Ayrat Kashaev: ‘Cultural monuments are created by living people’
The conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre — about the nomination for the Tuqayi Award, the peculiarities of the biographical ballet and national projects
The names of the nominees for the Gabdulla Tuqay State Prize in 2025 have been announced in Kazan. The list includes individual candidates, as well as groups and creative teams. Writer and playwright Mansur Gilyazov, singer Georgy Ibushev, choreographer Chulpan Zakirova, cinematographer Yury Gvozd and others are competing for the republic's main award in the field of literature and art. Among the chosen ones is the author's team, including Airat Kashaev, Alexander Polubentsev and Ilnur Gayfullin, for staging the ballet “Iakinf”. In an interview with Realnoe Vremya, the musical director of the production and conductor Airat Kashaev told about the specifics of the work on the national ballet, how sophisticated the Kazan audience is and why Kazan needs another musical theatre.
“Every time a girl from China comes specially to the performance”
Mr Kashaev, how did you find out that you were nominated for the Tuqay State Prize?
It was a complete surprise to me. I found out about it just the other day. Several friends sent me links to information about the nominees. I was absolutely shocked in the best sense of the word. Of course, the nomination for the Gabdulla Tuqay State Prize is a high appreciation of the work of our creative team and a great honour. That's how I feel about it. It's a lot of teamwork. I am proud of our performance.
What is the special feature of working on ballet?
In ballet, the conductor needs to be very sociable and understand what the choreographer wants. Because any dance is initially staged for a specific person and the conductor needs to take into account his pecularities. Relatively speaking, we can dance the Nutcracker with ten different ballerinas, and it will be ten different variations of Sugar Plum Fairy. The music is the same, but its tempo, pauses and stops can be different. This is very pronounced in ballet. Artists on stage show their vision through movement and plasticity. The dancer can highlight some additional lines, add additional meanings. If a performer sings about love in an opera, we all understand that he sings about love. But if the dancer is dancing about love, there can be a lot of different readings. If Lensky sings “I love you...”, then he sings it only to Olga. But “dance” about love can be danced to anyone. That's the special thing.
“History is happening here and now”
Why, in your opinion, was the ballet “Iakinf” nominated for the award?
I think, first of all, because it is the national ballet. Besides, it's biographical. The main character is our outstanding countryman Nikita Bichurin. There is also wonderful music by our composer Rezeda Akhiyarova and a libretto by poet, playwright Renat Haris, wonderful choreography, magnificent scenery and costumes.
Biographical ballet is very, very rare. If we see real characters as the hero, then, as a rule, it is something distant and semi-mythical, as, for example, in the ballet Spartacus. This is also a story about the life of a real person, and creating a work of art based on a biography, especially in such a complex genre as ballet, is very difficult.
The fact that this is a national ballet is really something to be proud of. It often seems to us that all the masterpieces have already been created and we will never reach them... Why? Who said that? History is happening here and now, and cultural monuments are being created by living people who live near us. These are all ordinary people, like you and me, like any of us. They create masterpieces or they don't. We, the contemporaries, need to be able to see them. To do this, we need to have open eyes and an open heart. Fortunately, Tatarstan loves and appreciates its culture.
“Culture in Kazan is at the highest level”
You live in Moscow, you work as a conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, you have something to compare it with. How do you assess the cultural level of our city?
Culture in Kazan is at the highest level, and so is the audience. This is undoubtedly the merit of two major collectives — the Musa Jalil Tatar Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan conducted by Alexander Sladkovsky. If we talk about the theatre, it is one of the leading theatres in the country. The repertoire and performance are at a very high level. What programs, what tours, and what soloists our state orchestra has! Nathan Rakhlin, who created it, Fuat Mansurov, who led it for many years, and now Alexander Sladkovsky are the three titans who have kept this team in fantastic shape. Of course, the Kazan audience is growing with these two wonderful groups. And it's clear that it's already very demanding and sophisticated, which is wonderful. I am extremely happy for Kazan.
They are actively discussing the creation of a musical theatre in Kazan. How do you feel about this idea?
It seems to me that there may be more theatres in such a rich, beautiful and developed city in all respects, and this is absolutely good and right. At the Kazan Opera and Ballet Theatre, listeners have the opportunity to get acquainted with the main masterpieces of the opera and ballet genre, and the chosen repertoire policy perfectly corresponds to the status of the main theatre of the entire region. But there is, for example, the genre of chamber opera, which will not sound as we would like on the stage of a large theatre. There are creative, composing laboratories that the general public should have the opportunity to see. It's necessary. There are many opera houses in Moscow, and, of course, performances there are very different. And if another musical theatre appears in Kazan, as I hope it will, it will be just wonderful.
It was said that there is currently not enough repertoire to create a musical theatre. Do you agree with this?
You definitely don't need to worry about that. There are a huge number of wonderful works by Russian and our Tatar composers. I'm not even talking about Western music — there are so many things there. This is not a reason to worry at all. I think that the musical theatre in Kazan should not be limited to Tatar works only. Otherwise, it will turn out that the musical culture will close in itself.
