand against the invasion of Ukraine. Now forced to operate at a distance from most of their fan bases and, in many cases, labeled traitors by their government, they are adopting touring schedules that hew to the new geography of the Russian diaspora as they try to keep their careers moving forward.Michael Idov, a Latvian-American writer and director who has worked with top Russian singers and has directed a music video for Monetochka (pronounced moh-NYET-och-ka), said that those musicians faced several dilemmas abroad, even though in most cases Russians can still stream their music on YouTube and Yandex Music, a Russian streaming platform.“The basic question is: Can you write new hits in this situation, or are you automatically a nostalgia act, even if the nostalgia is for the year 2021?” he said.There was also the question of how to create a sustainable future. “After you have played every new Russian enclave five times, what do you do after that?” Mr. Idov added. The musicians could break into new markets through collaboration with non-Russian artists, Mr. Idov noted, but few had tried that approach, or put out much new music.So far, the millions of Russian speakers outside Russia have been sustaining the performers. Last Saturday, at a Monetochka concert in Zurich, the hall was packed with nearly 700 fans, including middle-aged couples bopping along and screaming young women taking selfies — some of them with their hair done up in the singer’s trademark double buns. Everyone was speaking Russian.Fans at Monetochka’s show in Zurich.Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesOnstage, Monetochka acknowledged that things had changed. “For all these songs and these views and beliefs, folks, they gifted me the rank of foreign agent,” she said. The crowd erupted in cheers, and the singer launched into a song criticizing Russian internet censorship.Her tour, which kicked off in Barcelona last month, has faced logistical challenges. This week, Monetochka had to postpone a concert in London and cancel one in Miami because she didn’t get visas in time. And figuring out the right size and type of venues has involved some guesswork.To widen their appeal, some exiled artists, including Face, a Russian rapper, have considered switching to English. Yet only a couple of Russian acts, such as the girl group t.A.T.u., have ever landed a hit on the American charts.Monetochka, who rocketed to fame in part because of the poetry of her subversive lyrics, said she couldn’t imagine achieving a similar depth of expression in a language other than Russian. She plans to release a new album in the spring, which she said would reflect her rage and alarm about the war, but also the hopeful feelings she had felt since becoming a mother in 2022. She said she felt she needed to leave listeners with something positive, too.Other exiled Russian stars have soured on living abroad. Morgenshtern, a popular Russian rapper who moved to Dubai in 2022 and was also labeled a foreign agent, recently told a Russian interviewer that he misses home and wants to return to Russia, but is too scared for his safety, including the possibility of being sent to the front as retribution. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, later said no one would give Morgenshtern “guarantees that everything will be fine.”While Russian musicians who backed the war and embraced the accompanying nationalist fervor have found themselves rewarded with growing popularity and riches, the acts who left have felt financial impacts, even if they already had large followings outside the country.Sonya Tayurskaya, a member of a rave band called Little Big, who moved to Los Angeles from Russia just days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, said that the group had to go “back to the beginning.”Clockwise from top left: Little Big, Morgenshtern, IC3PEAK and Face, all exiled Russian musicians.Artur Widak/NurPhoto, via Getty Images; Naumova Ekaterina/Shutterstock; Anton Basanayev/Associated Press; Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressRebooting their career had been a test of character, said Ilya Prusikin, Little Big’s main songwriter. “What we’ve learned is that money is not important,” he said.Monetochka said she knew her finances would suffer when she left Russia. She is now touring more and playing smaller venues than in Russia. She said she was also considering moving beyond music, to stage theatrical performances that would be subtitled for non-Russian speakers, to try to reach new audiences.But for now, she said, she was still making enough from concerts and streaming to produce new music — and that was what matters.“If you’re still dreaming of some kind of big concert in Moscow, some sort of solo performance at the Olympic stadium, then it’s going to be hard for you,” she said. “You have to make the decision to go down a few notches and start building it up again.”“It doesn’t take much time to get on your feet and understand how you can earn money,” she added. “Everyone I know after this move feels a surge of inspiration. And again, this is the most important thing — not money, but songs.”Russia branded Monetochka as a foreign agent in January, after she made dozens of antiwar statements.Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesWith young, tech-savvy music listeners in Russia always a step ahead of government censorship, she said she never expected to fully lose access to her fans in Russia. Her antiwar stance had also gained new fans in Ukraine, including among her nearly two million TikTok followers.But even before the war, Monetochka had faced political pressure. After she released a video in support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, Russian state television went after her, she said, and the authorities called music festivals to get her removed from lineups. She said she had come to shrug off Russia’s branding her as a traitor with humor and “accept that people love to hate someone, they really need it — and when the state encourages this, they reach untold heights.”Toward the end of her concert in Zurich, Monetochka tried to impart some of that resilient spirit as she prepared to play her 2020 song, “Will Survive,” an anthem many of her fans have adopted amid the war.“All of this nonsense, all of this nastiness and filth,” she told the audience. “We will survive.” More

    • 63 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Putting Putin Onstage, in ‘Patriots’

      by

      Will Keen embodies Russia’s president in a West End production. “It’s been fascinating how the perception of him and the play keep changing,” he said.On a recent evening, the British actor Will Keen was onstage at the Noël Coward Theater in London playing one of the world’s most divisive men: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.For much of the first half of “Patriots,” which is largely set in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Keen portrays the character sympathetically — as a minor politician who could only afford cheap suits and whose success was dependent on a friend’s largess. Later on, when an adviser suggests Putin, now president, should keep his enemies close, Keen’s portrayal becomes chilling. “Why would I want to do that,” he replies, “when I can simply destroy them?”Written by Peter Morgan, the creator of “The Crown,” “Patriots” stars Tom Hollander as Boris Berezovsky, a real-life oligarch who made a fortune in post-Soviet Russia, only to fall out with Putin and end up exiled in London, where he died under mysterious circumstances, in 2013.Despite that focus, it’s Keen’s performance that has grabbed attention since the play debuted at the Almeida Theater, in London, last June. Arifa Akbar, in The Guardian, said that even when Putin “grows more megalomaniacal, Keen avoids caricature and keeps his character’s self-righteous desire for Russian imperialism convincingly real, and chilling.” Matt Wolf, reviewing that production for The New York Times, said that Keen “astonishes throughout.” In April, Keen won the best supporting actor award at the Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.In a recent interview at the Noël Coward theater, where “Patriots” is running through Aug. 19, Keen said that, although the script was written long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the war had changed the feel of the play, making it seem as much Putin’s “origin story” as the tale of an oligarch’s demise. Keen, 53, said that his performance made some audiences uneasy, but it was “nice to be in a show that’s asking questions, rather than providing answers.”In an interview, Keen discussed what he’d learned by getting inside Putin’s head. The following are edited excerpts from that conversation.Keen, right, and Tom Hollander, who plays Boris Berezovsky, an oligarch who died in London under mysterious circumstances in 2013. Marc BrennerWhy did you want to play such a figure?Well, I first learned about it in 2021 — so before the invasion. It didn’t feel as present as it does now. He felt like an autocratic and terrifying figure, obviously, but he didn’t feel like an autocratic and terrifying figure who was also impinging on the world’s safety. It’s been fascinating how the perception of him and the play keep changing.You’re often played villains or antiheroes, including Macbeth and Father MacPhail in “His Dark Materials.” Do you worry about being typecast?As a citizen, I might look at these people as villains, but as an actor, I can’t do that. I want to be as sympathetic as possible to the character — or as empathetic, at least. Putin is a baddie, but I don’t want to be playing him as a pantomime.I’m really interested by our perception of autocrats. From our side, it’s an image of immorality. But in order to do the things that he’s done, he must have an incredibly intense sensation of his own morality — an idea of justice, an idea that he’s setting wrongs right.Some political commentators say Putin is motivated by a desire to restore the Soviet Union. Is that what you mean by setting wrongs right?I’m not in any position to comment politically, but my sense of the character is of somebody who has a particularly deeply sensitized attitude to betrayal. It’s a bit like the medieval idea of kingship, where the king becomes the country in some way: There’s this sense in which Russia — the land — is his body and there’s an absolutely personal, almost physical betrayal, in the break up of the union.What Peter Morgan does so brilliantly in the play is show how Putin’s personal friendships, and the betrayals he experiences in them, impinge on the political sphere too.Theater critics have praised you for mimicking Putin physically, as much as the emotion of the performance. How did you prepare for this?Well, I read and read and read and watched and watched and watched.Physically, what was most useful to me was just observing him in press conferences — I got this enormous sense of inner turmoil, covered by an incredible physical stillness. There’s a sense of containment to him, like he’s trying to hold everything inside.A lot of people have noticed that stillness, especially of the right hand not moving in his walk. And there are other ex-K.G.B. people who have the same thing. The K.G.B. also talk about channeling your tension into your foot. And you do observe his right foot moving very slowly in interviews under the table. Onstage, I also find that tension in him coming out in my fingers.As a citizen, I might look at these people as villains, but as an actor, I can’t do that,” Keen said. “I want to be as sympathetic as possible to the character.”Marc BrennerAs the invasion unfurled, did you change anything in your portrayal?Of course you think about the conflict, but we didn’t discuss, “Let’s make him more chilling” or anything like that. The way the play’s written, it’d be chilling whenever it was performed.I think it’s actually dangerous to think about the effect you’ll have on audience. All you can think about really is, “Is it true?”This isn’t the only recent play in London featuring Putin. In 2019, Lucy Prebble had a hit with “A Very Expensive Poison” about his involvement in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a spy-turned-whistle-blower. Why do you think Putin is becoming a staple of British theater?Well, I don’t know whether he’s becoming a staple. But it does seem that what has happened in Russia lends itself to extremely interesting plays — this ideological battle that’s going on with incredibly high stakes.And theater since time immemorial has studied autocrats, and strong and violent authority is a productive, dramatic force against which to set any kind of dissident opinion.All the characters that one has played sort of talk to each other, at some level, but I would compare Putin to Macbeth, of course. They’re obvious autocrats, but for Macbeth the great motivator is fear, whereas, here, I’d say it’s perceived injustice. The result in both cases is a sort of very performed manliness.What have audience reactions been like?Absolutely wonderful, although sometimes it does seem people don’t know what to do at the end: Should we clap? A lot of Russians have said they feel like he’s in the room, which is incredibly encouraging.I don’t think I’ve spoken to any Ukrainians about it. I’ve had boos, definitely, at the end. But I don’t know whether that was a Ukrainian boo or a British boo. There’s a kind of international language of booing.Has the role affected you personally?No, I wash him off at the end of the show. But it is a bleak place to inhabit — not because of a sense of guilt, it’s the agony of being someone who is obsessed by betrayal and vengeance. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Now Playing in China: Putin-Aligned Artists Shunned in the West

      by

      As Russia works to shore up its image and rebuild its soft power after its invasion of Ukraine, it is strengthening cultural ties with friendly nations, including China.Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the star Russian maestro Valery Gergiev has been persona non grata in the United States and Europe, fired by many cultural institutions because of his long record of support for President Vladimir V. Putin, his friend and benefactor.But this week, on the heels of a summit between Mr. Putin and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Moscow, Mr. Gergiev received a hero’s welcome in Beijing, where he appeared with the Mariinsky Orchestra for the ensemble’s first foreign tour since Russia invaded Ukraine.Chinese fans showered Mr. Gergiev with cards and bouquets, calling him by his nickname in China, “brother-in-law,” a play on the Chinese version of his surname. Audiences cheered his Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, as well as a surprise rendition of a Chinese Communist classic, “Ode to the Red Flag.” The state-run news media hailed the visit as the beginning of a new era of Russia-China cultural ties.During the tour Mr. Gergiev rebuked his Western critics and vowed to redouble his efforts to promote Russian culture around the world.“It is not Russian music that is facing challenges,” he said at a news conference at China’s National Center for the Performing Arts. “It is the people who think they can stop Russian music.”The Ukraine war has badly damaged Russia’s cultural engine, which once sent ballet dancers from the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky to the world’s leading stages and brought Russian soloists, opera singers and conductors like Mr. Gergiev to leading concert halls and theaters in the United States and Europe.Now, with artists who are seen as too close to Mr. Putin being shunned in the West, Russia is working to shore up its image and rebuild its soft power elsewhere, strengthening cultural alliances with friendly nations and neighbors, including China, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Serbia, with mixed results.Mr. Gergiev’s tour came on the heels of a recent summit in Moscow between China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Sputnik, via ReutersThe Bolshoi Ballet, the storied company whose name is synonymous with ballet, is considering two tours of China this year. The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, an art institution, is working to open a sister branch in Serbia, after losing partnerships in the West because of the invasion. A St. Petersburg ballet company recently brought two works by the Russian choreographer Boris Eifman, “Anna Karenina” and “The Pygmalion Effect,” to Kazakhstan. Star Russian musicians who were once regulars in New York and Berlin, including the pianist Denis Matsuev, who was seen as close to Mr. Putin, are booking engagements instead in Dubai, Istanbul and Belgrade, Serbia, among other cities.China, with its legions of concertgoers and skepticism of Western ideals, has emerged as an attractive market for Russian artists aligned with Mr. Putin. While the two countries have long had cultural ties — Mr. Gergiev has been visiting the country for decades — the timing of his visit, coming a week after the meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi, suggested Russia and China were eager for a fresh display of camaraderie as they work to counter American dominance.“Russia is looking for cultural exchanges wherever it can get them, just as it is looking for allies in technology, energy and the military,” Simon Morrison, a specialist in Russian music at Princeton University, said. “Putin is desperate to show that Russia still has friends.”Russia’s attempts to use culture to soften its image abroad face significant challenges, even in friendly countries, experts say, because of its continuing attacks on Ukraine.Classical music, dance, theater and visual art were “some of the last bridges between Russia and the West,” said Vera Ageeva, an international relations scholar at Sciences Po in France. But the disappearance of these cultural exports presents a “huge, incalculable loss for Russia and its soft power,” she said, which cannot be offset simply by expanding cultural ties with allies.Protesters outside an Anna Netrebko concert in Paris last spring.James Hill for The New York TimesAfter Russia invaded Ukraine, cultural institutions in the United States and Europe rushed to cut ties with Russian artists and institutions aligned with Mr. Putin, upending decades of cultural exchange that had endured even during the depths of the Cold War.The Bolshoi and Mariinsky faced cancellations in London, Madrid, New York and elsewhere; a popular program to broadcast Bolshoi performances into more than 1,700 movie theaters in 70 countries and territories was suspended. And several Russian stars with ties to Mr. Putin lost work in the West, including the soprano Anna Netrebko, Mr. Matsuev and Mr. Gergiev, who was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.While Mr. Putin has repeatedly portrayed Russia as a victim of a Western campaign to erase Russian culture and cancel great composers like Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, Russian works continue to be played throughout the United States and Europe.Mr. Gergiev, once one of the world’s busiest international conductors, has hunkered down in St. Petersburg, leading a packed schedule of performances at the Mariinsky, including classics like Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and Glinka’s “A Life for the Tsar.” Mr. Gergiev is the general and artistic director of the Mariinsky, which has been his base for decades, and which has expanded with funding and support from Mr. Putin.“I don’t find that my life has taken a turn for the worse,” he said in a recent interview with a Russian news outlet. “I find myself ready to be at home as much as possible.”Mr. Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.The Bolshoi, in a statement to The Times, said that overseas tours were necessary to maintain its image and reputation.“The fact that the Western world has been forced to deprive itself of the opportunity to see classical ballet the way Bolshoi is dancing saddens us,” the statement said. “But we ourselves continue to work actively and tour in those places where they are waiting for us.”Since the start of the war, performing has also become increasingly difficult for artists and institutions inside Russia because of a broad crackdown on free speech and expression by Mr. Putin. A “cultural front” movement has spread in recent months with the aim of mobilizing artists in support of the war.Several artists who have publicly expressed opposition to the war have been fired or forced to leave the country. The Bolshoi Ballet scrubbed the name of the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, once a close collaborator and a former artistic director, from its roster after he criticized the war and left Moscow shortly before he was to premiere a new work; the company recently called in replacements to help finish one of his dances.Russia is now looking to its allies to help prop up its flagship cultural institutions, just as it has turned to China and other countries to make up for lost business since its economy was abruptly severed from the West’s.Mr. Gergiev’s appearance in Beijing, which included four sold-out concerts, drew wide attention.The state-run news media hailed the visit as the “grand return” of the “toothpick conductor” (Mr. Gergiev has been known to conduct with a toothpick instead of a baton). Commentators seized the occasion to rail against the West for “politicizing art and venting their sentiment toward innocent people from Russia.”In Beijing, Mr. Gergiev said he felt he was “coming home.” He toured the Forbidden City, where he said he was reminded of China’s enduring cultural traditions, and visited old friends.At the news conference, Mr. Gergiev said the recent meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi would open the door to more frequent cultural exchange between Russia and China. He spoke about a patriotic Chinese composer who is a favorite of Mr. Xi — Xian Xinghai, who was stranded in the Soviet Union during World War II and died in Moscow. Mr. Gergiev said he hoped one day to lead an orchestra of young Russian and Chinese musicians.“These concerts,” he said of his appearance in Beijing, “mark the restart of international cultural exchange.”Milana Mazaeva contributed research from Washington, D.C., and Li You from Shanghai. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      How Russian Action Movies Are Selling War

      by

      For an American, it can be easy to forget how much ideology is packed into the genre — until you watch a film from elsewhere, and see their cartoonish heroes and villains.Recently, on YouTube, I watched “Granit,” a Russian action movie from 2021. I did this knowing a few relevant things about the film. One is that it was produced by Aurum — a company controlled by one of Vladimir Putin’s allies, Evgeny Prigozhin — in part to glorify the actions of the Wagner Group, a mercenary network Prigozhin founded; the syndicate has been accused of fueling chaos from Syria to the Central African Republic to Ukraine, where Wagner mercenaries have become an increasingly significant part of Russia’s grinding invasion. Another is that “Granit” was just one artifact in a whole trove of content — memoirs, comic books, travel videos — that is variously referred to as the Wagner subculture, the Wagnerverse or the Wagner Extended Universe. Not unlike old American mercenary magazines, all of it puts a righteous and alluring face on going off to kill and die in unofficial operations aligned with Kremlin interests.But it’s “Granit” and other big-budget shoot-em-ups, like “Touriste” and “Solntsepyok,” that are the best known elements of the W.E.U. They are aimed, in part, at the countries where Wagner operates: As The Financial Times has reported, “Touriste,” set in the Central African Republic, had a premiere at the national stadium in the country’s capital, Bangui. Another audience, of course, is Russians, though not necessarily the Russian mainstream. Wagner movies air on state TV, but at odd times; they feature recognizable actors, but not elite talent. It’s possible Prigozhin is aiming for Russians with a taste for action and weaponry and a paucity of job options — people who might be enticed to fight for money, and who may already see enough pro-Wagner social media to follow the Extended Universe’s memes and internal references.It is in its hints of explicit politicization, though, that ‘Granit’ sings.Knowing these grim motivations is part of why I wanted to watch “Granit.” But it’s also true that I was raised in the monoculture-era Massachusetts suburbs on exactly the kind of jingoistic American action movies that “Granit” is trying to replicate, and so there are certain tropes to which I’m hard-wired to react. When Granit, the character, finally popped up, 13 minutes into the film, and promptly disarmed a bunch of dudes, I involuntarily gasped: He was shredding.Granit — that’s his code name — is a righteous ass-kicker. He is in Mozambique to help train the country’s armed forces as they combat indistinct ISIS-backing bandits, but he is not there to fight heroically alongside them; his boss even says, “I warn you — no fighting and no heroics.” But Granit cannot help himself. He and his fellow mercenaries whip the Mozambican forces into shape, then shoot it out with the bandits. He also finds time to look out for a local kid who, inevitably, learns to say spasibo, or “thank you.”As a movie, “Granit” is bad in predictable ways, echoing your lesser dumb-fun Steven Seagal flicks. Oleg Chernov, the lead actor, has a natural world-weariness, a catlike grace and the kind of nice, big head of which Josh Brolin might approve. Occasionally he makes the insane dialogue work. (“In war, it’s not the guns that decide, but balls,” he says at one point. “The one with the stronger balls wins.”) It is in its hints of explicit politicization, though, that “Granit” sings. “For a Russian, an idea is more important than money,” says one villain. “If you give a Russian an idea, he’ll work for free.” When someone suggests that the Russian fighters are out of their depth in Mozambique, this same villain — now clearly enthralled by the Russians — counters that the Maputo street on which they’re speaking is called Av. Vladimir Lenine. Presumably “Granit” is not carrying the torch for Marxism-Leninism. The street is meant to represent the power and historical significance of Russia in general.The messaging in this film is so scattered that you may be left seeing signs everywhere. At one point, Granit and the crew smash glass Coca-Cola bottles to build a makeshift booby trap. Clever knock of American imperialism, or a nod to “Home Alone”? In the end, Granit dies on his back, smiling up at birds. According to recovered Wagner documents, a Russian code-named Granit really did die in Mozambique in 2019. But reporting indicates that Wagner soldiers bumbled their way through the mission in a manner nearly the complete opposite of what’s seen in the movie. “The undergrowth is so thick there that all the high-tech equipment Wagner brought ceases to be effective,” a Mozambican intelligence specialist told The Moscow Times. “The Russians arrived with drones, but they can’t actually use them.” In “Granit,” of course, the drones work fine.The action movie, as a format, has always been great at presenting a worldview. As an explicit recruitment vehicle, the Wagner movies’ closest American analogue might be Frank Capra’s World War II series, “Why We Fight.” But their inspiration definitely comes from the Cold War 1980s, when America was churning out nationalistic stuff like “Red Dawn,” “Invasion U.S.A.” and “Rambo III” — films with an obvious, unexamined arrangement of global good guys and bad guys. More recent American propaganda is known for a neutered abstractness — this year’s “Top Gun: Maverick” is deliberately vague about the identity of its foreign enemy, and while the “Transformers” movies pan droolingly over expensive Pentagon-provided hardware, the soldiers in those movies are fighting space robots. Movies in which Americans save the planet from evil may be part and parcel of a political reality in which cutting the Pentagon budget is a nonstarter, but at their inception, the point of these films is to make money.For an American, it can be easy to forget how much ideology is packed into the genre — until you watch a film from elsewhere, and are confronted with the cartoonish heroes and villains of other cultures. The Wagner movies don’t ever actually say the name “Wagner,” and Prigozhin only recently admitted that he is the group’s founder. But in September a video surfaced in which a man assumed to be Prigozhin stands in the yard of a Russian penal colony and explicitly recruits for Wagner by offering sentence-reduction in exchange for service. Just as in the Wagner movies, the inevitability of death is front of mind. “Do you have anyone who can get you out of prison alive?” he asks. “There are two, Allah and God. I am taking you out of here alive. But it’s not always that I bring you back alive.” In another portion of his speech, he is more specific. “The first convicts who fought with me, that was at the Vuhlehirsk power station, with 40 people,” he says, referring to an actual battle in Ukraine. “Out of the three dead, one was 52 years old. He served 30 years in prison. He died a hero.”When I first saw this video, I wondered if a tonal shift might be coming for the Wagner Extended Universe — one in which cinematic tributes to moralizing mercenaries are replaced by a fatalistic social realism. Then I learned that Prigozhin’s production company has already announced the production of a new big-budget feature. Online, Wagner watchers are guessing it will depict the group’s battles in Ukraine. It’s going to be called “The Best in Hell.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Putin, Chekhov and the Theater of Despair

      by

      In London, a new play about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and a revival of “The Seagull” explore undercurrents of pain.LONDON — There’s a chill in the air at the Almeida Theater, notwithstanding the record-breaking heat here. That drop in temperature comes from the coolly unnerving “Patriots,” a new drama whose look at power politics in Russia over the last quarter-century induces a shiver at despotism’s rise.The gripping production, directed by Rupert Goold, runs through Aug. 20.Written by Peter Morgan (“The Crown,” “Frost/Nixon”), “Patriots” surveys the sad, shortened life of Boris Berezovsky, the brainiac billionaire who died in 2013, age 67, in political exile in London. An inquest into Berezovsky’s mysterious death returned an unusual “open verdict,” but on this occasion, it is unequivocally presented as a suicide: The play ends with this balding man, bereft of authority, preparing to end his life.An academic whiz-turned-oligarch who expedited the rise of the younger Vladimir V. Putin, Berezovsky later fell out with the onetime ally who enlarged his power base, according to the play, with promises of “liberalizing Russia,” yet proceeded to do anything but.Morgan introduces Berezovsky, age 9, as a math prodigy whose mother hoped he might become a doctor. (A gleaming-eyed Tom Hollander plays the role throughout.) From there, we move forward 40 years to find Berezovsky an integral member of Russia’s moneyed elite welcoming to his office an obsequious Putin, then deputy mayor of St. Petersburg.“Respected Mr. Berezovsky,” says an initially indrawn, ferret-like Putin, “one would have to live on another planet not to know you!” But it isn’t long before Putin has changed his tune, and his tone, as he rises from prime minister to president and consolidates power around himself. In one notably effective wordless scene, Putin tries out poses in front of a mirror to see which makes him look most impressive. His earlier hesitancy has given way to a man in love with his own heroism.Berezovsky looks on at so dramatic a change in character appalled, urging the former K.G.B. operative to “know your place.” But Putin by this point simply won’t be sidelined. And besides, reasons Putin, why hold your enemies close when they can just as easily be destroyed?Tom Hollander as Boris Berezovsky in “Patriots.”Marc BrennerGoold, the director, dealt with a different headline-maker at the Old Vic this spring in “The 47th,” which imagined Donald J. Trump in the run-up to the next presidential election. Goold is in better company this time: “Patriots” is a richer, less fanciful play, with grim resonances for today. Although Morgan rightly leaves it to the audience to make the connection, you can draw a line between the glorious empire Putin yearns for in the play and his ongoing attack on Ukraine.In one of the performances of the year, Will Keen, as the Russian leader, astonishes throughout, bringing his character to agitated, unpredictable life. His early fawning in Berezovsky’s presence gives way to an icy rejection that finds its fullest expression when his onetime mentor writes as a fellow patriot requesting permission to come home to Russia. Putin dictates a reply, then tells his secretary to rip the letter up: Berezovsky, Putin concludes, “is not worth it.”Hollander impresses, too, as he did in a dazzling star turn in “Travesties,” which won the actor a 2018 Tony nomination — two talky plays requiring an actor at home with reams of language. His character is both a quick-tempered womanizer, and too naïve to realize the young Putin’s potential for authoritarian misrule.Widening the play’s scope yet further is the Russian president’s friend, the oligarch Roman Abramovich (the excellent Luke Thallon), who battles Berezovsky over ownership of the oil company Sibneft. That case, which came to trial in London in 2012, plays out here as a resounding defeat for Berezovsky that only amplifies his psychic distress. Alexander Litvinenko (Jamael Westman, a former leading man in “Hamilton”), the Putin critic who was poisoned in 2006, shows up, too, as the “most honorable” of dissidents (or so Morgan maintains): a political casualty wreathed in glory that the sorrowful Berezovsky never knew.There’s an aspect of bravery, you feel, in writing “Patriots” at all while Putin is on the march. (That said, like Trump with “The 47th,” it’s possible these men’s egos would thrive on the attention.) In the days after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, orchestras, concert halls and opera houses pulled Russian works from their stages, and it looked as if it might no longer be allowable to perform the Russian repertory in the West; overseas trips by the Bolshoi Ballet, among other storied Russian arts companies, were canceled, as well.Emilia Clarke, second from right, in Anya Reiss’s interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” directed by Jamie Lloyd at the Harold Pinter Theater.Marc BrennerSo it’s a relief to welcome a Russian classic, “The Seagull,” first presented in 1896 by Anton Chekhov, who died nearly a half-century before Putin was even born. That this first of Chekhov’s four great plays ends, as does “Patriots,” with a suicide is an intriguing coincidence that also points to the undercurrents of pain that inform both plays.Performed barefoot and in modern dress, Jamie Lloyd’s enthralling production, at the Harold Pinter Theater through Sept. 10, furthers the stripped-back approach to the classics he brought to a recent “Cyrano de Bergerac” that was acclaimed in New York and London.Just as that play dispensed with a fake nose for its title character, this “Seagull,” seen here in Anya Reiss’s 2012 version, never features the wounded bird of the title onstage. Doing without props of any kind, the cast members, headed by the “Game of Thrones” alumna Emilia Clarke in a terrific West End debut, deliver the play seated on green plastic chairs and boxed in by chipboard; they speak with a quiet intensity, as though we were eavesdropping on the characters’ innermost thoughts. Some will be exasperated by the approach, but I was riveted from the first hushed utterance to the last.Like “Patriots,” this “Seagull” draws from its own well of grief, even if the world of writers and actresses in Chekhov’s play is a long way from Morgan’s power-brokers and politicos. Lloyd’s ensemble communicates the shifting affections of a quietly devastating play that leaves you transfixed by the theatrical potency of despair.Patriots. Directed by Rupert Goold. Almeida Theater, through Aug. 20.The Seagull. Directed by Jamie Lloyd. Harold Pinter Theater, through Sept. 10; in cinemas Nov. 3. More