Aleksandr Tairov

Aleksandr Tairov was born Aleksandr Yakovlevich Korenblit on July 6, 1885, in Berdichev, Ukraine, Russian Empire. His father, named Yakov Korenblit, was the headmaster of primary school in Berdichev. At the age of 10 he moved to Kiev and settled with his aunt, a retired actress. She introduced him to theatre. He took part in amateur performances and assumed the name Tairov as a pseudonym.

In 1904 he enrolled in the Law School at Kiev University, and married his cousin Olga the same year.

In 1905 Tairov opposed the pogroms of Jews in Kiev and was arrested by the Tsar's police and imprisoned. His second arrest led him to a decision to move to St. Petersburg. He was invited by the famous Russian actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya and joined her theatre as an actor under directorship of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Tairov also continued his studies at the Law school of St. Petersburg University. There he started his life-long friendship with Anatoli Lunacharsky. At that time he collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerhold on a joint production of a play by Paul Claudel. Both directors were creating new experimental models for theatre in Russia. Tairov created a prototype of his Chamber Theatre as "synthetic theatre" with high goals in mind. As director he experimented with staging, acting, individual and group movements, stage and costume designs, and worked with every detail of theatrical performance in order to brake away from the traditional theatre. He established ideal discipline at his Chamber Theatre. Tairov's experimental approach spread to all phases of creating a stage show including even the rehearsals and practice. He used the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin as a way of helping his actors achieve spiritual union in there scenes.

In 1912 Tairov was invited to direct a play in collaboration with the Russian Drama Theatre in Riga. There he was once again attacked by the local anti-Semites and was banned by the local authorities from staying and working in the city of Riga. The conflict took two weeks to resolve. Tairov prevailed, he stayed and completed his work for the Russian Drama Theatre in Riga. Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Tairov converted to Evangelic Lutheranism.

In 1913 Tairov moved to Moscow. There he joined a corporation of attorneys at law and could continue a comfortable career. Instead Tairov established himself as important anti-realist director. His Chamber Theatre became the center of experimental creativity for many Russian actors, artists, writers, and musicians. Tairov was the first director in Russia to stage the Three-Penny Opera by Bertolt Brecht. He staged plays of Valery Briusov, O'Neal, J. B. Pristley, Oscar Wilde, and other contemporary writers. Tairov collaborated with such artists as Alexandra Exter, Pavel Kuznetsov, Sergei Soudeikin, Mikhail Larionov, Natalya Goncharova, and others. Tairov's Acting Studio became extremely popular among aspiring actors such as Vera Karalli, Alisa Koonen, Evgeniy Lebedev, and others. He worked with composers Sergei Prokofiev, A. Aleksandrov, Georgi Sviridov, and Dmitri Kabalevsky.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Tairov continued his independent approach to theatre. His early productions were Salome by Oscar Wilde and Adrienne Lecouvrer, which became a legendary play and ran over 800 performances. Chamber Theatre remained very popular and toured across the Soviet Union.

The Chamber Theatre's tours of Europe in 1923, and of South America in 1930 were critically acclaimed as "a total victory of the famous Russian innovator and a genius of staging.

" In 1929 Tairov produced 'Bagrovy Ostrov' (The Crimson Island) by Mikhail A. Bulgakov. At that time Joseph Stalin began his total control of culture and labeled the play bourgeois. That was enough for attacking Tairov in the Soviet media. His next production of 'Optimistic tragedy' was criticized by Vyacheslav Molotov as a slander of Russian history. Tairov tried to defend his theatre, he stated that theatres must be established on the level of research institutes. 'Pavlov has an institute on which millions are spent. Stanislavsky must have an institute too", said Tairov. As a punishment Tairov's Chamber Theatre was sent to work in Siberia.

In August of 1941 Tairov joined the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. It was formed by the group of leading intellectuals to campaign against the Nazis during the Second World War. The Committee was headed by Solomon Mikhoels. Along with Tairov other prominent members were Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, Samuil Marshak, Ilja Ehrenburg, and many other leading intellectuals in the Soviet Union. The main driving force of the Committee was represented by the group of Yiddish writers such as Perets Markish, Lev Kvitko, David Gofstein, Itsik Fefer, David Bergelson, and others. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee provided over 45 million rubles to the Soviet Red Army. After the end of the Second World War it was denounced by Joseph Stalin, and many of its members were executed by the Soviet secret service.

In 1946 the Communist Party launched attacks on intellectuals in the Soviet Union. Such leading cultural figures as Anna Akhmatova, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturyan, Boris Pasternak, and many others suffered from censorship and severe repressions. Tairov's Chamber Theatre was attacked for having little to do with contemporary Soviet life. Tairov tried to make additions to repertoire and invited writer Aleksandr Galich, and young director Georgi Tovstonogov, but it was too late.

Soviet Committee for Arts ordered in May of 1949, to close the theatre. Tairov's Chamber Theatre was accused of "Aesthetism and Formalism" and was destroyed by the government decision. Tairov was granted a personal pension and soon was hospitalized with brain cancer.