Vladimir Urin officially to take reins at Bolshoi as Director-General

Vladimir Urin, the hereto director of Moscow’s Stanislavsky and Nemirovich Danchenko Music Theater, is officially taking up the duties of Director General at the Bolshoi. He was appointed to the position to replace Anatoly Iksanov, who had stood at the head of Moscow’s best known theatrical company for thirteen years and whom the Ministry of Culture had to part with in wake of “a somewhat complicated situation” that has shape around it. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky told the staff and personnel of the theater about the change of personalities in the Director General’s Office July 9. “Iksanov spent thirteen years of his life and a good deal of health on the job at the Bolshoi, but the resources of human strength have a limit even if a person is a professional of the highest degree,” he said. Along with it, Medinsky said Iksanov is moving to the Culture Ministry where he will take up a position of advisor on theatrical business. Vladimir Urin made no secret of the fact the decision to accept the job at the Bolshoi was a difficult one for him. “The load of responsibility is really big,” he said. He indicated that he said ‘no’ to Medinsky’s proposal at first but then agreed to it after a period of intensive consideration. Urin said he does not plan any revolutions and will be moving forward together with the whole company. Vladimir Urin has an honored state title of a Merited Personality in the Field of Arts. He started out his career of a theatrical administrator in the city of Kirov in 1973 where he was director at the Theater of Young Audiences. He moved to Moscow in 1981 to take charge of the Office of Young Audience and Puppet Theaters at the All-Russia Theatrical Society, which supervised the organization of seminars, creative workshops and festivals. From 1987 through to 1996, he was elected twice to the position of Secretary of the Union of Theatrical Professionals of Russia. The list of projects that were effectuated with his immediate assistance includes the International Festival of Acting Schools and the Baikal-Michigan Russian-American Theatrical Festival. Urin stood at the inception of the Golden Mask National Prize for Performing Arts. As of 1995, he was director the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater which like the Bolshoi has an operatic company and a ballet troupe. He translated into life the project of a radical reconstruction of the theater’s compound and an overhaul of creative guidelines.