Word: theater
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Alexander Vedernikov's dramatic exit was the climax of a battle between the director and the theater's management over the revamp of the Bolshoi, a nearly 200-year-old icon of Russian culture just a five-minute walk from the Kremlin. "I resigned because of a disagreement with the administrators over their policies on some major development issues and over the artistic future of the theater," Vedernikov told TIME in a phone interview from his hotel in Milan, from which he is leading the Bolshoi on a summer tour of Italy - potentially his last for the theater. "We disagreed...
...rose-and-white-columned façade of Russia's famed Bolshoi Theater has stood shrouded in construction curtains and spiky scaffolding for four years - and it looks to stay that way longer still, as the sudden resignation of the theater's musical director has pitched the future of the Bolshoi and its multimillion-dollar renovation into disarray...
...After decades of neglect, the Bolshoi had deteriorated into a firetrap, and by the time the renovation started, more than 70% of the theater's foundation had been eroded by an underground stream. Worse still - at least, for Russia's music lovers - damage caused by construction of the Moscow Metro in the 1930s and a bomb hit during World War II had forced the theater to replace the wood panels on the walls with concrete in the 1950s, ruining the acoustics. Eventually, with support from UNESCO, the government decided to fund a $700 million reconstruction project, which was started...
...Observers say that during the course of the restoration, the theater's administration has been focusing on the reconstruction of the building and taking little interest in the artistic aspects of the revamped theater. "There is a tendency to think of the Bolshoi as a building - to think of it as a brand," says Raymond Stults, a critic who has written about the Moscow opera scene for 15 years. "After a successful tour in Paris a few years ago, one of their ballerinas said to me, 'Finally the management realizes that it's not about them...
...German firm Müller-BBM, a leader in its field, had been hired at the start of the reconstruction to bring the theater's acoustics back to their former glory. However, in the past few months, as the financial crisis has torn through Russia, Vedernikov learned that the firm's contract had not been renewed. A Russian institute without Müller-BBM's expertise has been brought in to carry out the work instead - a move to which the music director is vigorously opposed. "When I hear [Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov say] that it is very important...