TEODOR CURRENTZIS IN PERM CULTURAL LIFE IN 2011-2022

Abstract

Teodor Currentzis is a Russian conductor of Greek origin. He was born on February 24, 1972 in Athens in a musical family. In 1994 he moved to Russia, St. Petersburg, to study conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with conductor Ilya Musin. In 2004-2010 he was chief conductor of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, where he founded the MusicAeterna orchestra and choir. In 2011-2019, he was the artistic director of the Diaghilev Festival and the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Perm. According to critic Dmitry Renansky, thanks to the work of Currentzis during the years of the “Permian Cultural Revolution”, Perm was given the status of the third musical capital of Russia. The article examines the image of Teodor Currentzis in the Permian public, his role in the cultural life of the regional center. Focused interviews of viewers in Perm are used as a source. The article puts forward two hypotheses. Firstly, the trickster toolkit used by Teodor Currentzis in the process of self-design and self-presentation is read by the audience in a number of aspects. Secondly, the trickster in this mythological construction is in synthesis with another archetypal image that smooths out its most dangerous properties and which needs to be clarified during the interview. As a result of the field research, it was found that the archetype of the trickster here is indeed supplemented by another image that neutralizes the negative features of the first one, and the established cultural image forms, respectively, two strategies of spectator perception.