Ivan Popovski

Ivan Popovski was born May 2, 1969, in Skopje, Macedonia. He graduated from the Pyotr Fomenko workshop in the directing department of the State Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in 1993. When he began his studies in 1988 he did not know a word of Russian, which he mastered in three months.

Throughout his second year he rehearsed Marina Tsvetaeva's verse drama “The Adventure,” the premiere of which took place in 1991. It was officially acknowledged as the best production of the year in Moscow. “The Adventure” was one of the most important events that lead to Pyotr Fomenko's student course being transformed into the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theatre. Beginning with this production, the group was recognized abroad and began touring Europe actively.

In 1992 he staged Fernand Crommelynck's “The Sculptor of Masks” for the Alla Sigalova Independent Troupe. This served as his graduation production.

In the 1990s Popovski staged works at various theatres around the world, from Omsk to New York. Some of these shows include:

• “The Bathhouse” by Vladimir Mayakovsky at the Phoenix Theatre, New York (1993);
• “The Fairground Booth” after verse dramas by Alexander Blok with actors from the Fomenko Workshop Theatre as participants in the Russian Season in Paris (1994). The production opened May 1994 at the Odeon — Theatre of Europe. It opened in Moscow in October 1994 on the stage of the Mossovet Theatre;
• “Yevgeny Onegin,” the opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky at the Opera Theatre in Lille, France (1997);
• “Pugachyov” after works by Alexander Pushkin and Sergei Yesenin at the Fifth Theatre, Omsk (1998);
• “Faust and Elena” by Yury Yurchenko in Maubeuge, France (1998).

Popovski conducted a three week master class in Moscow for American students at the Harvard-Moscow Art Theatre summer school in 2005. It culminated in a production called “Where I Have Never Been” for the Sixth Studio of the American Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre. He also taught master classes at Harvard in Cambridge, MA.  In 2008 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed an order proclaiming Popovski a laureate of the Pushkin Award “for significant contributions to the strengthening of Russian-Macedonian relations and the popularization of Russian language and culture.” Ivan Popovski and artists of the Yelena Kamburova Theatre of Music and Poetry received the Moscow City Prize of literature and art in 2009 in the Musical Art category for the creation of a trilogy consisting of “P. S. Fantasies,” “Absinthe” and “The Four Seasons.” That same year Popovski received the national Musical Heart of Theatre award and a Crystal Turandot for “The Four Seasons”, as well as a Crystal Turandot award in the category of Best Direction and Scenography.

Productions at the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theatre

• “The Poisoned Tunic” by Nikolai Gumilyov (2002);
• “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco (2006);
• “Alice Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll (2010);
• “A Midsummer Night's Dream” by William Shakespeare (2015).

Productions at the Yelena Kamburova Theatre of Music and Poetry

• “P. S. Fantasies” after the songs of Schubert and Schumann (2003);
• “Absinthe”, a hallucinatory concert (2005);
• “The Four Seasons”, a concert without words (2008).

Productions at the Galina Vishnevsky Opera Center

• “The Tsar's Bride” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (2003);
• “Rigoletto” by Giuseppe Verdi (2005);
• “Carmen” by Georges Bizet (2007);
• “Boris Godunov” by Modest Mussorgsky (2012);
• “Pagliacci” by Rudyard Leoncavallo (2014).

Productions in various venues

• “Hotel Europe,” a joint Austrian-Swiss project (2000);
• “mACEDOINE — Odyssey 2001” at the Ohrid Theatre Festival, Macedonia (2001);
• “The Notes of a Madman” by Nikolai Gogol, Macedonia (2001);
• “War and Peace” after the novel by Leo Tolstoy at the Bolshoi Theatre (2005);
• “A Common Miracle,” a musical, at the Dubrovka Theatre Center (2010);
• “The Idiot” after the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky at the Youth Theatre of Zagreb, Croatia (2012);
• “Yevgeny Onegin,” Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera at SNG-Opera in Maribor, Slovenia (2013);
• “Dead Souls” after the novel by Nikolai Gogol at SNG-Drama) in Maribor, Slovenia (2014).