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Russia - Only in Cinema Club RG: Frantic Maestro

Russia (bbabo.net), - February 19 is the birthday of Evgeny Kolobov, a great conductor who has few equals in the world. He left us in 2003 at the age of 57 - he burned out, as happens with creative people. And he lived by creativity, breathed music and knew how to create it, entering into equal co-authorship with brilliant composers. Like any real music interpreter.

On the occasion of this day, our Cinema Club offers its guests a recording of the concert "Rossini. Divertissement", held in the Tchaikovsky Hall (in two parts). And a great conversation about the fate and work of the maestro with his widow, the talented choirmaster Natalya Popovich, thanks to whom the choir of the Novaya Opera theater was famous no less than the orchestra of Yevgeny Kolobov, and his daughter Marfa Kolobova. Natalya Popovich passed away in 2018.

If it were possible to describe the nature of Yevgeny Vladimirovich's talent in one word or phrase - what would it be?

Natalia Popovich: Frantic maestro. I recently watched a film about Byron, and it seemed to me that Kolobov had a lot from Byron: some kind of rebellion, life's restlessness. He was far from always in harmony with this world. And he took on all the troubles - the country, the world ... Somewhere there was a catastrophe - he was worried. And if something happened in the theater - he blamed himself. He very much felt the imperfection of the world, let everything pass through himself and suffered greatly in this life. The phrase: there are many righteous people in art, but few martyrs - he attributed this to himself. Was a martyr. He was tormented at rehearsals: he heard his own music - another. He tried to convey it to the musicians with words, eyes, hands and often said that the process of conducting is a loss of illusions. Because the orchestra is a collective matter, and not all musicians could comprehend and embody the music that he heard. He suffered from this.

Marfa Kolobova: He said: "I work through translators" - and envied poets who could create alone with paper, doing exactly what they felt. And the profession of a conductor depends on a large number of people - in the orchestra pit, on stage. "I want to infect them with my idea, to inspire them with what I hear myself, so that my idea becomes just as close to them, but this is almost impossible. Everyone has some problems of their own, and he thinks about work, about music, as if second plan."

He was supposed to be a pianist.

Popovich: Yes, yes, and often, knowing that a musician can kick at any moment, he always crossed himself before the start of the performance. And I was waiting for this terrible moment, and rejoiced when it passed. And the whole orchestra worried, waited and rejoiced with him.

He heard his music inside him - did this make him remake the scores of "La Traviata", "Eugene Onegin", "Ruslan and Lyudmila"?

Popovich: He didn't just sit and rewrite operas. He knew the orchestra very well, delved into it. He has an orchestra range table hanging in his office. To study the orchestra and its possibilities was a necessity for him. His favorite orchestration is Glinka's "Separation", he returned to it many times, reworked it, he had to ideally adapt the orchestration to the possibilities of the orchestra. In addition, in the old orchestrations, far from everything was perfect, sometimes there were no instruments such as they are now, and, accordingly, there were no opportunities. Verdi wrote a phrase for one instrument - and suddenly transferred it to another. Because the instruments did not have such a range as they do now. The scores were part of Kolobov's life, he slept with them.

And that's why you moved the overture to "Ruslan" to the finale?

Popovich: He followed Pushkin: after all, everything starts calmly there too - "Deeds of bygone days, legends of ancient times...". And Glinka wrote the overture later, when the opera was ready. Kolobov read a lot of literature and knew everything about writing. He needed to know the ins and outs of each character. He knew, for example, that the murdered Tsarevich Dimitri was friends with Petka Kolobov!

Who else is this?

Marfa Kolobova: I don't know. Just a friend of Dimitri.

Popovich: And starting to work, he was already so saturated with this historical and literary knowledge that everyone listened to him with their mouths open.

Is it true that he recreated the score of "Mary Stuart" by Donizetti by ear?

Marfa Kolobova: When Vladimir Vasiliev was abroad, dad asked him to find him the score of this opera. And he put everyone on their ears, but did not find it. He brought only the clavier and a recording of the opera. And dad fell in love with this music so much that he decided to restore it by ear. The "New Opera" did not exist then, there was no premises - there were just poor people from the street. And there was, in fact, no one to present copyrights to. Moreover, Kolobov's score and Donizetti's score did not coincide in many respects.But Kolobov simply did not think about it - he wanted listeners in Russia to recognize this marvelous music. He often said: Donizetti has 73 operas, and we only know L'elisir d'amore and Lucia di Lammermoor. Therefore, he so often turned to operas unknown to us: "Pirate" by Bellini, "Valli" by Catalani ...

He was the first to stage Verdi's The Force of Destiny in the USSR, and when he brought this performance from Sverdlovsk to Moscow, it was a sensation. I am often told by managers of large opera houses that they do not want to take risks: the public does not go to unfamiliar names well. The Bolshoi Theater is again staging The Barber of Seville, and I asked its directors: why the Seville again? After all, Rossini has an abyss of amazing operas that we simply do not know. The answer was still the same: to stage "Italian in Algiers" is a risk, and "Seville" is an unmistakable success.

Popovich: Alas, it's true: they go to familiar names. Moreover, the public in this sense is becoming more and more conservative. But still, this did not stop Zhenya. Opening music to people was his need.

I can't classify this conductor as a performer - every evening he re-created the music anew. Did he try to write his own music?

Popovich: He wrote when he was young - when he studied at the Ural Conservatory. Wrote music for the performance of the Sverdlovsk drama "Boris Godunov". Even a collection of his choirs has been published. But he realized that he had no original talent in this area. And he had a talent for orchestration.

As far as I know, you are also from Leningrad. And this, in my opinion, is the rarest case when two Leningraders immediately go to study music in the Urals, in Sverdlovsk. Have you ever regretted it?

Popovich: Not only did they not regret it. I studied there with Professor Rogozhnikova, and if I came to her without knowing the clavier by heart, I flew out of the class. And Zhenya and I sat all night long, taught. And now choirmasters from the Moscow Conservatory come to me, I put the clavier in front of them - they have no idea about it! What right do you have to go out to the choir like that?! No, I would not like to study at the Moscow Conservatory. Because I was taught everything at the Ural Conservatory. And first of all - love to music. And the fact that a person does not have the right to go to an orchestra or choir if he does not have his own vision, his own interpretation, an idea of ​​what he wants to say with this composition.

Where did you start working?

Popovich: From the fourth year I was invited to the Sverdlovsk Opera and Ballet Theater as a choirmaster. I felt it as a great honor and plunged into this theater with my head.

Marfa Kolobova: Dad always said that seventeen years in Sverdlovsk were the happiest years of his life. He was invited as a conductor to the Musical Comedy Theater, then to the opera. And there was a wonderful team.

Popovich: Zhenya was a romantic, it was easy to ignite him. He was called to Ulan-Ude - and he abandoned the graduate school offered to him and rushed into business. And there is a choir - seven people! And they staged Khrennikov's opera Into the Storm. And my father made the choir there so well that for the first time in this theater a choral number had to be performed as an encore! And when a year later he went back to Sverdlovsk to study at the conducting department with his beloved professor Mark Paverman, the whole theater saw him off. And what a touching incident there was in Sverdlovsk! When, many years later, Kolobov flew in from Leningrad for the anniversary of the Ural Conservatory at night, he was met at the gangway of the plane by the entire orchestra of the Sverdlovsk Opera, and a march from "Peter the Great" sounded over the night runway - a performance that we once staged there. Zhenya took off his hat and knelt down ... You can’t stage such a thing.

I remember Zhenya in a role that for many will seem completely unexpected. I then worked as a music editor at Sverdlovsk television, and we actively attracted Zhenya as a pop singer. And he was quite popular in this capacity.

Popovich: We were recently brought a video recording from there, where Zhenya sings the songs "I work as a magician" and "Sverdlovsk hours". It was a conservatory quartet, where I also sang. Vadik Kazenin played, Zhenya and I sang. This was even the subject of discussion in the department at the conservatory: how could you! Sing pop songs! In a dress with a cutout! In a miniskirt! And then Mark Paverman says: "But I like the way Zhenya sings!".

Did you decide at the family council to respond to the offer of the Mariinsky Theatre?

Popovich: Zhenya said: I'm not going there because Leningrad is my hometown. I'm going to Temirkanov.

But it was in the Kirov Theater that Zhenya seemed to disappear - he conducted ballets, then he almost changed his profession altogether. Leningrad is a losing streak for him. Why?Popovich: Kirovskiy has always been a theater of one conductor. Yes, this is natural. When Zhenya was the principal at the Sverdlovsk Opera, he did all the main productions. So it was in Kirov: all the main productions were done by Yuri Temirkanov. And Zhenya was given current performances. But there was nothing he could do about them. When he was introduced to The Tsar's Bride, it was not a performance, but a struggle. Because the orchestra already knows everything by heart, and the conductor just needs not to interfere. Zhenya's first performances there were terrible. He tried to make his own music that he heard, he tried to break the musicians, and they worked on autopilot. But then everyone looked only into the orchestra pit. Temirkanov treated him very warmly. He said to Zhenya: you must see the world. And for this you have to conduct ballets. And Zhenya really traveled the whole world with ballet performances of the Kirov Theater. But when he stood at the Swan Lake for the hundredth time, he realized that he could no longer. This conveyor oppressed him. He could only do piece performances. And he decided, without telling anyone about it, to leave the theater.

He actually went nowhere.

Popovich: He went to Lenconcert. What is the same. He was looking for funds to save the unique organ hall. He did what he didn't know how to do. Someone told me: I saw Zhenya with a briefcase! But this did not last long.

In Leningrad, he also had rather unexpected episodes - for example, he acted in films as Woland.

Marfa Kolobova: Yes, in the film "Fuete". He has a double role there: an episodic conductor who rehearses a ballet with Ekaterina Maximova, and the second layer is The Master and Margarita and Satan's ball, where he is Woland.

Popovich: There is a wonderful scene, completely in the spirit of Kolobov: Katya Maksimova is spinning a fouette and asking the conductor: "Can you slow down?" And Kolobov answers: "I can do it - Tchaikovsky can't!" Then we all - Dmitry Bryantsev, Ekaterina Maksimova, Vladimir Vasiliev and we lived in the same apartment. Like a bohemian. This also constantly depressed Zhenya - for many years we could not get an apartment.

Marfa Kolobova: When Temirkanov left to direct the Philharmonic Orchestra, Kolobov was appointed to the post of chief conductor of the Kirov Theatre. Summoned to Smolny and reported about it. And suddenly Zhenya answers: "Did you ask me? I don't want to." They were terribly surprised.

Really - why? After all, he could have the best opera house in the country at his disposal.

Popovich: But it was already overgrown with shells, and Zhenya always dreamed of a theater that was more mobile, more prone to experimentation. How would he move the overture to Ruslan to the finale at the Mariinsky Theater? He would have been fired immediately. You have to be an academic. And when the Bolshoi Theater was offered to him and me, he replied: "I want to die a natural death." But when they offered the Theater named after Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, it was what he needed. He was happy.

But there, as further events showed, there were plenty of shells too.

Popovich: It all turned out very strange there. The team followed him. But that was the time when actors ruled the theater. There is no such thing anywhere in the world. When we came to the theater, we immediately stated that not a single person would be fired, we would work with those who were. But we will work from morning to night. So we made the performances "Boris Godunov" in the author's edition, "Pirate" by Bellini, and all the honored and people's artists were involved there. And then he decided to make "Eugene Onegin" - already for the young. Here it rose: "I was Lensky even under Stanislavsky!". And such a bazaar immediately began, such a storm arose that Zhenya immediately wilted, became somehow helpless, they began to call him to collegiums, work at party meetings, and he said: "Thank you, goodbye." And he submitted his resignation. And then he received an offer to head the opera house in Genoa.

So we come to the question that I have long wanted to ask. If such a streak began that the great conductor walks with a briefcase, then one can imagine what was going on in his soul. But at the same time flattering offers are coming from the West, he is in great demand there, and both you and he perfectly understood that in the same Genoa he would have completely different opportunities and prospects. In addition, you would hardly have lamented the absence of an apartment there. Why didn't he leave?Popovich: Because he felt responsible for the fate of the people who followed him. We then still lived in the hotel "Budapest" - there was no housing of our own. We lived in a hotel room for three years. But we didn’t need anything - we left, worked and came to sleep. And so he submitted an application, we began to collect things, and suddenly we look: a theater orchestra is sitting in the lobby of the hotel. And he doesn't leave. These people actually stopped the work of the theater: "We want to return Kolobov." And the strike began. I tell you honestly: I already wanted all this to end soon, so that Zhenya would go to Genoa and work there calmly, without proving anything to anyone. But how could he leave these people, who could not even return to the theater, because after him they filed applications for resignation! We even isolated Zhenya, put him in the hospital: he suffered all this very hard, he had severe heart attacks. And there was a strike in the theater. People went out to Dmitrovka with posters: "Hands off Kolobov!" Orchestra, choir, many soloists, even accounting and personnel department. He then did not have to look for anyone in his new team - a whole huge theater left after him! He told them: what are you guys doing! We have nothing, no stake, no yard. But the strike continued, all performances stopped. The management, of course, blamed everything on Kolobov: it was his fault! The orchestra regularly comes to work and sits, does not play. Was Walked in posters to Yuri Dolgoruky. A strike committee was organized. "Boris Godunov" has a full hall, but an empty orchestra pit. The curtain opens - an orchestra, choir and soloists are on stage. They appeal to the audience: they say, accept our apologies, we cannot play the performance. Then Alexander Vedernikov, whom Zhenya had just taken as his assistant, stands behind the console in an empty pit, and begins to conduct the piano, and those same folk artists sing opera to the piano. Now it's funny to remember, but then it was scary ... And then a man came to our hotel from Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov and said that Luzhkov asked for a meeting. At the meeting, Zhenya delivered a whole speech - about his attitude to music, about how he understands the theater. And the folk artists, who started this whole story with studies, have already stated: so be it, let him return, he is still a talented person. But Luzhkov answered them: no, he will not work with you. I will build a new theater for him. What a theatre! - we think. The devil knows what's going on in the country, empty shelves in stores, no money for anything! And then to create not some kind of studio, but an opera house with an orchestra and a choir, a complex and huge undertaking. But Luzhkov demanded in a week to present the charter of the theater, its staffing table. Then we realized that we have a lot of friends. A wonderful lawyer came and wrote us a charter. We were given a building on the Arbat to accommodate theater services - as they said, the son of the woman who made the decision was a big admirer of Kolobov and said: if you don’t give the building, I’m not your son! You remember - and everything seems implausible. But - it was! They immediately allocated funding for the maintenance of the troupe, for renting halls. And we started making programs.

To show them - where?

Popovich: We were sheltered by DC MIIT, where we rehearsed. Then Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov from abroad kindly provided us with a new hall of the Taganka Theater so that our theater could perform there periodically. But there was also a struggle going on there, and Gubenko wouldn't let us in. Then, while a new theater was being built in the Hermitage Garden, we were temporarily allocated the Zenit cinema. The premiere of "Eugene Onegin" took place there.

There would be no happiness, but misfortune helped: the performance there turned out to be unique. I still remember the amazing feeling: we are inside a musical box, and somewhere above the ceiling the female voices of the “Girls, Beauties ...” choir are hovering, and the orchestra sounds from everywhere at once ... This has never happened in any other hall.

Popovich: It's true. By and large, we had to build a different theater: so that the orchestra was visible, so that it surrounded the audience ... But the project was already focused on preserving the building of the old Mirror Theater. Although as soon as construction began, this building itself collapsed.

Kolobov had an amazing talent to gather people around him.

Marfa Kolobova: He could really work only with his team. With people who knew and felt him. Therefore, he did not want to go anywhere, and no fees could tempt himPopovich: He had such "his own orchestra" at the Sverdlovsk Opera, where the musicians were already imbued with his spirit, praying for him, and there he could work miracles. Then such an orchestra appeared with him at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater. As Temirkanov says: people who have lively eyes, who feel music and want to be created with them. And many venerable orchestras have become so stormy that they no longer want and cannot. Zhenya had a case in Italy, at the "Comunale" theater, when he threw his baton and did not conduct. He went out to the musicians, and they were sitting like this, waddling, chewing gum. And they had to play "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky. And he threw his wand and said: we will not see me here anymore. You may not respect me, but at least respect Tchaikovsky. The interpreter comes running to him in horror: what are you doing, the trade unions are here, and according to the law you can’t talk to musicians like that, you can only smile at them! They will now go on strike and the premiere will fail! But the next day a delegation comes: maestro, forgive us! Musicians do not like to play ballets and consider this a frivolous matter. And the next time he was invited there to conduct "Boris Godunov" with Ruggero Raimondi and Shostakovich's 13th symphony.

Kolobova: And although he did not speak any European language, the musicians fell in love with him. In the mid-80s, he was with the Kirov Theater on a huge tour of America. And one of the newspapers wrote: the Soviet conductor does not need an interpreter. Then in the USA they made a video recording of "Swan Lake", and she received an EMMI award - the most prestigious in the field of television. And the story with the Comunale theater continued when, ten years after that incident, we came to Florence to visit friends. And they came to the theater for the premiere of "La Traviata". He stood smoking at the service entrance, and the musicians passed by to see the performance. Recognized father, and it was so touching!

In the Novaya Opera there was always a lack of a single directorial principle - is it intended?

Popovich: Zhenya wanted to get away from the academic - so that there were different performances. Type, style. And to put their directors of different directions. In addition, he was able to implement his idea of ​​theatrical performances-concerts. Such as "Oh, Mozart. Mozart ...", "Viva Verdi!", "Rossini". Initially, they appeared from the lack of our own building - we needed mobile forms that can be adapted to any scene. But it became his know-how. After all, he always wanted to introduce the audience to masterpieces unknown to the public. Out of all Rossini, only The Barber of Seville is known to us - and then Cinderella, and Moses in Egypt, and William Tell, and Italian in Algeria, and Stabat Mater, and Little Solemn mass"... Twenty unknown arias were heard by our viewers!

Marfa Kolobova: "Rossini" has been going on for 15 years - and always a full house.

Did Kolobov teach? Did he leave students?

Popovich: He always said: I myself do not understand how I conduct - how can I teach? He heard his music and embodied it - how can you teach it!

Marfa Kolobova: And yet, at the end of his life, Volosnikov completed his postgraduate studies. His father noticed him when he brought the play "Cinderella" from the same Sverdlovsk to Moscow. We needed young conductors in the theater, and he invited Volosnikov. Another of my father's students was Anton Kobozev, the first flute of our orchestra, a very talented person. But he died in a terrorist attack on Dubrovka. For dad, it was a terrible tragedy. Antoshka was in his last graduation, he perceived him as a son.

It seems that Zhenya lived in the theater. Was it enough for a family?

Popovich: He always said that it was terrible - when he is the head of the theater, and his wife and daughter work there. You come home - and there again talk only about work. Here he is sitting at the dinner table, watching the news - he always watched them. And my mother and I are discussing what else needs to be done in the theater. Until it explodes: well, how much can you!

As long as I knew him, he told me so much: that's it, I won't stand behind the console anymore!

Popovich: This has always scared us. After all, he has a character: if he said "no" - then no! He said: “I will make Mary Stuart” - and I did it. I sat at night - “These are my problems!” And very often threw a wand: that's it, I won't do it again.

Why?

Marfa Kolobova: He liked orchestrating more - when he was alone with the music. And to get the musicians to embody his understanding of music - it exhausted him.

By the way

As you know, Evgeny Kolobov, a Leningrader by birth, flew to Sverdlovsk (now again Yekaterinburg) to study conducting, to the Mussorgsky Ural Conservatory, to the outstanding conductor and teacher Mark Paverman.Student youth Sverdlovsk was seething with music and ideas. Gleb Panfilov, a student at the Polytechnic University, made his first films. The city bard Alexander Dolsky broke his first triumphs. The audience applauded the talented actor of the Sverdlovsk drama Anatoly Solonitsyn and the chic bass of the Sverdlovsk opera Boris Shtokolov. And a student of the conservatory, Yevgeny Kolobov, sang songs written by the composer Vladislav Kazenin, the future head of the Union of Composers of Russia, in the vocal and instrumental ensemble he created.

And we at Sverdlovsk television recorded all this with the then imperfect equipment.

Here are two songs performed by Evgeny Kolobov: "Sverdlovsk Clock" by Vadim Bibergan and "Musical April" by Vladislav Kazenin. Backing vocals - Natalya Popovich, Kolobov's future wife, the legendary choirmaster of the Novaya Opera Theatre.

Russia - Only in Cinema Club RG: Frantic Maestro