People and events:

• MUSLIM MAGOMAYEV'S UNDYING FAME
• MIKHAIL SHEMYAKIN:"LIVE AND WORK WITH RUSSIA"
• 125th BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF ALEXANDER KHANZHONKOV

MUSLIM MAGOMAYEV'S UNDYING FAME

by O. Bugrova
On August 17, it was 60 years since the birth of Muslim Magomayev, a legendary variety show singer, the idol of several generations and millions upon millions of people residing in the post-Soviet space.
Muslim Magomayev became a celebrity on a spur of the moment; and his fame is undying to the present day. In 1962 Magomayev first appeared in Moscow where he performed in the framework of the Days of Azerbaijanian Culture. He sang two musical pieces in a gala-concert given on the country's main stage, the Kremlin Palace, and the news of a superb 20-year-old singer from Baku began spreading all over the country. His name was on the lips of ordinary music fans, soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre and even the Minister of Culture. In a year in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert Hall he gave his first solo concert; the house was full. On the programme there were 16 excerpts from operas, yet he had sung 23; and in the third part of the concert that was not planned he sang Neapolitan folk songs and pop songs. The singer remembers that unusual concert, this is what he says: "High-ranking officials and their families left, the lights went down, the piano was moved away. Yet flows of music fans from balconies still approached the proscenium. They stood applauding. And I decided on giving a third part of the concert. The piano was returned to its place, there came the time for variety music." When a child Muslim Magomayev had a clear bent for music. He was brought up by the family with deep musical and artistic traditions. His grandfather was a famous composer, his mother--an actress, his father--an artist. Muslim was taught to play piano. At the age of 14 he began to take lessons from teachers of voice. Still earlier he became interested in Italian songs, American jazz and everything that is usually called variety music. And this appears to be his calling, though his voice is strong enough for opera singing. Upon graduating from the Baku conservatoire he sang on the stage of the Azrbaijanian opera theatre for several years and was even invited to the Moscow Bolshoi after two years of his work on probation in the La Scala theatre in Milan. His baritone is deep-sounding with a characteristic metallic note to it. He has full command of his voice and is a brilliant actor.
There are several other qualities that have always been of help to Muslim Magomayev. One of them is his good looks combined with inborn grace. His handsome looks, a lavish gift of Nature, drove wild his numerous women admirers. Yet exuberance, his distinguishing feature, has always been what impressed Magomayev's audiences most.
Muslim Magomayev has a variety of gifts. He is the author of songs and music to films. He wrote two books: his autobiography entitled "My Love is Melody" and "The Great Lanzo" devoted to American tenor Mario Lanzo whom he admired. Magomayev played in films, acted as a host in TV and radio broadcasts devoted to prominent musicians of the 20th century--Maria Callas and Frank Sinatra, Mario del Monaco and Elvis Presley, Arturo Toscanini and Liza Minelli. The way he spends his leisure time is further proof to versatility of his interests. He is involved in computer photography and painting. Among his works are oil portraits of Sergei Rakhmaninov and Giuseppe Verdi. Muslim Magomayev has prestige in many fields: he consults young opera and pop singers and, say, acts as chairman of the Moscow Beauty Competitions. Interviewed by journalists in the run up to his 60-year jubilee Muslim Magomayev said the following:" I have my hands full with preparations of a jubilee collection of my 14 discs. In addition to pop songs, these will include many pieces of classical music. I see little sense in recording new music; I am not a young pop singer who needs to continuously renew his repertoire to prove something to his audience." True, Muslim Magomayev does not need to prove anything. As he comes to the stage and just begin singing one of the 1970s hits audiences break into a storm of applause.

MIKHAIL SHEMYAKIN:"LIVE AND WORK WITH RUSSIA"

(At a show featuring Mikhail Shemyakin's drawings to the "Nutcracker" ballet)

By Itta Beratova
An exposition has just opened in the Moscow Museum of Private Collections featuring Mikhail Shemyakin's drawings to Petr Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker". The first night of this performance was given at the St. Petersburg Mariinski theatre in December 2001. The new version of the old ballet caused a sensation.
The world-famous artist Mikhail Shemyakin once said that in the West there is a belief that after the avant-garde of the early 20th century no arts but Matreshka dolls have remained in Russia. Directors of Russia's largest museums and picture galleries and Russian artists working in Europe and the United States also voiced a similar opinion more than once. Mikhail Shemyakin left the Soviet Union 30 years ago because his work could not win acclaim. In emigration his way to recognition was not easy either. He never tried to adjust his work to the demands of Western market. Nonetheless, his pictures were exhibited in the largest picture galleries of the United States, Europe and Japan. He always emphasized that he is a Russian artist though he is a national of the United States.
For the first time compatriots saw his canvases when the iron curtain fell. It was in 1989. A one-man show of his works opened in Moscow. This was the beginning of his way back, to his homeland. According to the head of the Moscow largest IZVESTIYA publishing house Erast Galumov, today Mikhail Shemyakin represents Russian art abroad. He is a kind of envoy, his mission is to show to the world the art of his compatriots. Mikhail Shemyakin is not only an artist, he is a sculptor, a thinker and a writer. In this capacity Mikhail Shemyakin is still little known in Russia. The IZVESTIYA publishing house took a decision to use its huge potential to acquaint Russian and world public with his activity since Mikhail Shemyakin repeatedly voiced his wish to work with Russia and promote its revival. The publishing house plans to sponsor exhibitions and issue albums and books. During one of his recent visits to Russia Mikhail Shemyakin decided to set up a foundation in support of Russian culture.
The director of the foundation Alexander Bagin says that Mikhail Shemyakin met more than once with president Vladimir Putin to discuss what should be done to facilitate introduction of Russian arts to the international scene. For many years Mikhail Shemyakin has been studying market of arts and psychology of creative activity. In the United States Mikhail Shemyakin founded the Institute of psychology of creative activity; he compiled a rich collection of audio and video clips and collected a library containing valuable materials for studies by artists and art historians. He is prepared to grant access to his rich collections to his Russian colleagues. This is only the beginning. The current exposition is one of the events of Mikhail Shemyakin's extensive program.
The artist has several projects in Russia. On one of the capital's squares a sculptural composition was unveiled in 2001. Mikhail Shemyakin entitled it "Children as victims of the adults' vices". There is no consensus over the sculptural composition among residents of Moscow. Many ask: "Why do we need this horror thing in the capital's center if we see such horrors in our everyday life?" Monsters symbolizing drug addiction, war and alcoholism are looming over children. The sculptor explained his idea: "I want people looking at those sculptures to think over future of the generations to come." Mikhail Shemyakin's drawings to the "Nutcracker" ballet is quite another genre. Yet even a layman can see that there is something that is common. And this is grotesque and a combination of some mysterious game, laughter and seriousness. The influence of the world art heritage is more clearly seen in those drawings than in the theatre set. Here is something of Goya's Caprichos, French engravings and apocalyptic works of Hieronymus Bosch synthesized in a style of Hoffmann's fairy-tale. The artist actually re-wrote libretto. Notably, mice were turned into rats which, the artist says, are mysterious creatures; and he endowed those rats with human vices.
There is a rat called Napoleon in the performance and a gray rat cardinal those name is an allusion to Richelieu, it weaves a web of intrigues. There are also other allusions to historic personalities. The main heroine of the performance, a girl called Masha, looks like an orphan. She is depicted only on one drawing, that is the view from her back. The image of neglected child Masha, the guests looking like beer barrels on leaving the party and a monstrous Christmas tree--all this create an atmosphere of discomfort. No wonder that in the finals Masha and the prince, the former Nutcracker, decided on leaving the world of adults, they move to the so-called kingdom of sweets. This is the end of Hoffmann's fairy tale. Yet in the original version of the ballet everything that happened to Masha and the Nutcracker turned out to be a dream.
The artistic director and conductor of the Mariinski theatre Valery Gergiev says that the "Nutcracker" is one of Tchaikovsky's most tragic compositions. Ever new music layers are being revealed in this unique "ballet symphony". The myth that this music was meant specially for children has been finally dispelled. "We restored all omissions, this has landed new meaning to the composition breaking old stereotypes."
Photo: from kommersant
 

125th BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF ALEXANDER KHANZHONKOV

Milena Faustova
It's 125 years this month since the birth of this country's first movies entrepreneur Alexander Khanzhonkov. From the outset, the man put this country's film industry on a par with Hollywood.
The premier show in 1912 of his full-length feature film "The Defense of Sebastopol", about the historic siege in 1854 and 55, left ladies and old soldiers shedding tears and Emperor Nicholas the Second, who was in the audience, offering personal praise and thanks to the director and cast. Remarkably, the film included rare photos of the Sebastopol siege and footages of surviving veterans of it.
Alexander Khanzhonkov was born in the estate of Khanzhonkovo in Ukraine into the family of a retired Cossack officer. Shortly after getting commissioned himself following graduation from a cadet school in 1897, he switched to a career in film-making, apparently impressed with the present of a projector and films from his brother who bought the kit in Paris in 1896. He started running imported films, built a theatre (one of Moscow's biggest at the time) and launched a film factory -- for shooting feature films, documentaries, popular science reels and cartoons.
Initially, most Silver Age intellectuals despised the movies as cheap entertainment for the uneducated mob. Khanzhonkov broke this attitude by proceeding from documentaries of military parades -- something to be seen in deference to the Emperor -- to short comedies and then to full-length feature films after classical Russian novels, with stars like Vera Holodnaya, Ivan Mozzhukhin and Mikhail Tchekhov on the casts.
Quite quickly, Khanzhonkov moved from directing to movies management, filling director posts with future luminaries like Yevgeni Brauer, Vladimir Starevich and Lev Kuleshov.
In 1911 and 1912, in a bid to win acclaim abroad as well as at home, Khanzhonkov shot his famous 100-minute blockbuster about the defense of Sebastopol. The budget totaled an unheard of 40 thousand rubles, and the Sebastopol-based production process employed thousands of army troops and hundreds of old artillery guns, all freely donated by His Majesty. Dozens of gentlewomen volunteered to act as military nurses. Cutting-edge technology and novel methods produced an international box office hit, winning Khanzhonkov lucrative contracts in Western Europe and North America.
Naturally, Alexander Khanzhonkov was not immune to upheavals around him. Following the takeover by the Bolsheviks in 1917, he spent quite some time in Austria, where he successfully distributed Russian films and worked on early projects to develop synchronous sound tracks. Lured back by the Soviet Education Commissar Anatoli Lunacharski, he helped him establish film-making in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, problems with health forced him to retire into obscurity.
In 1991, the city of Moscow reshaped a theatre of its name -- formerly 'Pegasus', owned and operated by Alexander Khanzhonkov -- into what's now known as the Alexander Khanzhonkov Movies and Video Center. The Center marked Khanzhonkov's 125th birthday this August by showing all 40 surviving minutes of his "Defense of Sebastopol".
Russian and Ukrainian film-makers attended ceremonies to unveil memorial plaques in Khanzhonkovo where Khanzhonkov was born and in the Crimean beach resort of Yalta where he died. They held seminars and workshops on the vast legacy of Alexander Khanzhonkov.