Tovstonogov biography

Photo: EG. However, the younger sister of the director, Fasted, claimed that her brother was a native Petersburger. According to her, George was born in Petrograd when the family lived on Furshtatskaya Street. And only then the Tovstonogovs moved to Georgia. The father of the future director was a hereditary nobleman, an engineer-yielding carrier, mother of George-a singer of Georgian origin and real princess.

According to the director, in Georgia he was always met with flowers, but not for his merits, but because of his mother’s authority. The future director owned the Georgian language and absorbed the beauty of national culture, which was just experiencing Renaissance in the years. Natural aristocracy manifested itself in St. George Tovstonogov all his life: the director always retained dignity and upbringing, had a good taste, including in clothes and cars, and perfectly owned diplomacy skills that helped him create his own “theater empire”.

Photo: training-theater.

Tovstonogov could follow in the footsteps of his father and become an engineer, but chose the theater. In the year, the young man went to Moscow, entered GITIS, combined the theory with practice during his studies and continued to put in the Youth Theater: in four years he released the performances “Offer”, “Marriage”, “Music team”, “Blue and pink”, “Great heretic”, “Trojan horse” and others.

In the Stalin period, study was not easy: in the m father of Tovstonogov, they repressed as a Japanese spy, and George Alexandrovich was expelled from the fourth year with the stigma of the “son of the enemy of the people”. A few months later, George was able to recover. Probably, this was influenced by Stalin's famous words "the son for his father does not answer." The young director managed to graduate from GITIS in the year, after graduation he immediately found a job at the Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater, and only a year later the summer Tovstonogov was entrusted to lead the acting course of the local theater institute.

When the Great Patriotic War ended, Georgy Tovstonogov left Tbilisi and moved to Moscow, and then to Leningrad, where he became the chief director of the Lenin Komsomol Theater now “Baltic House”. Georgy Alexandrovich released about four performances per season, could simultaneously work on a few plays and did not neglect any material - the directors were subject to any genres, from classics to a light -minded comedy.

And everything turned out to Tovstonogov thoughtfully, unusual, high quality. Thanks to hard work and innate abilities, the director created a name for himself in the Soviet Union - each of his production became an event in the theatrical life of the country. The event finally fixed the status of Tovstonogov as one of the main directors of Leningrad. Photo: Kinopoisk.

Pushkin Alexandrinsky. Thanks to Tovstonovov, the play of Vsevolod Vishnevsky returned to the repertoires of other Soviet theaters, from where it was replaced by more topical productions during the war years. Tovstonogov - the synonym for the Golden Age in the history of the Big Drama Theater at the beginning of the year of Tovstonogov sent to save the Leningrad BDT.

At that time, the summer theater with the reputation of the second Moscow Art Theater was experiencing a serious crisis and was under the threat of closing: for the period, several main directors were replaced for the years, the acting staff was incredibly open, and tickets for performances were not bought. Photo: Lisse-Art. Then they made a collegium. They invited a wonderful person, director Konstantin Pavlovich Khokhlov, who was already old and sick.

They "ate" him. There was a very angry troupe, there were a lot of them. ” Apparently, therefore, at the first meeting with the actors, Tovstonogov said the legendary: “I am inedible! Remember this: inedible! Then he announced his program and fired almost thirty people from the troupe, leaving masters and young artists. To the actors Tovstonogov was harsh, but not merciless. I gave the opportunity to manifest itself to, it is better to play in another performance.

Thanks to this approach, many artists, for example, Vladislav Strzhelchik, grew up in celebrities who were ready to give the hall the whole soul. Soon, the BDT troupe became one of the best in the world. It was more difficult to get there, even than in the Moscow Art Theater. To return the viewer to the BDT, the director began to carefully think through the repertoire.

Over the year, he released three premieres: “sixth floor”, “nameless star” and “when acacia blooms”. Working on the production, Tovstonogov each time deeply experienced the emotions and feelings of each character. His performances were incredibly powerful, they even came up with a special definition - “stage novels”. It was curious to look at the reviving theater, and enthusiastic reviews for the premieres of Tovstonogov went through theatrical circles.

Soon, the seats again began to fill up the audience. The production on the novel by Dostoevsky became a masterpiece of the 20th century, and the role of Prince Myshkin instantly made the Smoktunov legend of the theater scene. Tovstonogov for a long time was looking for the very actor who would play in the "Idiot". Smoktunovsky, who was not known to anyone at that time, approached this role, because he had the “eyes of Myshkin”, as the director himself said.After that, the painful work of the artist and the rose of the orphan began, as a result of which the image of the pure and kind Myshkin, the key character of the first “thawing” years, was born.

We arrived for one day, just to see the "idiot". Of course, everyone lacked tickets, so the treasured places in the hall were an alternative currency. Smoktunovsky, as they say today, "woke up famous." After the “idiot” of the actor, they immediately began to invite to large projects. It’s good or bad, but Smoktunovsky chose a film career. Probably, he was difficult to experience a tremendous psychological and mental stress on the stage, which was not on the set.

Later, Smoktunovsky tried to return to the BDT, but Georgy Tovstonogov did not forgive the “treason” and did not accept the actor in the troupe. But for a long time the director kept a warm relationship with other cult artists of the troupe: Alisa Freindlich, Oleg Basilashvili, Tatyana Doronina and Kirill Lavrov, who became the successor to Tovstonogov in the post of artistic director of the BDT.

Tovstonogov put dozens of plays that have been with the Angels for years. The master handed over to students the secrets of the Stanislavsky system, which he developed and enriched with his own searches. According to the memoirs of the students, the director Georgy Tovstonogov called the theater “voluntary dictatorship”, in which the actors obey the will of the director, but only if they believe in it and recognize the leader.

Georgy Alexandrovich Tovstonogov was considered demanding and fundamental, while he did not spare himself - he worked for wear even on the eighth ten. The director continued to put a lot in the theater, and also to teach, to write books on the theory of the theater of his “Mirror Scene”-still a mustard for directors, work in the Supreme Council, in the All-Russian Theater Society, the editorial board of the magazine “Theater”.

Photo: Gorod The death of Tovstonogov in the year left a scar in the soul of everyone who was enjoyed to see the performances of the unconditional classic of the 20th century. Immediately after this tragic event, it became clear that the BDT needs to be appropriated the name of the one who actually created this theater, but it turned out only in the year to go to action.

Since then, the Big Drama Theater has been named George Tovstonogov. Similar topics.