He saved his harshest words for the Moscow Imperial Theater College, which supposedly existed in a state of “total destruction.” The students who did not live on the premises outnumbered those who did, and the non-residents caused the directorate difficulties: “They missed rehearsals and performances owing to bad weather, sickness, or even just problems in their homes attributable to their extreme poverty.” The college itself was inadequate for the needs of its residents, owing in part to the lack of water for bathing (which had to be brought in from the street and carried up a narrow staircase) and improper sanitation; such squalor, according to the college doctor, “caused the students colds and other serious illnesses with potentially lethal consequences.” The boys who fell ill were confined to a room with four beds on the second floor of the college, with a nurse and attendant next door. A thin wall made of wooden planks was all that separated the patients from the stage used by the students, so that “the dances and other activities held there throughout most of the day cause great concern to the patients and much harm.” The girls’ sick room was on the third floor and much roomier, but the windows had been installed less than a third of a meter above the floor, posing a safety hazard. “Obsessed with fever, suffering intense delirium and disorientation,” the report conjectured, “a patient might, irrespective of all precautions taken, potentially meet misfortune by jumping through the window.” And the teapot in the boys’ sick room had gone missing.
Gedeonov commissioned two independent inspections of the Bolshoi and Malïy Theaters and the Theater College in support of his claims and soon found himself in charge of the entire theatrical complex, along with a summer theater in Petrovsky Park in Moscow. When he took over, he arranged for the payment of the debt owed by the theaters to the Opekunskiy sovet. Since he also had to oversee the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters and could not be in two cities at the same time, he relied first on Vasiltsovsky and then Verstovsky to provide him with regular reports on the situation in Moscow. The offices of the Moscow directorate operated in a three-story stone building in the Arbat neighborhood before moving to quarters on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street, just steps from the Bolshoi. According to one source, the bureau contained a small room known as a “lockup,” where artists and employees suspected of malfeasance could be placed under arrest.35 Thus was discipline enforced.
The first order of business in the reports for Gedeonov was financial: an accounting of box-office receipts. This was followed by a description of the success or failure of individual productions, followed by, in the case of the Bolshoi, mention of the health of dancers (who in the ranks had pulled a muscle or sprained an ankle), minor or major accidents (the broken ribs suffered by a musician who fell asleep on the sill of an open window), and the status of repairs to the theater. When praised for their work or asked about their personal affairs, Vasiltsovsky and Verstovsky swooned, grateful for the attention from on high. Gedeonov had a short wick and wore a scowl, but he cared about his employees, guaranteeing salaries for performers in the first and second ranks and granting special privileges after two decades of service. Housing was a never-ending concern, both for the artists and the staff as well as for their families. Gedeonov’s kindness was felt by the eldest daughter of Verstovsky’s clerk; she had been living across from a “filthy kitchen and yard in a room next to laundrywomen” and an actor who “dried and ironed his black underwear” in plain sight. (According to her father’s appeal to Gedeonov, the poor girl also had to endure the “perverse company” of middle-of-the-night card players and horn blowers.) Verstovsky rescued her from the squalor. For such consideration, Gedeonov earned the love and affection of his employees, who praised him, with “sincere souls and contrite hearts,” as “a Father and Benefactor of the human race.”36
Gedeonov had angled for control of the Bolshoi, and though he managed it with care he was also a micromanager, personally involved in ticketing (in general he refused to provide comps to Bolshoi Theater performances, even to high-ranking nobles) and matters as seemingly trivial as the cost of the bouquets tossed at dancers and singers during benefits. He even pursued the case of a malfeasant who, in November of 1845, tossed an apple at the stage during a benefit performance. He took pains to return a beloved pipe that a German count had left in a loge and haggled over the prices for a hurdy-gurdy and carpets imported from Scotland. In addition to setting the salaries of the artists in the Imperial Theaters, he facilitated the granting of vacations and medical leaves.
Once he had been promoted to director, Verstovsky endeavored to prove that he was up to the task of keeping Moscow’s larger and smaller stages running by regaling Gedeonov with up-to-the-minute descriptions of Bolshoi and Malïy Theater operations, placing much greater emphasis on ballet and opera productions than concerts—though he made special mention of Franz Liszt, a composer and pianist he deeply admired and whose recitals in Moscow proved lucrative. Verstovsky inserted himself into all of the operations of the Bolshoi Theater orchestra, insisting on auditions and precise tuning, making sure that bows were repaired and rosin stocked. The music sounded wonderful, as Gedeonov admitted in his otherwise damning assessment of the condition of the Bolshoi Theater in April of 1842. Verstovsky had an obvious personal interest in keeping his own works on the stage and shamelessly promoted Askold’s Tomb, which stayed in the Bolshoi repertoire exactly as long as he remained employed by the Moscow Imperial Theaters. His position enabled him to postpone or problematize the Moscow premieres of works by his rivals, including Glinka.
Verstovsky also took a personal interest in improving the education provided by the Imperial Theater College, complaining in 1841 that “the voice teacher, M. Gerkulani, has yet to have them open their mouths in his classes and teaches solfeggio on the keyboard, which is quite curious. And even more amusing, the dance teacher in the school, M. Peysar, has lame hands. Sitting, he demonstrates what he wants his students to do with just his feet.”37 In truth, the situation was never as bad as he described, and the problems he identified improved after the restructuring. Energetic young teachers were appointed to the staff, ensuring that instruction lived up to the needs of the college and the theaters it supported.
Verstovsky cultivated the image of a hearty good fellow for his superiors, but not for the artists under his supervision, who found him standoffish. The long-time Bolshoi Theater decorator and technician Karl Valts remembered him
inevitably being on the stage before performances, standing before the curtain, and everyone having to come up to him to bow. He never wore the mandatory uniform at the time, but was always dressed in a short jacket and dark grey pants. He was almost bald, but a few unruly hairs remained stuck to his crown, like Bismarck. In conversation with the artists he always kept his hands in his pockets and addressed them in the familiar form. Beside him, like a shadow, arose the figure of the inspector of the Theater College.38
Although he generally treated the artists of the theater with cold derision, Verstovsky fell head over heels for one of them: the beautiful, talented, and overextended singer Nadezhda Repina. She was lowborn, the daughter of a serf musician, but had a proud prima donna career on the stage of the Malïy Theater and inspired some of Verstovsky’s songs, including the most eloquent of his Russian Romances. He married her.