The Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater is celebrating its anniversary
In all of Russia, only two puppet theaters bear the honorary title of academic: the State Central Puppet Theater named after S.V. Obraztsov in Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod State Puppet Theater. Both theaters have reached the milestone of ninety years, with the former turning 93 this September, while the latter celebrates its 95th anniversary this year.
For the city of Nizhny Novgorod and the entire Nizhny Novgorod region, the anniversary of their beloved theater is truly a celebration, as there are, without exaggeration, thousands of grateful and enthusiastic spectators. And this is only counting those who regularly attend performances today. On the eve of the anniversary, the theater calculated how many spectators had seen its productions over the past 95 years. It turned out that the number had exceeded… 10 million!
Contemporary Theater Art The Nizhny Novgorod State Puppet Theater, founded just two weeks after the establishment of the Nizhny Novgorod region, which was formed as part of the RSFSR on January 14, 1929, is an interesting fact. Already on January 27, 1929, the first performances of the “Petrushka Theater” took place at the Y.M. Sverdlov House of Culture in Nizhny Novgorod – “Baldy,” “Tom the Little Negro,” and “Stepka-Rastrepa.” This date is considered the theater’s birthday.
Rehearsals for the Nizhny Novgorod puppeteers, of course, began earlier. A small theater studio of six people was led by the spouses Georgy Apollinarievich and Tatiana Ivanovna Yavorovsky, who came to the city on the Volga from St. Petersburg. He was a director, she was a director and actress. In its first year of creative activity, the theater gave 58 performances.
Initially, the puppeteers were part of the Nizhny Novgorod TYuZ (Theater for Young Spectators), and they existed on the money earned from performances. It was only in 1937 that they received the official status of the Nizhny Novgorod Puppet Theater and government subsidies. The name Petrushka was dropped from its title, but this fairy tale character remains a symbol of the theater to this day.
Rod and Other Puppets Modern theater art tends to synthesize different directions, so marionettes, tablet dolls, and glove puppets all appear on the Nizhny Novgorod stage; there are also acts based on hand puppetry and mask work.
At the end of last year, the troupe delighted audiences with a premiere featuring floor puppets – the play “The Queen of Spades,” directed by St. Petersburg director Konstantin Balakin. For the 225th anniversary of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin’s birth, Nizhny Novgorod artists created this performance.
Parquet dolls in the play “The Queen of Spades” based on the story by A.S. Pushkin, production director K. Balakin / Photo: vk.com/nn_puppet
To bring a floor puppet to life on stage, it literally “merges” with its puppeteer: its torso is attached to the performer’s waist with an iron rod, and its legs to the puppeteer’s. Moving in such a partnership is not easy – actors have to learn to walk again. But the result is worth it: enthusiastic audiences and critics unanimously predict success for the play at Russian festivals.
However, the theater’s brand remains the rod puppet.
Working with them is literally a challenging task. Some of them weigh up to ten kilograms, and the actor holds the rod puppet above the stage with outstretched arms, tiptoeing to create the puppet’s gait. Sometimes they even have to speak in different voices if a colleague is unable to provide the voice and two puppets need to be voiced simultaneously.
But the Nizhny Novgorod artists fell in love with rod puppets at first sight – from the moment in 1944 when they were brought on tour by the Moscow Obraztsov Theater. Today, the Nizhny Novgorod rod puppet school is considered one of the leading ones in Russia.
Cane puppets from the play “Khanuma” / Photo: vk.com/nn_puppet
To learn about the first puppets of today’s jubilee theater, one can only rely on images on old posters. But everyone can see those created in subsequent decades – the theater has a museum where many antique dolls are kept. Among those that are fifty years old, mostly animals are preserved: there are over 60 horses – a whole herd! The theater’s collection includes over 1000 handmade dolls.
In the museum of the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater / Photo: vk.com/nn_puppet
The long and fascinating life of the theater can also be read about in the book “Fairy Theater,” released to coincide with its anniversary. It has already been distributed to libraries across the country.
Puppets – Laborers of Art
Before the war, the theater welcomed 90 thousand spectators annually. During the Great Patriotic War, it did not cease its activities. In the first months of the war alone, the theater gave 164 concert-performances for Red Army soldiers and the children of front-line soldiers. Over 30 concerts were held annually in military hospitals.
The theater continued to tour the city and the region: during the 1943 sowing season, the theater performed in 36 collective farms, with 20 thousand spectators attending its performances. Props were transported on makeshift sleds made from screens. Children were shown “Turnip” and “Little Lieutenant,” while soldiers were treated to “Hitler and the Devil,” “It’s Unclean Behind the Fascists.” The theater’s artists created satirical sketches featuring images of Hitler, Goebbels, and Mussolini.
For their work in the units of the Red Army and the Navy during the Great Patriotic War, the theater was awarded an honorary diploma by the Committee for Arts Affairs under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR.
An Era of International Recognition
The post-war era brought the theater nationwide and then worldwide fame. In the 1950s, director Yuri Eliseev began staging productions for adults, which were highly successful. Isidor Shtok’s “Divine Comedy,” for example, was staged by many theaters, but the Nizhny Novgorod production was considered the best in the country and remained in the theater’s repertoire for 65 years.
The play “The Divine Comedy” based on the play by I. Shtok, stage director Yu. Eliseev / Photo: vk.com/nn_puppet
Another production by Yuri Nikolaevich for adult audiences – “Giroflé-Girofla” – brought international recognition to the theater: in 1958, at the World Exhibition in Brussels, the puppets from this production received the Grand Silver Medal and subsequently toured theatrical exhibitions in New York and Prague without their actors. They are now part of the collection of the A.A. Bakhrushin State Theater Museum in Moscow.
Nizhny Novgorod actors toured Hungary, Spain, the USA, France, Belgium, and Germany. Performances such as “Samba,” “Teremok,” and “Little Elephant” received applause in various corners of the planet, and today, they can still be seen within the walls of Nizhny Novgorod.
For 55 years, Alexander Mishin served as the theater’s artistic director, setting a record with 80 productions to his credit. A distinctive feature of Alexander Ivanovich’s productions was the large number of puppets. For example, there are about 30 puppets in “Khanum,” over 40 in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” and over 70 in the play “Joseph Schweik.” Mishin once said he wanted to be a pilot and was passionate about equestrian sports. But when he joined his first amateur theater, he realized, “A puppet can do much more than we think, and perhaps even more than an actor.”
Actors and puppets at the anniversary concert “95 years on the other side of the screen”/Scene from the play “Khanuma” / Photo: vk.com/nn_puppet
The House Where Fairy Tales Live
The building that houses the theater is not just one of the most beautiful on the main pedestrian street of Nizhny Novgorod – Bolshaya Pokrovskaya. It was built in the Russian Art Nouveau style in 1912 by architect Fyodor Shekhtel as a concert hall-theater. In 1917, Soviet power was proclaimed within these walls in Nizhny Novgorod. From 1937 to 1971, the Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic operated here, hosting performances by Dmitry Shostakovich, Sviatoslav Richter, and Alexander Vertinsky.
After reconstruction carried out according to the project of architect Sergey Timofeev in 1979, the puppets settled here. It was then that the building acquired a facade in the style of Soviet decorative art, the outlines of which remain the calling card of the theater to this day. Sergey Alexandrovich himself is an honorary guest who attends almost all premieres.
The theater building in the Russian Art Nouveau style was built in 1912 according to the design of the architect F. Shekhtel / Photo: ngodb.rf
By the way, the Nizhny Novgorod Puppet Theater hosts more than 500 performances a year, and with the opening of a small stage last summer, the number has increased by about a hundred. The troupe consists of 20 actors, and the repertoire includes over 50 children’s and five adult productions. Ten of them can be accompanied by audio description for visually impaired viewers.
Jubilee “Puppet Boom”
This winter, a large festival called “Puppet Boom,” also dedicated to the theater’s 95th anniversary, took place here. Artists of different generations and, of course, puppets, met on stage. Theater groups from St. Petersburg, Volgograd, and Luhansk attended.
And now, the jubilee theater is preparing to welcome guests again: from April 19 to 21, large tours of the St. Petersburg E.S. Demmen Puppet Theater are expected, and from April 30 to May 2, the Grodno Regional Puppet Theater (Republic of Belarus) will delight Nizhny Novgorod residents.
“In the anniversary year, our theater and artists have much more to expect. In the summer, we ourselves will actively tour: we will be received in St. Petersburg and Grodno. Meanwhile, repair work will take place in the building of our theater. Over 50 million rubles have been allocated from the budget for the facade and auditorium renovations. The hall will be equipped with modern technical systems in full compliance with legislation – ventilation, smoke extraction, video surveillance… And then we will start preparing for the centenary anniversary. We will gather information for the second volume of the book ‘Fairy Theater.’ And, of course, play performances – both new ones and everyone’s favorites. We will restore the ‘Divine Comedy,'” shares the plans of Alla Zabegalova, Director of the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater.
But no matter how many years the theater has, the credo of the theater’s leaders and actors remains the same: “A fantastic love for the puppet and its right to artistic life.”
And the soul of the 95-year-old jubilee theater remains youthful. Even the oldest actors here are open and sincere like children, and this is conveyed to the audience. While the performance is on, there is probably no one in the hall who feels completely grown-up and does not believe in fairy tales.
By Anna Mechenova