display

Haven't heard from Kirill Serebrennikov for a long time.

The prominent Russian theater director, stage and film director was sentenced on June 26, 2020 by a certainly not independent Moscow court to a three-year suspended sentence and the payment of 9,000 euros.

This was preceded by a judicial farce that had dragged on since May 2017, including a dubious show trial of alleged embezzlement at the Gogol Center, which he directed, in which an artist who was not only popular in Russia and who was not reluctant to express his opinion about Vladimir Putin's regime taught a lesson and he in its limits should be shown.

So nothing new in the east.

Since then, Kirill Serebrennikov, who had initially given lockdown entertainment tips based on his own experience, remained silent.

Unlike his co-defendants, who challenged their judgments in vain, he did not appeal either.

He was depressed and broken, it was said from those around him.

Trial, imprisonment and years of house arrest had hit him hard.

display

The repressive state, which is hiding behind an alleged legal system, and the Orthodox Church, which is involved everywhere again, have achieved their goal.

And nothing more was heard from his advocates, especially in the German-speaking world of theater and opera.

During his house arrest he had already brought out new productions in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Zurich and Berlin, which he monitored via virtual communication.

Another “Parsifal” in Vienna

Further international plans with him, who are still not allowed to leave his home country, were then ruined by the ongoing corona pandemic and the theater that was still closed.

Only at the Vienna State Opera, where defiant tests continue to play for the TV cameras (even if a Covid cluster just happened again there) do you stick to a new, video-controlled Serebrennikov “Parsifal”.

Premiere date: April 1st.

In Moscow, however, where the theaters are open despite the pandemic, Kirill Serebrennikov only announced his plans for the next season of his venue, the Gogol Center, which is popular with intellectuals and rebellious youth, on February 2, 2021 that day opened eight years ago.

In a period of relative cultural-political thaw with cheeky, subversive productions, Serebrennikov had turned the once-forgotten theater into an artistic and militant breeding ground for the opposition, which had long been a thorn in the side of the again more strictly agitating institutions of state and church.

display

Just one day later, of course, while students and artists were still stuck in prisons across the country who protested on Sunday against the equally absurd show trial and the condemnation of the returned regime opponent and poison victim Alexei Navalny, the Moscow city culture authority laconically announced that Kirill Serebrennikov's contract as director is not extended.

The old one expires on February 28th.

What happens to the actors and the repertoire of the Gogol Center, and who should succeed him - not a word.

The performances are still sold out until March.