Helsinki Festival to establish itself this year as major European theatre event

Ten foreign productions expected; Dmitry Krymov bringing new work on Shostakovich

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By Kirsikka Moring
     
      The full Helsinki Festival 2009 programme has now been announced, and next August the festival will establish itself as a major theatre event.
      The Stage Festival, a joint production of the Korjaamo Theatre and the Helsinki Festival, will present the best in contemporary European drama. Now in its third year, the theatre festival will be showcasing ten international ensembles, two Finnish premières, and a review of Finnish theatre.
      Programme highlights include the return of Dmitry Krymov, the head of the School of Dramatic Art in Moscow, with his new two-part production Opus 7, which is an examination of grief, loneliness, and Russian identity.
     
The recession hit Russia at a bad time, when observed from the point of view of the Muscovite theatre. The city froze the subsidies of all theatres for three months.
      In practice, this means that all premières in preparation have had to be shelved for the time being.
      Krymov says that the theatres are now waiting to see whether these three months will be followed by another three. He is sitting at his desk in the new building of the experimental theatre constructed for Anatoly Vasiliev, a noted Russian theatre director, in the centre of Moscow.
      Vasiliev was the founder and the artistic director of the School of Dramatic Art in Moscow, but he fell out with the city’s officials and left the country for Europe. He is now living in France.
      Krymov continues Vasiliev’s work, but at present the entire School of Dramatic Art with all its stages is quiet and empty.
     
The director is in the process of preparing his second grand première, entitled Tararabumbia, a production which is to open the 150th Anton Chekhov Anniversary celebrations.
      However, the rehearsals of the production have failed to make any progress, as an important part of the performance is the set design, for which funds are feverishly being sought.
      ”We launched an advance sale of sponsoring tickets, and so far we have managed to sell six”, Krymov notes.
      The Chekhov production will be expensive, with a total of 70 actors to be seen on stage.
      ”The performance is a carnival parade, composed of all of Chekhov’s plays, but the main character will be the author himself”, Krymov reports.
     
The performance to be seen in Helsinki, Opus 7, is related to Krymov’s earlier comical directions Ser Vantes. Donky Khot, and Cow which were seen at the Helsinki Festival in 2008.
      Like its predecessors, Opus 7 is a story of Dmitri Shostakovich, a Russian composer of the Soviet period.
      More generally, it depicts artists who survived the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin and some of his successors by drawing strength from art.
      ”The working title of the first part of the performance is Genealogia, depicting the history of a family in a world where people have been left walking alone. However, we come from some place, we are part of the chain of generations and their memory”, the director defines.
      ”We are small, but our history is long. Look, here is an empty white wall, but when you touch its surface, the wall begins to live, speak, and to emit sound”, Krymov says.
     
The fatherland in the performance is a Mother Russia figure, several metres high, large and dominating in good and bad. The composer creates and is scared, is scared and creates in the middle of the grotesque circus playing out around him.
      ”The society seldom loves its geniuses”, Krymov notes.
      He says that he is trying to project himself into Shostakovich’s life and into the situation he was in as a Soviet artist, who was watched, threatened, and frightened, but who still believed in his own visions.
      ”The historical truth is that Stalin and Shostakovich only met twice. But the cunning Georgian-born sadist knew how to tyrannise people. The greatest anxiety is caused by one’s waiting for that ominously silent telephone to ring”, said Krymov.
     
In spite of his themes, the director regards political theatre as abhorrent.
      In addition to Shostakovich’s seventh symphony or the Leningrad symphony, according to which Krymov’s Opus 7 has been named, the performance features new music, while the language of the theatre is one of a kind, employing a new inventive grammar.
     
The 2009 Helsinki Festival programme was created by Risto Nieminen, who has led the festival with great success for the past 12 years.
      He will depart at the end of April 2009, moving on to head the music section at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal.
      New Festival Director Erik Söderblom is set to assume his role from May 1st.
     
Dmitri Krymov’s two-part production Opus 7 is to be performed in the Stage Festival in the Korjaamo Culture Factory on August 26th through 27th. Address: Töölönkatu 51 b, Helsinki.
     
The Helsinki Festival 2009 will run from August 14th to 30th. For the full festival programme, see the link below.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 22.4.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Incoming Artistic Director to take Helsinki Festival to new interesting venues (31.3.2009)
  Erik Söderblom to take over at Helsinki Festival (25.3.2009)

Links:
  Helsinki Festival 2009
  Opus 7
  Laboratoy of Dmitry Krymov
  Anatoly Vasiliev (Wikipedia)
  Theatre, Dance and Circus at this year´s Helsinki Festival

KIRSIKKA MORING / Helsingin Sanomat
kirsikka.moring@hs.fi