“The Bolshoi Theatre on Monday presented its new musical director, who has been appointed to help restore the tarnished reputation of the scandal-ridden theatre,” reports Agence France-Presse on Monday (1/20). “Tugan Sokhiev, a 36-year-old conductor who studied in Saint Petersburg, is currently musical director of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (ONCT) and of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO Berlin).… Sokhiev succeeds 66-year-old Vasily Sinyaisky, who suddenly resigned in December, two weeks before he was due to conduct a much-anticipated new staging of Verdi’s opera Don Carlos.… The Bolshoi is attempting to repair the damage from a series of scandals. Former ballet soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko is now serving a six-year sentence for an acid attack last January on the ballet’s artistic director Sergei Filin, who suffered serious eye injuries. In the aftermath of the attack, the government sacked the long-serving general director of the Bolshoi Theatre, Anatoly Iksanov.… Sokhiev, like Russia’s star conductor Valery Gergiev, comes from the North Ossetia region and studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.… Under the terms of his four-year contract with the Bolshoi, Sokhiev will only be conducting its orchestra next season so he can honor his obligations with other orchestras.”
Posted January 22, 2014
