The death of renowned Russian theater director Yuri Butusov was reported by actress Varvara Shmykova and director Alexander Molochinov here. It was later revealed that he drowned in the sea in Bulgaria. Butusov was 63 years old. After the war in Ukraine began, he left Russia. "My move was an attempt to survive," Butusov said in a 2023 interview.
"What a terrible absurdity. Yuri Nikolaevich, a great director, has passed away," Molochinov wrote on Instagram. "Horrible grief. Rest in peace, dear Y.N.," wrote Shmykova.
After the war in Ukraine began, Butusov left Russia for France and staged performances in Europe. Until 2022, he was the chief director of the Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow, and from 2011 to 2018, he served as the chief director of the Lensovet Theater in St. Petersburg.
The director died while on vacation with his family, said Kirill Krok, director of the Vakhtangov Theater, to RBC. "He went swimming in the sea, was vacationing with his family in Bulgaria, and drowned after being unable to withstand the waves during a sudden storm. What a senseless death," Krok said.
Butusov was one of the most famous Russian theater directors. He won numerous theater awards, including the Golden Mask and the Seagull.
In 1996, he graduated from the directing department of the St. Petersburg State Academy of Theater Arts.
His diploma production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at the Kryukov Canal Theater brought him fame and earned him two awards at once at the Golden Mask Festival. The play featured Konstantin Khabensky, Mikhail Porechenkov, Mikhail Trukhin, and Andrei Zibrov, and later Butusov collaborated with them on several other productions, including "Hamlet."
In 2002, Konstantin Raikin invited him to the Satirikon Theater. In 2011, Butusov won the Golden Mask for Chekhov's "The Seagull."
After the war began, he resigned from the Vakhtangov Theater and in 2023 staged Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" at the Old Theater in Vilnius. In February 2024, he directed "The Struggle for the Throne," based on Henrik Ibsen's play of the same name.
In May 2024, the premiere of the play "Gogol. Portrait" took place at the Mikhail Chekhov Riga Russian Theater. This was Butusov's first work in Latvia.
"My move (from Russia) was an attempt to survive," the director told Forbes in a 2023 interview.
