Irina Chernomurova

Biography

Musicologist and specialist in drama study
Merited Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation
Honorary Worker of Culture of the City of Moscow

She worked for over 17 years as head of the International Relations, Press and Communications Department at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre. She planned the Company’s Opera Tours to the USA, Italy, China, South Korea, Latvia, Greece, and to the Mariinsky Theatre, in St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities (Ekaterinburg, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don); and the Theatre’s Ballet Company Tours to Italy, Germany, Greece, the USA, China, Japan, Latvia, London and Petersburg. She was the initiator and director of the exchange tour projects between the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre and Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. She was the producer of the following co-production projects at the Theatre: Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with France, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the ENO, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Teatro Verdi (Trieste, Italy), John Neumeier’s ballet Tatiana with Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier (première November 2014). She got the following choreographers to cooperate with the Theatre: Nacho Duato (his first experience of working in Russia), John Neumeier (his ballets The Seagull and The Little Mermaid were given their first Russian productions at the Theatre). She was the producer of such ballet projects as Napoli, Mayerling, Manon; and of the opera project Aida directed by Peter Stein.

She conceived of the Theatre’s publicity (programs, booklets, posters, videos). She was the initiator and author of TV programs and films on the Theatre. She participated in the making of the Russian Television Culture channel films on the Theatre’s scenographers (Valery Leventhal, Stanislav Benediktov, Yuri Ustinov).

She was one of the organizers of the DanceInversion International Festival of Contemporary Dance, which originated in 1999 out of a series of EDF and ADF dance festivals. Since 2009, she has been artistic director of the Festival.

Before she joined the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, she worked for several years for the Russian Federation’s Union of Theatre Workers where she organized international seminars for theatre directors (three cycles of the Russian-Dutch seminar), seminars on stage technique and technology, and lighting (Russian-French seminars). She was one of the organizers of the Golden Mask prizes and Festival. The author of booklets on the first Festivals. She led the exhibition sections of the Theatres of Moscow in Munich and Theatres of Germany in Moscow Festivals (1988/89).

From 1978-1988 she worked at the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum where, as Deputy Director of Research and Development, she was in charge of the creation of the following exhibitions Theatre of the Pushkin Era, Alexandra Exter, From Impressionism to Expressionism: Korovin, Dodin. Nekrošius. Vasiliev, Maya Plisetskaya. She also organized cycles of lectures and thematic evenings at the Museum.

She is the author of articles on music theatre and management. She has written for the following newspapers and journals (Musical Academy, Theatre Life, The Stage, The Petersburg Theatre Journal). She has taken part in opera art laboratories and festivals.

In 1988, she started to teach: she is a senior lecturer at the faculty of management of the performing arts at the Russian University of the Performing Arts (GITIS) and a senior lecturer at Moscow State University. She takes a course of specialized lectures at the Moscow Arts Theatre Studio-School (American Studio) and at the G.G. Dadamyan Graduate School for Theatre People.