Yuri Lyubimov

YURI Lyubimov, who has died in Moscow aged 97, was a distinguished expressionist theatre director and one of Russia's most challenging and inventive directors. He founded the Taganka Theatre in Moscow but fell foul of the Soviet authorities and was stripped of his Soviet citizenship after visiting Britain in 1983.

He made several visits to the UK directing both opera and theatre and came to Scotland came with his Taganka Theatre Company to visit the Edinburgh Festival of 1989. In the Leith Theatre, the company mounted Lyubimov's sensational account of Pushkin's Boris Godunov.

Performed in modern dress it was the first performance of the epic production outside Russia and was acclaimed as one of the major achievements of the Festival director Frank Dunlop. Many praised Dunlop's artistic foresight in bringing such a prestigious production to Scotland. It was labelled "one of the most visible signs of cultural glasnost".

Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov was born in Yaroslavl, north-east of Moscow, the son of a grocer. His parents, who were briefly imprisoned during Stalin's reign, encouraged his interest in the arts and he studied acting and directing before he was drafted into the Soviet army in 1941. One of his first experiences of performance was taking part in a music ensemble on the frontline that included the composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich.

He attended the Institute for Energy and, in 1934, joined the Second Moscow Art Theatre which was directed by Michael Chekov, the nephew of the playwright.

Lyubimov was much influenced in his youth by Constantin Stanislavski, the director who developed the Method School of acting which made actors explore the motivation of their characters.

His first major stage success was in Moscow directing Brecht's great morality play The Good Person of Szechwan and its success resulted in Lyubimov being appointed director of Taganka Theatre. In 1980 the Soviet authorities took exception to his production of Boris Godunov considering it over-politicised and anti-Soviet.

But in his 50 years in charge of the Taganka he brought it worldwide renown for its hugely visual and inventive interpretations.

He was a demanding director and spoke only Russian so the process of rehearsals was exacting. English actors who have worked with him recall that Yuri was a wonderful performer and a marvellous mime: that was the secret of his success.

In 1983 he directed a sensational version of Crime & Punishment at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, with Michael Pennington, Paola Dionisotti, Sheila Reid and Bill Paterson. Lyubimov's production was acclaimed by the critics and he won the 1983 Standard best director award.

Two years later he directed The Possessed at London's Almeida Theatre and again caused a sensation.

The cast included Nigel Terry, Harriet Walter and Michael Feast.

Lyubimov's controversial production allied with some unwise comments in the British press strained relationships with his Soviet masters and he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in 1984.

"They sent me to England, like the king sent Hamlet to England," said Lyubimov. "Once you're out of Russia, you don't exist. Your name is wiped out. It never appears again anywhere."

He found work in America and Europe and was much in demand to direct opera. One of his first productions, Jenufa at Zurich, was immediately bought by the Royal Opera in London. Such was its success Lyubimov was asked to direct Wagner's Ring Cycle at Covent Garden.

The Glasgow-born Jeremy Isaacs, then artistic director of the Royal Opera, has written perceptively of the anguished months of the rehearsal and labelled Das Rheingold a fair success.

Mr Isaacs envisaged serious problems about Lyubimov directing all four operas and cancelled his contract. The Royal Opera brought in a production from East Berlin.

As political tension in Russia eased, he was welcomed back to Moscow and was given a hero's reception at the Taganka in 1989.

But theatre in Russia had also changed and there were parties in the company who wanted a more enlightened directorship. In 2010 matters came to a head when the actors refused to work without improved financial remuneration. Lyubimov paid them himself and resigned. "I've had enough of this disgrace, these humiliations, this lack of desire to work, this desire just for money," he said.

He played Stalin in a dramatic version of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's autobiographical play, Sharashka and returned to the Taganka to direct Goethe's Faust.

At the age of 95 he made his debut at the Bolshoi Opera when he directed Borodin's epic Prince Igor. Lyubimov reduced the opera from four to just over two hours: "I have removed the music that doesn't fit" he was quoted as saying.

After his death, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman expressed his condolences, saying that it would be difficult to overestimate the role of Lyubimov in modern Russian theatre.

Lyubimov married the Hungarian theatre critic Katalin Koncz in 1978. She and their son survive him.