Without a ticket to the ballet: the audience can watch the performances for free for a week

Exclusive content from hundreds of iconic cultural institutions, artists and bloggers will be publicly available until April 2. You can see performances of the Vakhtangov Theater, the Moscow Art Theater, Sovremennik, Helikon Opera, MAMTa, ballets with Diana Vishneva and Angelina Vorontsova, and visit the backstage of the Bolshoi Theater on the VKontakte, Oknoklassniki, and Zen platforms. The campaign has been held for the second year. The number of participants is growing every year. Izvestia tested the proposed selection and calculated how much you can save on theater tickets by watching online broadcasts of performances.

Where to watch 100 performances

It is an interesting idea to accumulate different resources of cultural institutions from all over the country in one project. Under the banner of "VK Theater Week", Internet users had the opportunity to get acquainted with the repertoire of leading Russian scenes. More than 100 major cultural institutions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Voronezh, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Sakhalin are waiting for their online audience.

The large-scale project involves the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theater (MAMT), the St. Petersburg Alexandrinka, and the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theater. Have you been to the Satyricon, the Komissarzhevskaya Theater, the Leonid Yakobson Ballet, the Helikon Opera, and the Kamala Tatar Theater for a long time? In a week, dozens of performances from Astrakhan, Bashkiria, and Buryatia can be evaluated online. They will unite under the hashtag #theater for all.

Actors of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater Irina Pegova, Sergey Belyaev, Pavel Chinarev, Kuzma Kotrelev opened the week.

"The theater is a confessional place," said Irina Pegova, People's Artist of Russia. — As a spectator, I go to the theater a lot. It's such a huge boost and outlet! When I sit in the audience, I understand why our profession is needed. For me, the theater is my life.

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Actor Pavel Chinarev is sure that the theater is not a place, but a group of like—minded people. Kuzma Kotrelev's profession gives him the opportunity to interact with the audience, receiving energy from them and giving his own in return. And Sergei Belyaev was caught by the project at a rehearsal at the Moscow Art Theater.

— If there was no theater, when would I still be dressed as a gas industry worker, with a mustache glued on and with such a hairstyle? — Belyaev wonders. — And the theater allows me to be different people. That's the magic of it.

The Moscow Art Theater has announced a kind of challenge for users. By April 2, inclusive, you need to record a short vertical video reflecting on the meaning of the theater today, and publish it under the hashtag #theatrvovem. The winners will be announced on April 3.

"VKontakte has more than 18,000 active communities dedicated to culture and art," said Maria Vorobyeva, Director of VK's Community Relations Department. — Representing a strong expert community, cultural communities allow each user to access educational and educational content for free, without leaving home.

How to save tens of thousands without leaving home

The most interesting thing about the VK project is the opportunity to watch the best performances for free. The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre was the first to present its ballet "One Thousand and One Nights". The audience saw him in a live broadcast from Vladivostok. This is a colorful production based on the famous collection of Arabic and Persian fairy tales. The music was composed by Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov. In the main parties: Scheherazade — Anna Samostrelova, Nurida — Lilia Berezhnova, Shakhriyar — Sergey Umanets. The choreographer of the performance is Eldar Aliyev. An oriental dance specialist worked with the performers to accurately convey the style of the East. In the design of the ballet, the artist Peter Okunev combined picturesque scenery with video projections. The main part of the colorful, hand-embroidered costumes and decorations for the Primorsky Stage performance were created by St. Petersburg craftsmen. For those who did not make it to the ballet, the broadcast will be saved in the recording. A ticket for the "One Thousand and One Nights" on the Primorsky Stage in Vladivostok can be purchased from 300 rubles to 6 thousand. Let's add to this the price of the ticket. It will be necessary to spend from 2 thousand to 15 thousand rubles on the ballet at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg.

The hit of the Vakhtangov Theater, the play "Eugene Onegin" by Rimas Tuminas, is also in the public domain. Pushkin's novel is a huge space that contains mind games, guesses, anger, epiphany, satire and cynicism, compassion and forgiveness. Everyone has heard the phrase "Pushkin is our everything." But what does it really mean? Rimas Tuminas destroys stereotypes by building a performance in a polyphonic, musical, harsh and emotional way. To get to this performance is a great success. Tickets from 1.1 thousand to 8.2 thousand rubles have already been sold out even for May. Starring: Sergey Makovetsky, Alexey Guskov, Viktor Dobronravov, Irina Kupchenko, Lyudmila Maksakova, Leonid Bichevin.

And the play "Viy" by Gogol at the Pushkin Theater, directed by Nina Chusova, cannot be seen on stage at all. Created in 2003, it was mega-popular and brought together such stars as Pavel Derevyanko, Victoria Isakova, Sergey Miller, Andrey Zavodyuk. The performances of the Pushkin Theater are in different price categories. Tickets from 600 rubles to 7 thousand rubles can be purchased on the theater's website.

Helikon promises to immerse itself in the wonderful world of opera by the International Theater Day. On the VKontakte theater page, you can see one of the most iconic and majestic works by Giuseppe Verdi, Aida, directed by Dmitry Bertman. This opera is not only fascinating with its music, but also full of interesting facts that can surprise even the most sophisticated art fans. Mikhail Bulgakov was a big fan of "Aida" and repeatedly mentioned her in his story "The Heart of a Dog". And Sophia Loren played the main role in the Italian film of the same name.

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Tickets to the Helikon for performances in the Stravinsky Hall — from 1.5 thousand to 8 thousand. Almost all of them are sold before the end of the season. But "Aida" can only be viewed in a new one. And it's worth taking care of the tickets on the day of the start of sales.

Sovremennik decided to share recordings of several performances. We started with the legendary "Cherry Orchard" directed by Galina Volchek with Marina Neyolova, Igor Kvasha, Elena Yakovleva, Galina Petrova, Sergey Garmash in the main roles. Tickets to Sovremennik — from 1 thousand to 10 thousand rubles.

Who doesn't need an introduction is the Bolshoi Theatre. He is known all over the world. But why did the theater building burn down four times and who revived it from the ashes? Why were artists more afraid of cats than fire? How did the premiere of "Swan Lake" fail? Does size matter when it comes to Big stuff? You can find out about this in the movie "Bolshoi Theater in 22 minutes" on the "History.Russian Federation "VKontakte".

Lessons with Tsiskaridze

A large section of ballet performances. Angelina Vorontsova, the prima of the Mikhailovsky Theater, will present a video of her performances on her VKontakte page. In several of them, her partner was Nikolai Tsiskaridze, People's Artist of Russia, Premier of the Bolshoi Theatre. Angelina will publish excerpts from iconic performances such as "Paquita", "Giselle", "The Flame of Paris", "Cipollino". The audience also has the opportunity to watch the rehearsal of the ballet "Sleeping Beauty" with Nikolai Tsiskaridze.

— I tried to select very interesting shots for subscribers of my community that will help them get in touch with the world of theater and learn a little more not only about the specifics of performances, but also to see the downside of theatrical life, which, of course, includes rehearsals, — Angelina Vorontsova confessed to Izvestia. — I hope that a huge number of people will enjoy this holiday.

And the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater, Diana Vishneva, can be seen in the play "Manon" by Kenneth Macmillan in 2001. The platform for the support and development of modern Russian choreography Context. Diana Vishneva will publish an excerpt from the performance. Maria Khoreva is ready to talk about how she studied at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet.

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AI to help theater-goers

Another form of communication within the framework of the Theater Week is chatbots. Cultural institutions are very conservative in themselves. A chatbot created with the participation of VK based on a neural network will attract a younger audience to theatrical themes. An excellent window of opportunity for academic theaters and museums, including the Oleg Tabakov Theater, the A.A. Bakhrushin Museum, and the Kamala Theater. The chatbot is able to generate stage images in the "VK Clips" format. Users can try themselves in different roles inspired by classic plots and characters from their favorite works: "Ruslan and Lyudmila", "Crime and Punishment", "Masquerade", "Hamlet", "At the Bottom", and more.

One of the first posted a link to the Satyricon chatbot. After him, the rest of the theaters and museums will make posts about the launch. On the Satyricon page, the VK team gives you the opportunity to try on iconic images of world literature. To do this, users are invited to write the code phrase "Theater Day" in the comments under the post. In response, the chatbot will send seven questions, after answering which everyone will receive a ready-made clip created by AI.

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater exclusively offers users a look behind the scenes of the premiere performance of "The Seagull" staged by the artistic director of the theater Konstantin Khabensky. Actor and blogger Sasha Novikov will be the guide for the audience. Igor Vernik, Kristina Babushkina, Anatoly Kot, Ilya Kozyrev, Sofia Shidlovskaya are engaged in the performance. Set design by Nikolai Simonov.

The Alexandrinsky Theater from St. Petersburg invites you to look behind the scenes of the production of Ruslan and Lyudmila by Anton Okoneshnikov. The play is based on Pushkin's poem of the same name and is primarily aimed at children over the age of 12 and their parents. Nikolai Karpov, an actor of the Piterville creative association, will introduce the audience to the creators before the performance. And the Kamala Theater from Kazan, which is participating in the project for the first time, is waiting for those who wish behind the scenes of Farid Bikchantaev's legendary play "The Blue Shawl". Russian Russian and English translations are available in Tatar, but musician Rail Arslanov will conduct the tour in Russian.