Georgy Tovstonogov | |
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| Born | Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov (1915-09-28)28 September 1915 |
| Died | 23 May 1989(1989-05-23) (aged 73) |
| Resting place | Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg[1] |
| Occupation | Theatre director |
| Years active | 1933–1989 |
Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov (Russian:Гео́ргий Алекса́ндрович Товстоно́гов, 28 September [O.S. 15 September] 1915 – 23 May 1989) was a Russian-Georgian theatre director.
He was the leader of theGorky Bolshoi Drama Theater which was renamed after him in 1992.
Georgy Tovstonogov was born inTbilisi (nowGeorgia), or inSt. Petersburg on 28 September 1915, to a Russian noble and a Georgian classical singer Tamara Papitashvili.[2]
In 1938 he graduated from theState Institute of Theatrical Art inMoscow. From 1938 to 1946, he worked as a director in the Tbilisi Griboedov Theater, from 1946 to 1949 in the Central Children's Theater in Moscow, from 1950 to 1956 in theLeningrad Leninsky Komsomol Theater, and from 1956 until his death in 1989 in the Bolshoi Academic Gorky Theater. He was a professor at theLeningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema since 1960. In 1957 he became aPeople's Artist of the USSR. He won theStalin Prize thrice (1950, 1952, 1956), and got twoOrders of Lenin and many other Soviet awards. In 1972, he produced the bookThe Profession of the Stage-Director, which is the best example of his directing style, and in which he shares his honest opinions onLee Strasberg andKonstantin Stanislavsky. On 1985 the International Theatre Institute invited Tovstonogov to teach Stanislavski Method for international actors, Juan Furest fromSpain and José Antonio Rodríguez fromCuba. On May 23, 1989, Tovstonogov died ofheart attack in his car returning home after general rehearsal of his new productionThe Visit byFriedrich Dürrenmatt.
Tovstonogov was the first who returnedFyodor Dostoevsky into Soviet theater, by his productions ofThe Insulted and Humiliated (1956 in Leningrad Leninsky Komsomol Theater) andThe Idiot (1957 in Gorky Theater).[3]
Among other famous performances are:
He was also responsible for producing massspectacles.[4]
During his prime Tovstonogov was considered one of the best theatre directors of Europe. The prominent members of his troupe includeAlisa Freindlich,Zinaida Sharko,Lyudmila Makarova,Tatiana Doronina,Svetlana Kryuchkova,Kirill Lavrov,Innokenty Smoktunovsky,Pavel Luspekaev,Yefim Kopelyan,Sergey Yursky,Vladislav Strzhelchik,Yevgeni Lebedev, andOleg Basilashvili. His contribution to the Russian tradition of theatre education is important, especially where it comes to education of theatre directors. His theories continue to have large influence, especially in Russian and Scandinavian theatre education.
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