Damir Ismagilov

Biography

In 1978, he completed his studies at the Theatre Arts and Technical College and in 1987 he graduated from the staging faculty of the Moscow Art Theatre Studio-School.
He started working for the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre in 1977 (being promoted to principal lighting designer in 1987) where he lit about 100 productions, amongst which are: Boris Godunov, The Cherry Orchard, Woe from Wit, The Thunder-storm, The Marriage, Moscow Chorus, Misha's Jubilee, The Three Sisters, Cyrano de Bergerac, Yu, Antigona, Crime and Punishment, Nuli, Copenhagen, The Siege, The Philistines, The White Guard, Playing the Victim, King Lear, The Forest, The Golovlyov Family.

He joined the Bolshoi Theatre in 1996 (being promoted to chief lighting designer in 2002).

At the Bolshoi he has lit the following ballets:
Swan Lake, Insomnia, The Russian Hamlet, Ward No. 6, Magritomania, Leah, Jeu de cartes, Cinderella, Le Corsaire, Class concert, La Sylphide, The Flames of Paris, Grand pas from the ballet Paquita, Coppelia, Esmeralda, Petrushka, Marco Spada, Don Quixote;

and the following operas:
Aida, Iolanta, The Love for Three Oranges, Francesca da Rimini, The Oprichnik, Mozart and Salieri, The Gambler, Nabucco, Adriana Lecouvreur, Khovanshchina, The Snow Maiden, Macbeth, Mazeppa, Der Fliegende Hollander, The Children of Rosenthal, War and Peace, Boris Godunov, The Queen of Spades, Carmen, Die Fledermaus, The Golden Cockerel, The Enchantress, Prince Igor, The Tsar’s Bride, The Story of Kai and Gerda, Le Nozze di Figaro, Katerina Izmailova, Manon Lescaut, Il Viaggio a Reims, The Idiot, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Rusalka, Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, The Demon, Luisa Miller.

He is principal lighting designer for the Helikon-Opera and the Studio of Theatre Art.

He has also worked for the Mariinsky Theatre, Alexandrinsky Theatre, Mikhailovsky Theatre St Petersburg, The Maly Drama Theatre – Theatre de l`Europe St Petersburg, The Russian Academic Youth Theatre, The Maly Theatre, The Ermolova Theatre, The Oleg Tabakov Theatre, The Russian Army Theatre, The Pushkin Theatre, The Mossoviet Theatre, The Moscow Operetta, Moscow Sovremennik Theatre, St Petersburg Theatre of Musical Comedy as well as other leading Russian theatres.

In all he has lit over 450 productions.

He has worked with leading Russian and foreign directors, among whom are: Oleg Efremov, Lev Dodin, Sergei Zhenovach, Galina Volchek, Oleg Tabakov, Valery Fokin, Leonid Heifets, Roman Viktyuk, Mark Rozovsky, Kama Ginkas, Vladimir Andreyev, Roman Kozak, Kirill Serebrennikov, Elena Nevezhina, Tadashi Suzuki, Vladimir Petrov, Temur Chkheidze, Nikolai Sheyko, Mindaugas Karbauskis, Evgeny Pisarev, Grigory Kozlov, Konstantin Bogomolov.

He has given form to the concepts of the following scenographers: David Borovsky, Valery Leventhal, Sergei Barkhin, Eduard Kochergin, Mart Kitaev, Oleg Sheyntsis, Alexander Borovsky, Tatyana Selvinskaya, Vyacheslav Okunev, Boris Messerer, Alla Kozhenkova, Igor Popov, Georgy Aleksi-Meskheshvili, Yury Kharikov, Yury Ustinov, Nikolai Simonov, Zinovy Margolin, Simon Pastukh, Igor Nezhnyy.

He has worked with such opera directors as Boris Pokrovsky, Peter Ustinov, Alexander Titel, Peter Konwitschny Eimuntas Nekrosius, Irkin Gabitov, David Pountney, Dmitry Bertman, Vasily Barkhatov, Yuri Laptev; and choreographers: Vladimir Vasiliev, Boris Eifman, Alexei Ratmansky, Sergei Vikharev, Alla Sigalova, Yuri Burlaka.

He taught lighting design at the Moscow Theatre Arts and Technical College (1987-1990) and the Moscow Art Theatre School (2000-2015).
He is the author of the book Theatre Lighting (2005, republished in 2014).

He is deputy chair of the Russian Association of Lighting Designers.