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The theatre gave no reason for dropping Timofey Kuliabin's
production of the opera "Don Pasquale" and Kirill
Serebrennikov's ballet "Nureyev".
Kuliabin has used his Instagram account to express solidarity
with Ukraine and ridicule Russia's description of its actions
there. In one post, he showed a mocked-up version of the cover
of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace", replacing the first word of
the title with "Special Operation" - the term used by the
Kremlin to describe the invasion.
Serebrennikov told France 24 in an interview last month that
"it's quite obvious that Russia started the war", and that it
was breaking his heart.
"It's war, it's killing people, it's the worst thing (that) ever
might happen with civilisation, with mankind... It's a
humanitarian catastrophe, it's rivers of blood," he said.
Both directors are currently outside Russia.
The replacement of the two shows with "The Barber of Seville"
and "Spartacus", two longstanding staples of the Bolshoi's
repertoire, drew hundreds of mostly critical online comments
from ticketholders. Many demanded in vain to know the reason.
"What disrespect to the spectators and artists!" one woman,
Valeria, wrote on the Bolshoi's Telegram channel.
There was particular outrage at the cancellation of
Serebrennikov's "Nureyev", a controversial production that
premiered at the Bolshoi in 2017. The story of dancer Rudolf
Nureyev, who defected to the West in 1961, included a tender
scene with his gay lover that tested the Kremlin's tolerance for
what it calls "homosexual propaganda".
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Peter Graff)
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