Putin loyalist Valery Gergiev installed as director of Bolshoi theatre

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Valery Gergiev, the star Russian conductor and prominent supporter of Vladimir Putin, has been installed as general director of Moscow’s Bolshoi theatre, in the latest appointment of a Kremlin loyalist to a leading cultural institution. The appointment means that Gergiev, who also heads the rival Mariinsky theatre in St Petersburg, will have artistic control over the two crown jewels of the Russian ballet and opera. In a statement at the Bolshoi theatre on Friday, the Russian deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova said Gergiev would lead the institution for five years. Gergiev, 67, has been close to Putin since the early...