Photo: Ieva Leiniša/LETA
Former artistic director of the Latvian National Theatre, director Elmārs Senkovs participates in the opening press conference of the 105th season of the Latvian National Theatre, 01.08.2023
The director Elmārs Senkovs will not continue to be the artistic director of the Latvian National Theater, the new theater director Māris Vītols admitted to TV3 this morning.
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Vitols said that in the week since he took office, he had intensive talks with Senkov and the rest of the artistic management. Even though Vitols has expressed that he fully trusts Senkov and would like to continue the cooperation, moreover, in the negotiations, the parties agreed on the vision of the theater’s artistic activity by 95%, however, the cooperation in the capacity of artistic director will not be continued.
Vitols assessed that the foundation of relations was built in the negotiations, which suggests that cooperation with Senkov as a director at the National Theater will continue in the future. According to him, in general, the negotiations have ended “on a good note”, “bridges have not been burned” and there are all opportunities to continue cooperation.
OTHERS ARE CURRENTLY READING Photo: Ieva Leiniša/LETA
The director of the Latvian National Theater Māris Vītols (from the left) and the former artistic director of the theater, director Elmārs Senkovs participate in the opening press conference of the 105th season of the Latvian National Theater, 01.08.2023
The manager of the theater emphasized that the mentioned circumstance will not affect the theater’s new season, in which all the planned productions will be staged and which was created by Senkov and his team.
Now Vitols will start building a new creative team that will work on making plans for the next season.
On the other hand, the director Senkovs himself published a message to his followers on the social network “Facebook” today, stating his opinion about leaving the National Theater: “Today, 1 August 2023, I am ending my career as the artistic director of the Latvian National Theater (hereinafter referred to as LNT). It was not possible to find common denominators for further cooperation with Māri Vītola. The artistic management model started under Jānis Vimba gave me full artistic responsibility and freedom over the repertoire, creation of the troupe and active cooperation with marketing. Māras Vītola’s operating model does not foresee this, as a result of which I do not see the possibility of achieving the set goals of artistic excellence.”
In his post, Senkov expressed his hope that Vitols with his knowledge and experience will be a good leader of the National Theater and expressed his support for his further activities.
“I do not question the competence and choice of the competition commission for the new board member created by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. However, in the process of appointing a new board member, I see communication problems and disregard for the work of artists on the part of the chairwoman of the competition commission, State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Dace Vilsone, and the vice-chairwoman, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Development and Finance, Baiba Zakevicas. As an artist, I think it is important to talk about this. Due to Dace Vilsones distancing herself from the consequences caused by the way the commission’s decision was announced and my previous experience with communication problems regarding the defense of artists’ rights by the Ministry of Culture, I express my opinion publicly. (…) The artistic management team conducted possible cooperation negotiations during their vacations, and the new board member was actively involved in them even before taking office. However, it must be understood – theater is a complex mechanism, which requires a longer time for a person from another art field to master. In the circumstances, when the new season has to start on August 1, the time from the announcement of the competition results on July 12 to grasping the situation, understanding and making well-balanced decisions for all involved parties has been much too short,” writes the director on Facebook.
Senkovs states that it is important for him, as a representative of the field of culture, that in the future the Ministry of Culture (MoC) improves its way of communication, not bypassing the artistic management of cultural institutions in making important decisions, who devote every day to practical work, are responsible for content creation and planning for at least a year forward, as well as taking responsibility for a large team of artists.
“I believe that the mentioned KM officials behaved irresponsibly towards the main theater in Latvia. I will watch with great interest, together with the entire theater community, how the re-election of the JRT board member will proceed, without involving and without taking into account the opinion of the artistic director! Thanks to those who believed in me! This time, the wall of bureaucracy and the attitude of most of the LNT acting troupe proved to be too impenetrable for me to successfully move in the direction of the chosen artistic goal. I wish Māris Vītols success in his new position! This is my only public comment. I won’t make any more comments,” said director Senkovs himself about his departure from the post of artistic director of the National Theatre. The director presented detailed comments on the situation with the change of the board member of the National Theater point by point in his Facebook post.
As reported, the Latvian National Theater started the new season today with a festive meeting. The traveling theater awards were presented at the meeting – Kārļas Sebra’s ring, Elza Radzisna’s pendant, Veltas Līnes’ “Antas Klints ring” award, Ieviņas’ and Kārlēna’s lighters.
Former Minister of Education and Science, director of the association “Latvijas Kulturas projekti” Vītols began to perform the duties of the director of the National Theater from July 24. He replaces the former director of the Latvian National Theater Jānis Vimba, who performed these duties from June 27, 2018.
Vītols won an open competition for the position of theater manager among 14 applicants. The chairman of the nomination commission, State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Dace Vilsone, stated that the nomination commission highly appreciated Vitols’ vision for the development of the National Theater for the next five years.
As the main priorities, Vītols has set the preservation of Latvia’s cultural identity and the creation of new national cultural values. Vītols also demonstrated “convincing financial, administrative and personnel management competences” in the competition, as well as the applicant’s experience in managing international cultural projects and the ability to coordinate the consideration of various issues both in state and local government institutions, as well as internationally.
Vītols graduated from the University of Latvia with a master’s degree in philosophy, while he obtained a professional master’s degree in business management from the business school “Turība”.
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According to the information in the archive of the LETA agency, Vitols was elected to the 6th Saeima from the “LZS/KDS/LDP” list, and to the 7th Saeima – from the list of the People’s Party. He also held the position of parliamentary secretary of the Ministry of Finance.
Currently, Vītols is the director of the society “Latvijas Kulturas projekti” and a member of the board of the real estate development company SIA “Ultimo Investment”.
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2023-08-01 15:13:25
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