Tag: Polina Osetinskaya

Antiwar Pianist Polina Osetinskaya Canceled in Russia’s Cultural Capital

Polina Osetinskaya. Photo courtesy of YouTube channel “Yuzefovich” (via MR7.ru)

Christmastime Encounters with Polina Osetinskaya, a festival which was to be held on January 5, 6 and 8 at the Petersburg pub Fontanka 69, has been canceled, as reported January 5 on the pub’s Telegram channel.

“Due to circumstances beyond our or Polina Osetinskaya’s control, the festival will not take place,” the organizers said. The pianist had planned to perform pieces by Bach, Debussy, and Desyatnikov.

In its social media post, Fontanka 69 also said that the festival had been conceived by its director Denis Rubin as a way of financially supporting Osetinskaya. “Live performances are the main source of Polina’s livelihood,” emphasized the organizers.

The pub’s post also says that the tickets purchased for the festival could be returned and refunded on the ticket seller’s website. “We would be grateful if you would be willing to hold on to your tickets and support the artist in this way,” the authors of the post emphasized, however.

This is not the first time Osetinskaya’s concerts have been canceled in St. Petersburg. In September 2022, the pianist was not able to perform on stage at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Instead, Eugene Izotov played a concert organized by the Employment Promotion Fund.

Osetinskaya spoke out against the special [military] operation on social media on 24 February 2022. Later, as a trustee of the Oxygen Foundation, she signed an appeal by Russian NGOs to stop the SMO.

Source: “Pianist Polina Osetinskaya’s Christmas Concerts in Petersburg Cancelled,” MR7.ru, 5 January 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader

Polina Osetinskaya performs the first two movements of Leonid Desyatnikov’s Reminiscences of the Theater (1985)
at 142 Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley, California, 4 June 2006

Cancel(ed) Culture in Petersburg and Moscow

Polina Osetinskaya

A concert by the famous and talented pianist Polina Osetinskaya at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic has been canceled.

“I think everything is clear to everyone. Thank you for your concern,” Polina wrote on social media.

What could be clearer? At outset of the “special operation,” Osetinskaya wrote about her attitude to it, about what she really thinks.

And now, like many other artists whose conscience did not permit them to remain silent, she has been excommunicated from her work.

But our TV screens and concert halls are still full of those artists who have no conscience at all. Either they had one, or it atrophied from disuse.

Source: Boris Vishnevsky, Facebook, 2 September 2022. Photo of Ms. Osetinskaya courtesy of her website. Translated by the Russian Reader

Polina Osetinskaya playing Arvo Pärt, Valentin Silvestrov and Giya Kancheli at DK Rassvet in Moscow on 31 May 2022
Vsevolod Lisovsky

Moscow police on Friday evening detained the director, actors and audience of a theatrical street performance — a total of fourteen people, reports OVD Info. The reason for the arrests is not yet known.

Based on Bertolt Brecht’s play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, the operetta Judicial Process was supposed to take place in a pedestrian underpass on Prospect Mira, but the police interrupted the performance.

The operetta has been produced by the Moscow troupe Theater of the Transitional Period and director Vsevolod Lisovsky. He chose the format of street performances in pedestrian underpasses a few months ago. He decided to stage the Brecht play, he said, “because you can’t think of anything more resonant with the time.”

Written by Brecht in 1934–1938, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich is based on eyewitness accounts and newspaper articles. It deals with fascism’s gradual penetration of all areas of life in Nazi Germany, thus discrediting justice and undermining morality.

Vsevolod Lisovsky is an experimental theater director and playwright who worked for many years at Teatr.doc in Moscow. He established a new venue for the theater, Transformator.doc. Lisovsky is is a two-time winner of the Golden Mask Award.

Source: “Moscow street performance’s director, actors and audience detained,” Radio Svoboda, 2 September 2022. Photo courtesy of Teatr magazine. Thanks to Comrade Koganzon for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader