Valery Abissalovich Gergiev
Achievements
Gergiev could easily have made his life more comfortable by turning to the West, where he is in huge demand. Instead, he spends about 250 days a year with the Kirov Opera and Ballet companies, as their artistic and general director, aided by a bank of personal assistants — including one who deals with nothing but visas for the company’s many foreign tours. The company he inherited from Yuri Temirkanov in 1988 was already emerging from the shadow of the Bolshoi, says Gergiev.

"Temirkanov was out to make the Kirov a competitor of the Bolshoi, and that was really ambitious because the Bolshoi had all the power and all the money. But this he did. It was under him that the company began to grow and change, not under me." But the institution Gergiev took on was, he believes, "slow, lazy and dusty". Leading from the front, putting in long hours, committing to many more performances than his predecessor, he held the orchestra together just as the opening-up of borders was making the West a magnet for Russian performers.
"My greatest achievement at the Mariinsky has been leadership, building confidence in people that it’s worthwhile to stay in their own country, keeping it together and giving it confidence. The role has not always been easy, not always been nice in the way I had to deal with people. But I had to give them confidence, not just in the Kirov but in the country.
"I would prefer to go to Siberia rather than America or Europe — my place is here in my country rather than abroad. I’m thrilled to work with leading western institutions but these luxury engagements with the best orchestras and great opera houses take me away from my family.
I’ve never been secretly seeking any post abroad. I adore the Vienna Philharmonic, Rotterdam was one of my first openings in the West and we are loyal to each other, and I have very great friends at the Met. But I have a family at home."

Musical legacy
Among his greatest achievements are the rejuvenation and expansion of the Kirov’s repertoire, in both Russian and European music. He has brought important operas by Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev, and ballets by Stravinsky, to the theatre, and revived neglected Western works, such as Wagner’s Parsifal and The Ring cycle, or those written originally for St Petersburg, such as Verdi’s La forza del destino.

He has, in particular, championed the work of Prokofiev, which he feels has been neglected, and suffered because of the dogma of the Soviet system. "I love Prokofiev’s music, and he was my chance to say something, because he was not fully discovered and understood. Our mission is to serve him, which we have done with new productions of Semyon Kotko, The Gambler, War and Peace and Betrothal in a Monastery. We have made it available to people. Even if people don’t like the music, they will have had the chance to experience it and learn a little more about him."

In 2003, he turns to Shostakovich, with new recordings of his war symphonies, Nos. 4 to 7 and 9 (he recorded Symphony No.8 in 1995). "I want to be moved by our own musical masterpieces, and his war symphonies are like one huge saga, starting with the Soviet war against their own people and closing with Hitler’s death. They can be bombastic, but he witnessed how the world was falling apart around him. I will try to find a musical rather than a political or even historical solution."

Personality
"Gergiev doesn’t know what it is to hold back", believes his regular collaborator, the film producer Brian Large. "He lives life on the line and no matter how hard he pushes others, he pushes himself further."

Joseph Volpe of the Metropolitan Opera, New York, says of him (affectionately), "He’s a crazy man".
Gergiev is driven by seemingly endless energy to fulfil his vision of creating a world-class company at the Kirov. Just as he has his supporters in the journey, so those who have fallen by the wayside have dubbed him a dictator — an image repeated by the press over the years. Gergiev admits he pushes his artists hard but is unrepentant. "The press always write that I’m like a Tsar — but I don’t care. I don’t really insult people, I don’t throw them out of the building. It’s just that my response to situations is I’d prefer to see the production and the company being strong and successful to reading in the press how soft I am on a singer or designer. I believe the press — I just don’t follow them. I have my own judgements, and without them, I’d be totally lost. It’s the way I am, and will carry on, unless I see my orchestra doesn’t want me to continue. Then, perhaps, I’ll question if there’s something wrong with me. Democracy is not a good thing when it comes to music," he told the writer John Ardoin*. "When everybody is right, nobody is right. You cannot vote for the right dynamics or the right tempo."
Early days
Though he champions the culture of Russia, Gergiev is not Russian but was raised in the southern region of Ossetia, in the Caucasus. Born to Ossetian parents in Moscow in 1953, Gergiev and his family — his father, an army officer, mother and two sisters, Larissa and
Svetlana — moved to the region’s capital, Vladikavkaz, in 1958. His father was disenchanted with the army, he believes, and wanted to raise his children away from the heart of the Soviet regime. "People in Ossetia still lived like their ancestors 1,000 years ago," remembers Gergiev. "Families are very tight knit, but it is a very communal society, with a great commitment to traditional values. Ossetians are equally Eastern and Western, which probably best explains where I stand emotionally and philosophically."
His father’s death of a heart attack at the age of 49, when Gergiev was 14, was "the single strongest influence on my entire life", he says. "My father was a highly respected man who had a gift of leadership. I believe he passed this quality on to me."
Though there were no professional musicians in the family, both Gergiev’s and his sister Larissa’s musical talents were spotted early and the children were sent to the local music school (Larissa is a pianist, voice coach and accompanist and has been Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Academy for Young Singers since 1998). When Gergiev was only eight his piano teacher, Zarema Lolaeva, recognised what she was dealing with. "Other students in class were better prepared, but I would get better marks", he says. "She told everyone I would be a famous artist — and she told me ‘you will become a conductor’. I had no idea what a conductor was or what he did."

Under her guidance, he became a good pianist, but was easily bored by technical exercises. "I would choose my favourite eight bars and repeat them over and over. Even today, when I rehearse, I tend to take one important section of a work and spend a lot of time on it to set the mood and atmosphere that I want." Lolaeva asked Anatoly Briskin, a conductor and protégé of the great teacher Ilya Musin — with whom Gergiev later studied — to help Gergiev become a conductor. He agreed, and taught Gergiev for four years until he was 18, turning the pianist into a young conductor — but only after a bad start. "My first meeting with him was to go through the Beethoven Sonatas. I was late — as always — 7 or 10 minutes late. He sent me home. He told me ‘It’s easier to be precise in time than to become a conductor’. I never learnt this lesson." Through Briskin, Gergiev was accepted at the Leningrad Conservatory, under the legendary Musin, who rated him "much higher than Solti". But the warning signs of Gergiev’s driven nature were already visible, as Musin recalled shortly before his death in 1999. "Of all my students, he is the most hot-blooded and energetic — I worry about him."

The young maestro
After five years at the Conservatory, Gergiev was allowed out of the USSR to compete in the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin, in 1977. He won the prize, and the approval of Karajan, who wanted him to be his assistant in Berlin. But the messages did not get through the Soviet bureaucracy and Gergiev returned to St Petersburg, taking up an offer to assist Yuri Temirkanov, who had just taken over artistic direction of the Kirov Opera. "It was a great responsibility for a 24-year-old conductor, to have War and Peace and Mazeppa. It’s not easy for a young man, to watch, to help, and of course to lead."

It was a difficult time at the Kirov, struggling in the shadow of Moscow’s Bolshoi, the favoured company under the Soviet regime. And Gergiev’s upbringing in the Caucasus marked him out. "It was not easy for an Ossetian, a Georgian, or a Jew to be accepted there. If you were an outsider, you had to prove yourself 10 times more than others to show you had something that could be good for the theatre. I think this challenge gave me a greater drive and focus."

In 1988, Temirkanov moved on to the Leningrad Philharmonic, and the Kirov company chose Gergiev to lead them, by a landslide margin over other candidates, including the legendary Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the Latvian Mariss Jansons, a one-time assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic. "It was a fashion that every collective — especially working-class collectives — was making decisions about who’ll be their director," says Gergiev. "Nobody knew of me at Communist head office in Leningrad. I was 34 — so young. The head of the local party was shocked. He protested ‘This is the man who is taking the Kirov?’."

The Mariinsky
From the first days of his artistic direction, Gergiev put St Petersburg’s repertoire at the heart of his company. A Moussorgsky season launched his first year and Gergiev brought over a production of Boris Godunov from Covent Garden designed by Tarkovsky which had never before been seen in Russia — "I felt we had to have productions that would be a discovery, a revelation".

He catapulted young singers such as Olga Borodina, Galina Gorchakova, Vladimir Galusin and Nikolai Putilin into lead roles and in his second year took the company on tour to China and Germany.
In 1991 the Soviet regime collapsed, leaving the Kirov in financial limbo until in 1994 Gergiev demanded extra money from Prime Minister Chernomyrdin — and won a doubling of the Kirov’s and the Bolshoi’s budget. It came to nothing when Russia’s financial crisis struck in the mid-1990s, wiping $5.5m off the promised $10m annual budget. These days, Gergiev and the Kirov look outside their country for survival. Touring the West, Japan and China is now a financial lifeline for the two companies, supplemented by recordings, corporate sponsorship and fundraising. "I don’t count on a big budget from the state any more because I don’t want to be upset", he says.

Ambitions/future
As he reaches his 50th birthday, Gergiev now has two families to care for: the Mariinsky, and his own young family — his Ossetian wife, Natalia Dzebisova, a musician, whom he married in 1999, and their two children, sons Abissal Valeriovich, born in October 2000, and Valery Valeriovich, born August 2001.

He aims to reduce his conducting commitments at the Mariinsky to concentrate on developing young artists for the future — a process he has already started by launching the Mariinsky Academy for Young Singers and a Kirov youth orchestra for young players and conductors. "I want to find and train young artists, because when I was a young man, I remember how I wanted help. It took 11 years from winning the Karajan award before I conducted the Leningrad Philharmonic, by which time I was already director of the Kirov. I really dreamt of it. But it wasn’t a scandal — it’s simply that no-one cared. So many young people disappear before they fulfil even 10% of their potential. Take singers — they’re often tempted. They get good reviews, read one good article in the West and think they’re better than Callas. I didn’t succeed with some great voices — I feel guilty about Gorchakova. I take part of the blame myself — I should have kept her away from London. I kept Borodina away from world stages for four years, and I don’t care if people say that’s the work of a dictator. It’s important that the voice is not ruined."

As well as building up the company, Gergiev’s next ambition is to build a new theatre in the next five years, alongside the existing Mariinsky, though the modern designs shown publicly in St Petersburg in early 2002 caused controversy. "The row is all about Russia’s inability to organise a discussion. At least 50% supported the plan locally — especially among young people. The new theatre must have the architecture of the 21st century, even if St Petersburg is famous for its old centre. We have to take a risk. I’m welcoming people to share in our project but I don’t want to see it held back. This is for the Mariinsky and it’s our future."

For personal ambitions, he says: "I want to be a better conductor, to work with better artists and enjoy the music more". And his final thought: "Everyone writes that I never sleep. Well, in future I will sleep as much as I ever do!"

*For an extensive history of the Mariinsky Theatre and Gergiev’s career, see Valery Gergiev and the Kirov: A Story of Survival by John Ardoin (Amadeus Press, 2001, £25)