Cheap Luxury

There are some events that are embarrassing to be seen at; then there are others where you are embarrassed for the other people who show up. Events such as “BraVo,” the awards ceremony for international pop music and classical art, which took place for the first time in early March in Moscow, and whose name can surely only be meant ironically. The classical part of this colorful spectacle was reminiscent of a cross between the Oscars and the Eurovision song contest. “I went to the Bolshoi Theatre, and saw how officials and dilettantes, hidden behind the names of people with talent, amused themselves at the expense of state-owned companies,” wrote theater blogger Inner Emigrant afterwards. He continued, “It would have been better if they’d simply shot the money from the Theater Square into the sky with a big canon.”