The director of the Mariinsky Theater in Russia, Valery Gergiev, also manages the Bolshoi.
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian government on Friday named Valery Gergiev, the legendary conductor of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Petersburg, to direct the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
Gergiev replaces Vladimir Urin at the Bolshoi. Urin announced on Thursday that he was stepping down after a decade, but did not give a reason for the move.
Some Russian journalists said that the 76-year-old Urin’s departure was related to health. Some believe it was linked to a letter calling for Moscow’s troops to withdraw from Ukraine that he and other prominent people signed after the Kremlin sent troops across the border in February 2022.
Several other theater directors who signed the letter have since been fired.
Russian President Vladimir Putin first proposed in March 2022 the idea of putting the country’s two most famous theaters, the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, under one administration.
Gergiev, 70, a world-renowned conductor who has been director of the Mariinsky Theater for 35 years, has been a staunch supporter of Putin and his policies.
A week after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine, he was fired as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and some European movie theaters cut ties with him for failing to oppose the Kremlin’s actions.
