On August 8, 2012, the Moscow Department of Culture unilaterally terminated contractual obligations with the director of the Novaya Opera Theater Igor Lysenko. The theater, which has been headed by conductor Igor Lysenko for the last nine years, was founded in 1991 by Yevgeny Kolobov.
Igor Lysenko has worked at the Novaya Opera Theater since its inception. Since 1998, he has become the executive director, and since 2003 - the director of the theater. The former head is going through the court to collect monetary compensation from the department for the reputational damage inflicted on him. Lysenko is outraged by the department's decision and claims that during 15 years, while he worked in this theater, he did not receive a single comment on the conduct of financial and economic affairs.
According to the former director of the media, the department explained the reason for his dismissal by the fact that he could not cope with his duties as a director, and his persona did not correspond to the level of this theater. However, Lysenko himself insists that systematic checks have revealed that the institution's attendance in recent years has been over ninety percent. In addition, the former manager said that at the end of July 2012 he received an award for the second quarter based on performance.
Now the duties of the director of the Novaya Opera theater are temporarily performed by Natalya Popovich, the chief choirmaster and chairman of the artistic and creative board of this institution. According to Lysenko, this situation in the theater has developed due to the fact that he fired a close relative of Popovich, imposed, according to the former director, "by close kinship."
Igor Lysenko also said that a relative of Natalya Popovich did not have the appropriate education, work experience and specialty. In the troupe of the theater, he worked as deputy director for general affairs. But many theater workers expressed their complaints about the level of professionalism of a relative of Popovich, as well as his ability to work in a creative team. After he was dismissed, Lysenko claims, complaints, accusations and slanderous accusations against the head of the Novaya Opera theater were poured into the department.
