Radlov Sergey Ernestovich (1892-1958), director

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
RADLOV Sergey Ernestovich (1892-1958), director, pedagogue, Honoured Worker of the Arts of RSFSR (1940). He graduated from the history and philosophy department of the St. Petersburg University (1916). In 1913-17, he was a member of the Petersburg studio of Vsevolod Meyerkhold in Borodinskaya Street and a participant of the journal Lubov k Trem Apelsinam. In 1918-19, he worked in the Petrograd branch of the Theatre Department of the Peoples Commission for Education, and other cultural organizations of Petrograd army and the Baltic fleet, the theatre of experimental productions organized by him (1918), the Drama Theatre of the State People’s House, the theatre Studio (1919). Radlov took part in production of mass shows in Petrograd (Leningrad), led his own theatre Narodnaya Komediya and its studio (1920-22). Radlov continued Meyerhold's experiments in theatre traditionalism adapting them to the relevant needs of mass propaganda theatre. In 1920s he paid his tribute to theatrical expressionism. In 1923-28, he worked as director (from 1925 - on the staff) of Leningrad academic theatres (Maly Opera, State Drama, and Opera and Ballet). Productions of this period include Ernst Toller's Eugen the Unhappy, Aristophane's Lysistrata, Evgeny Zamyatin's Honourable Bellringers’ Society, Sergey Prokofiev's Love of Three Oranges, and Musorgsky's Boris Godunov. He was artistic director of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre (1931-34), The Leningrad Pushkin Drama Theatre (1936-38). He staged dramatic performances, operas, ballets, operettas, variety and circus shows in different Leningrad troupes. In 1928-42, he leaded the Molodoy Theatre (from 1936, the Theatre studio under the guidance of Radlov in the Passage, from 1939, the Lensoveta Theatre), organized from students of Radlov and Vladimir Solovyev. He chose the theatre of tragedy and burlesque as his ideal and did all his creative searching in Shakespeare's plays translated by his wife Anna Radlova: Othello (1932, 1935), Romeo and Juliet (1934, 1939), and Hamlet (1938). In 1935, he staged King Lear in the Moscow Jewish Theatre and Othello in the Moscow Maly Theatre. In 1942, evacuated to Pyatigorsk, his theatre fell into a German occupation zone and was transferred to the Ukraine and then to Germany. Radlov finished the war in the south of France. Upon his return to the USSR he was arrested together with his wife (she died in a prison camp in 1949), and worked in the prison camp theatre. In 1953, he was released. In 1953-54 he worked as director of the Russian Drama Theatre in Daugavpils, in 1955-58 - the Riga Theatre of Russian Drama. He leaded the Radlov's Free Studio (1923-24), and taught at the courses of scenic productions (1918-22, from 1919 - director of the courses), and in the Institute of Scenic Arts (see the Academy of Theatre Arts) (1922-35). He was the author of the book Ten Years in the Theatre (Leningrad, 1929) and many articles.

References: Золотницкий Д. И. Сергей Радлов: Режиссура судьбы. СПб., 1999.

A. A. Kirillov. Aristophane
Meyerhold Vsevolod Emilievich
Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich
Prokofiev Sergey Sergeevich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Radlov Sergey Ernestovich
Radlova Anna Dmitrievna
Shakespeare William
Solovyev V.N.
Toller Ernst
Zamyatin Evgeny Ivanovich
Borodinskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Золотницкий Д. И. Сергей Радлов: Режиссура судьбы. СПб., 1999 State University, St. Petersburg
Baltic Fleet
Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
Alexandrinsky Theatre
Lensovet Theatre