Israel’s national Habimah Theater and Moscow’s famous Taganka Theater are to exchange stages at the end of this year, under an artistic agreement signed in Israel earlier this month.
Habimah will perform three Hebrew-language plays on the Taganka Theater stage next January. Two weeks later, the Taganka troupe will stage three Russian-language plays in the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv.
It will be the first time Habimah has performed in Moscow since it left the Soviet Union 58 years ago and came to Palestine.
The agreement was signed in Tel Aviv by Taganka director Nicolai Dupak and his Habimah counterpart, Shmuel Omer.
The venture was initiated by Yuri Lyubimov, who served as Taganka’s artistic director in Moscow until he immigrated to Israel in 1983. He now directs plays for Habimah.
Lyubimov was invited back to Moscow some months ago to re-stage a production of Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov,” which he had originally directed for Taganka.
The Hebrew and Russian plays to be presented have yet to be determined by the two theater companies.
The Habimah Hebrew Theater was established in Moscow after the Russian Revolution, with the active assistance of Constantine Stanislavsky, the famed director of the Moscow Arts Theater.
Habimah played there for some years until the company moved to Palestine in 1931, after critically acclaimed performances in Europe.
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