Our article is about the actor, theater director, creator and former art director of the Taganka Theater, whose centenary is celebrated in 2017.
Origin
Yuri Lyubimov, whose biography is considered in this article, was born in 1917. It was a difficult time for the whole country. He was born on September 30 in the city of Yaroslavl. His dad - Peter Zakharovich - was a merchant. He graduated from a commercial school and in 1922 moved with his family to Moscow. The merchant owned his own store in Okhotny Ryad. Various pickles were sold in it: mushrooms, cucumbers, soaked apples, etc. Lyubimov's father was a real gentleman, he loved to live in a big way. There were a lot of beautiful things in his house. After him, a magnificent library remained, in which there were many good books. The independence and power of this man was inappropriate during the Soviet era. As a result, Peter Zakharovich was imprisoned and lost all his property.
Yuri Petrovich’s mother was called Anna Alexandrovna. According to her father, she was half a gypsy. Having learned to be a teacher, she began to teach in elementary grades. She was a strong-willed and determined person. After the arrest of her husband, she was also sent to prison. The authorities sought to ensure that the parents of Yuri Lyubimov gave all their savings. A few months later, Anna Alexandrovna returned home, where three children were waiting for her: David, Yuri and Natasha. After the NEP, many trials awaited the family. However, they all survived because they came from a large and powerful family. Worldly hardships tempered our hero. Therefore, he managed to find his way in life and take place as an actor, director and director of the theater.
Childhood and youth
Biography of Yuri Lyubimov includes many interesting and difficult moments. What is only the story of his childhood and youth! Being not from a proletarian family, he was often persecuted. He even had to leave school before the deadline and enter the electromechanical college. The street dictated its own rules. There was a case when a guy was severely beaten. He lost two teeth and suffered a head injury. The next day, he took with him a finca and a single-shot pistol. But disassembly this time did not happen. But Lyubimov was respected and no longer touched.
The parents of the future actor were passionate theater-goers. This fact played a decisive role in the life of our hero. From an early age he joined the theater and enjoyed Meyerhold’s famous performances - “Forest”, “Examiner”, “Lady with Camellias”. As a result, the boy himself wanted to become an actor. In parallel with classes in a technical school, he attended a choreographic studio. In 1934, he managed to enter the studio at the Moscow Art Theater. The very next year he made his debut on stage in a cameo role in the production of “A Pray for Life”. However, a year later the authorities closed the studio. The reason was the "struggle with formalism."
How did the biography of Yuri Lyubimov begin to take shape?
Films with his participation
In 1936, Yuri entered the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Theater. For three years, played the role of the second plan. After that he was drafted into the army. In 1941, he was involved in the NKVD Song and Dance Ensemble. At the same time, Yuri Petrovich was invited to act in films. He had the opportunity to translate on the screen more than thirty images. He was noted in Andrievsky’s Robinson Crusoe, Three Meetings by S. Yutkevich and V. Pudovkin, On the Stage by K. Yudin, Kuban Cossacks by I. Pyryev, Restless Farm by A. Zharov and many other paintings.
After returning from the army for twenty years, Yuri Lyubimov continued to serve in the Vakhtangov Theater. The biography of the wonderful actor suggests that he played a wide variety of roles. On his account, the restless Cyrano from Cyrano de Bergerac, Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing, Treplev from The Seagull, Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, etc.
Career
Actor Yuri Lyubimov, whose biography many fans are interested in, was a very versatile person. In particular, he began to try himself in directing. In 1959, he staged a play by Galich, “How Much Does a Person Need?” Not satisfied with the result, Lyubimov began attending seminars by Mikhail Kedrov, a student of Stanislavsky himself. According to Yuri Petrovich, in those days it was the only place where in the 1960s one could hear a lively word about theater and acting. After that, the actor and director himself became a teacher in the famous "Pike." His active work in the field of art did not go unnoticed, so he was soon offered to head the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater.
Place in history
In the biography of Yuri Lyubimov, it is noted that the director significantly improved the position of the Taganka Theater, which, unfortunately, was not popular with the audience before his arrival. He updated the troupe by inviting graduates from his native school. And already in 1964 he released the premiere performance - “A Good Man from Cezuan” based on the play of Bertold Brecht. The production has thundered all over Moscow and has since been considered a cult. And the theater has become a kind of “island of freedom”, from the stage of which truths about truth, goodwill and humanity were broadcast.
The legendary “Taganka” united unique artists under its wing. The actor himself, Yuri Lyubimov (a biography marked all the milestones of his theatrical activity) knew who to choose. Gubenko Nikolay, Demidova Alla, Slavina Zinaida, Smekhov Veniamin, Vladimir Vysotsky, Shatskaya Nina, Leonid Filatov - all these celebrities became famous on the stage of the unforgettable “Taganka”.
In 1976, the theater received the highest award at the BITEF festival in Yugoslavia. The award was awarded for the production of Hamlet based on the play of Shakespeare. In 1980, Yuri Petrovich was awarded the prize for personal merits in art at the Warsaw Theater Meetings. In 1975, the director managed to stage the first opera at the La Scala Theater in Milan. It was called “Under the Hot Sun of Love” and enjoyed great success with the public. Since then, opera performances by Yuri Lyubimov have become the hallmark of the theater. For his professional activities, he has created more than thirty productions of this format.
Deprived of citizenship
In the biography of Yuri Lyubimov (the theater was still his permanent place of work) it is indicated that difficult times came in the early 80s. The first blow was the death of Vysotsky, who worked for a long time at the Taganka Theater. Then, a prohibition dedicated to the poet and actor fell under the ban; later, Boris Godunov expected the same fate. Yury Petrovich learned about deprivation of citizenship while in London. It was 1984. The reason was an active civic position, which runs counter to official politics.
In the West, the performances of Yuri Lyubimov (we continue to get acquainted with his biography) were enthusiastically received. Israel, Italy, France, Germany, USA, Finland - in these and other countries the actor and director had a chance to work. And all his productions were successful and received numerous theater awards.
Return
After returning to his homeland (1988), he was given previously forbidden works (we are talking about Boris Godunov and Vladimir Vysotsky). Among the new staged performances can be called "Feast during the plague", "Electra", "Suicide", "Doctor Zhivago." The troupe often went on foreign tours.
Distinctive features of the leadership of Yuri Lyubimov have always been rigor and addiction to strict discipline in the team. In his opinion, communication with actors should be built similarly to communication with trained circus animals: there should always be a whip and a carrot with you.
Leaving the theater
In December 2010, Lyubimov spoke about the resignation and the intention to resign from the artistic director of the theater. The reason for this decision, he called the conflict with the Moscow Department of Culture.
Literally six months later, in the summer, Yuri Lyubimov (biography and photos are offered to the attention of the reader in this article) was embroiled in scandal. Actors on tour in the Czech Republic made a demand to pay a fee immediately after the performance. The art director was offended by this situation, and on July 6, 2011, he left the Taganka Theater. There was no farewell to the troupe, but Yuri Lyubimov had worked in this theater for more than forty years …
But there was another reason for his departure - this is the wife of Katalina Kunz, a journalist from Hungary. At the Taganka Theater, a woman worked as a deputy director. According to many actors, she was unjustifiably rude, swearing and committing acts that degraded their honor and dignity. Yielding to the insistence of the collective, Yuri Lyubimov dismissed his wife (we will not touch on her biography). And soon he left the theater.
In 2012, Yuri Lyubimov staged the play "Demons" by Dostoevsky. This four-hour statement was positively accepted by both critics and fans of his work. But the premiere of the opera “Prince Igor”, scheduled for December 2012, unfortunately by the fans, was postponed indefinitely.
Director's death
Yuri Lyubimov (his biography was full of interesting events) celebrated his 95th birthday on September 30, 2012. Less than two weeks after this holiday event, he was hospitalized. He was diagnosed with a heart attack. In late October, the director fell into a coma for a day. The director spent the summer of 2013 restoring his strength, resting and preparing for the onset of the new season. In the fall, the presentation of his new opera project in Italy took place. The spring of 2014 for the director was marked by the premiere of the opera-buff "School of Wives." In the fall of the same year, Yuri Lyubimov was again taken to the hospital. October 5, Yuri Lyubimov died. He was 97 years old. The funeral of the director took place three days later at the Don cemetery.
Personal life
Speaking about the biography of Yuri Lyubimov, his wives and children should also be mentioned. The female environment of the director has always consisted of bright and beautiful companions. His first wife was the ballerina Olga Evgenievna Kovaleva. They met at joint performances in the NKVD ensemble. The couple had a son, Nikita (born 1949). This marriage did not last long. The woman went to another man.
If we talk about Nikita Lyubimov, then after graduating from school he studied for some time in a theological seminary. Subsequently, he chose the path of the writer. His play was staged at the Taganka Theater. And today he is just as religious. It often happens in the temple, spends the summer with his wife and three children in his house in the village under Velikiye Luki.
The acquaintance of the director and Lyudmila Tselikovskaya happened during their studies at the theater school. Schukin. Their life together lasted fifteen years. The reason for the separation was his romance with Catalina. Tselikovskaya had her own opinion about the genius of Lyubimov. She did not classify him as a genius. Undoubtedly recognizing the talent of Yuri Lyubimov, she was aware that the creation of the theater was his success, but the choice of the repertoire was largely her merit.
A kind of "hopper", a charming, but near-minded girl on the movie screens, in life, the actress was a very educated person. She loved reading, was well versed in foreign literature, and had all-Union fame. Due to its popularity, it could open the doors in the highest offices. It is believed that Lyubimov’s acquaintance with the “right” environment took place with her direct participation.
Also, Yuri Lyubimov is credited with an affair with the Pashkov sisters. The acquaintance of Lyubimov and the Hungarian journalist and translator Katalina Kunts took place in 1976, during the Hungarian tour of the Taganka Theater. Later, the woman ended up in the capital as her own correspondent for one of the Hungarian magazines. The wedding of the 61-year-old director and 32-year-old Catalina took place two years later. In 1979, in Budapest, the couple had a long-awaited son. He was called Peter. According to the memoirs of Katalina, she spent her pregnancy listening to Bach fugues and watching old films in which the tall and slender handsome Yuri Lyubimov played (biographies of the creator’s sons are also described in the article). So she dreamed of having a son who looked like an outstanding spouse.
After receiving a matriculation certificate in Cambridge, Peter worked on improving the Italian language in Italy, worked in a construction company. With the onset of his illness, his father quit his job and moved to the Taganka Theater.
