Valery Gergiev: I am not head of Bolshoi

The Mariinsky chief has denied a report in Izvestia that he is about to replace Vladmir Urin as head of Moscow’s famed Bolshoi Theatre.

He told a journalist on the Telegram channel:

‘I’m busy enough and haven’t looked for an opportunity to work even more.

‘We consider it necessary to work in our own country, as I have already said. But we’ve just been in China for 20 days, so you can’t blame us for sitting in one place and not wanting to move.

‘The Mariinsky Theater has a strong idea of ​​what our responsibility is. Then there is an idea of ​​what our capabilities are. And there is an idea, it seems to me, of what our responsibilities are.

‘When all three come together in some kind of harmony, it seems to me that it doesn’t matter anymore – two cities, three theatres, four regions, five countries.’

So much for gullible music websites that treated Izvestia as truth.

It’s not that easy to pass Urin in Moscow.