Iosif Tumanov

Tumanov, Iosif Mikhailovich 

(real surname, Tuman-ishvili). Born Jan. 2 (15), 1909, in Tbilisi. Soviet stage director and teacher. People’s Artist of the USSR (1964). Member of the CPSU from 1956.

Tumanov completed drama courses directed by Iu. A. Zavad-skii in 1929, having worked as an actor at the Theater Studio. He worked as a stage director in a number of theaters in Moscow. In 1936 he became a director at the K. S. Stanislavsky Opera Theater (since 1941, the K. S. Stanislavsky and VI. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater); he served as principal director from 1938 to 1946. He staged several operas there, including Stepa-nov’s Darvaza Gorge (1939, with M. I. Mel’ttser and under Stanislavsky’s supervision), Mokrousov’s Chapaev (1943), and Verdi’s Un Bailo in maschera (1946). From 1946 to 1953, Tumanov was artistic director of the Moscow Operetta Theater, where he staged Dunaevskii’s Free Wind (1947), Miliutin’s Trembita (1949; State Prize of the USSR, 1950), and Solov’ev-Sedoi’s The Dearest Thing (1951). From 1953 to 1961 he was principal director at the A. S. Pushkin Moscow Theater. In 1961 he became principal director at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and from 1964 to 1970 he was also principal director at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR. He staged several operas, including Verdi’s Don Carlo (1963) and Muradeli’s October (1964).

Tumanov worked as artistic director and stage director of concerts at many national ten-day festivals in Moscow. He staged Mussorgsky’s operas Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov at La Scala in Milan in 1967. Tumanov also teaches; after working as an instructor from 1951, he became a professor in 1965 and since 1970 has been director of the subdepartment of stage direction at the State Institute of Theatrical Art.

Tumanov has been awarded four orders and various medals.