Konchalovsky enters new stage
Gergiev to direct opera
He's working with the Mariinsky's internationally acclaimed musical director, Valery Gergiev, who will conduct the work. Performances of the production will be held later in London, Milan and New York. For Gergiev, the project marks a return to his roots: His first major conducting role came with a 1977 production of the opera at the theater, which he now runs.
Though details of the production are being kept secret, it's likely based on the shortened one-evening version of Prokofiev's work. The opera already has brought radical change to the Mariinsky: Most recently, the theater installed a revolving stage that will be used for the premiere.
Though he hasn't directed a film project since his 1997 big-budget TV version of Homer's "Odyssey," Konchalovsky, 62, said recently in St. Petersburg that he has written six scripts over the past five years, including "Marco Polo," provisionally targeted at Antonio Banderas.
More local ideas include biopic "Rachmaninoff,""The Nutcracker" and "House of Fools," set in a lunatic asylum in Russia's troubled Caucasus, on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. Though funding is yet to be confirmed, "House of Fools" could be his first production on home ground since "Ryaba My Chicken," which he shot in 1994.
"Starting with the simplest and cheapest option looks the best bet. The action of 'House of Fools' is set in a single location. It's like 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' only in reverse, and in the 21st century," Konchalovsky said.
His next confirmed project is also in a field other than film. Konchalovsky has been invited to stage celebrations marking the advent of 2001 in Jerusalem. In 1997, he presented a spectacular in Moscow to mark the 850th anniversary of the Russian capital.
