Baratov, Leonid

Born Mar. 20 (Apr. 1), 1895, in Moscow; died there on July 22, 1964. Soviet opera director. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1958). Studied in the law department of Moscow University.

Beginning in 1918, Baratov was an actor in Moscow theaters. From 1931 to 1936 and from 1944 to 1956 he was director (from 1944 to 1949, chief director) of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. He staged the operas Prince Igor by Borodin (1934; 1953); Mazeppa by Tchaikovsky (1934; 1949; State Prize of the USSR, 1950); Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (1948; State Prize of the USSR, 1949), Khovanshchina (1950; State Prize of the USSR, 1951), and The Fair at Sorochintsy (1952); and other works. From 1936 to 1938, Baratov was a director at the Lunacharskii Theater of Opera and Ballet in Sverdlovsk; from 1938 to 1943 he was chief director at the Kirov Theater of Opera and Ballet in Leningrad. Baratov staged the operas Emel’ian Pugachev by Koval’ (1942; State Prize of the USSR, 1943), Into the Storm by Khrennikov (1939), and others. From 1950 to 1959 he was chief director at the Stanislavskii and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater in Moscow. He staged the operas Taras’ Family by Kabalevskii (1951; State Prize of the USSR, 1952) and War and Peace by Prokofiev (1957). In 1926 he began to teach, and in 1947 he became a professor at the State Institute of Dramatic Art (GITIS). Baratov was awarded three orders, as well as medals.