Kheifets Leonid Efimovich: biography, family, creativity

Kheifets Leonid Efimovich is a theater director and stage director (he tried himself as an actor and as a teacher), an active public figure, and also since 1993 a People's Artist of the Russian Federation. To this day, Leonid Kheifets is a professor at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts.

general information

Leonid Efimovich Kheifets will forever remain on the pages of Russian theater art as an exceptionally talented director. His work is loved by all people: as a generation of the flowering of his work - the generation of people of the seventies, and the current audience, which is already very difficult to surprise anything. And yet Heifetz succeeds brilliantly. His new classical pieces and plays have allowed the theater-goers to have a dialogue with great writers, absorb their thoughts and understand them.

Childhood

Leonid started his life in a country that was related to Russia - in Belarus. In 1934, on May 4, the future director was born in Minsk. No soul at that time was aware of what an active boy could grow up, like all children who liked to play war games and go for a walk late. Even Leonid's parents were not ready for the fact that their son would turn his back on the path habitual for all, and choose the creative way - difficult, thorny, but giving many opportunities.

So it turned out in the future: instead of being fully studied at the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, as his father wanted, Kheifets left this kind of activity in his last year to enter the desired institution.

Education by profession

Heifets Leonid Efimovich submits documents to GITIS - a place where his director's potential can be revealed, as nowhere else. Naturally, young Heifets is being trained at the director's department, and it is here that his first steps begin in the direction of the theater.

The course GITIS in principle could not seem to someone easy, but with his studies Heifetz cope easily, obviously feeling like a fish in the water on the first trial shooting and assignments for young directors. At the end of the training, the teachers of Leonid - AD Popov and MO Knebel - could rightfully be proud of their pupil. His thesis in 1963 "Highway to the Big Dipper" made a great impression on the admission committee of the Institute.

The first steps in filmmaking

After the release of GITIS from the Highway to the Great Bear, Leonid Yefimovich Heifetz has already established himself as a novice director, seriously approaching his work. In the year of his release, he was invited to the post of director at the Central Academic Theater of the Soviet Army (CACA). Gradually, enlisting the authority of his students and colleagues, in 1988 Leonid became the main director of this theater.

During this time, Kheifets Leonid Efimovich put such famous in that era paintings as "The Death of Ivan the Terrible" and "Uncle Vanya." Moreover, both performances received positive reviews, and this is an excellent start for the novice director.

Love and theaters

After the success in CACA, Leonid Kheifets moved to the Maly Theater, where his productions began to acquire a dramatic character typical of the theatrical atmosphere. It was in this spirit that several performances were staged on the works of famous classical writers. The most successful is the production of the "Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa" by Friedrich Schiller, as well as the play "King Lear" - one of the standard works by William Shakespeare, which is now very often chosen for staging on stage. In 1981, on the stage of the Maly Theater, Heifetz revived the tradition of putting Russian prose - in that year the play debuted on the play of the playwright Alexander Galina entitled "Retro".

In 1982, Heifetz decided to try himself in a slightly different incarnation - as a filmmaker. The role of film adaptation was claimed by I. Goncharov's work "The Cliff". And if with the male role of the main character everything was extremely clear, then the female images of the two sisters, Marfinka and Vera, were in question. For the role of the first director, the beginning actress looked after - it was Gundareva Natalya Georgievna. This woman with her spontaneity and cheerfulness won the heart of Heifetz. After a while they began to meet, and after finishing the work on the film they decided to live together, but there was nowhere to go. Kheifets Leonid Efimovich, whose family was one of the goals of life, dreamed of settling down, and therefore began to look for an apartment with Natalya. Finally, luck smiled at him, and a cozy apartment was found at the prestigious Gorky Street at that time. At first, the couple worked out wonderfully: Natalia worked in the theater. V. Mayakovsky, and Heifetz staged performances in his theater. Since Leonid was a very communicative person, people always gathered in his house - friends, colleagues, actors, troupe and many others. That's why the discord between the spouses began.

Kheifets Leonid Efimovich, whose wife was already tired on endless filming, threw his wife's work at home, and in those crumbs of leisure time, which fell to her lot, Natalia was forced to engage in everyday life. He led large companies, from which the actress very quickly tired. The last drop was the good nature of the director, with which he once again left one of his friends to spend the night. Gundareva Natalia Georgievna could not reconcile with this - she asked her husband for a divorce. For Heifets, the divorce was painful, but, having plunged into the work, suffered a little less. The man decided that his best wife would be his stage and the performances that he puts on her. So Kheyfets Leonid Efimovich, whose personal life went downhill because of eternal employment, made his choice, preferring to devote himself without art to art.

With the advent of Heifetz, the theater seemed to take heart: now the plays of Russian writers were being staged more often, the troupe with pleasure was playing over complicated subjects, and all the other directors were awakened from sleep and gradually began to prepare new productions for the future theatrical season.

Current activities

In 1988, Leonid Kheifets continued to seek theater for his soul and chose the Moscow Academic Theater named after V. Mayakovsky (MATI). And to this day the director is working in this Melpomene temple, giving all his energy to prepare a worthy change for himself - now Leonid Kheifets teaches young directors to the staging art. And this experience of teaching for the director is not the first - in the 80 years Leonid Efimovich taught at the Higher Theater School. MS Shchepkina, and nowadays in addition to MATI Heifets is engaged in pedagogy and at the Russian Academy of Theater Arts.

His director's work left an indelible mark on the activities of many theaters in Russia, so that the name of this person will still sound there after his death - at home theatrical scenes.