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One of the highest distinctions was attributed to conductor and scholar Teodor Currentzis, who lives and works in Russia. On November 1st, 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a presidential decree announcing the decoration of the Greek conductor of Novosibirsk State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet for "his seminal contribution to the preservation, growth and promotion of the Russian culture abroad". The same distinction was also attributed to a number of Russian and foreign artists, including director Peter Stein, Venice Film Festival artistic director Marco Mueller, director of the Madrid Chekhov Theater Ramirez Gudierrez, sculptor Ilya Kabakov, and conductor Leonard Slatkin.
The Russian government has been sponsoring since 2004 the Territoria Festival organized by Currentzis along with some of the most important Russian artists. The Greek conductor is highly popular in Russia and often heads leading native orchestras. He has been awarded three times with the Russian Theatre Prize “Golden Mask”. He is the head conductor of the chamber orchestra Musica Aeterna Ensemble, which he founded himself, as well as of the chorus The New Siberian Singers.
Teodor Currentzis is soon to appear on the big screen playing the Russian physicist and Nobel Prize winner Lev Davidovich Landau (1908-1968), father of the first Soviet atomic bomb, under director’s Ilya Chrzhanovsky instruction. In this movie filmed in Kharkov, Ukraine, and aspiring to screen in the 2010 Festival de Cannes, the leading roles are not played by professional actors but by famous Russian artists.
Last June, our scholar headed the Paris Opera Bastille Orchestra in the opera “Don Carlos” by Giuseppe Verdi, with Stefano Secco in the leading role, Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the role of Rodrigo, and Tamar Ivery as Elisabetta.
