Mariinskii Opera House
The Mariinsky Theater, built according to the design of Antonio Rinaldi, the Bolshoi Theater amazed the imagination with its size, majestic architecture, stage, equipped with the latest theatrical technology of the time. At its opening, Giovanni Paisiello's opera Il Mondo della luna (The Moonlight World) was performed. The Russian troupe performed here alternately with the Italian and French, there were dramatic performances, and vocal and instrumental concerts were also organized.
Address:
Teatralnaya Square, 1
Telephone:
+7 (812) 326-41-41
MARIINSKY THEATER
For more than two centuries of its history, the Mariinsky Theater has given the world many great artists: the outstanding bass, the founder of the Russian performing opera school Osip Petrov, served here, such great singers as Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan Ershov, Medea and Nikolai Figner, Sofia Preobrazhenskaya.
Ballet dancers shone on stage: Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov. George Balanchine began his journey into art. The theater witnessed the flowering of the talent of brilliant decorative artists such as Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Alexander Benois, Simon Virsaladze, Fyodor Fedorovsky. And many, many others. It has long been the custom that the Mariinsky Theater traces its pedigree, counting its century back to 1783, when on July 12 a Decree was issued approving a theater committee “to manage shows and music,” and on October 5 the Bolshoi Stone Theater was inaugurated on Carousel Square.
The theater gave a new name to the square - it has survived to this day as Teatralnaya. Petersburg was under construction, its appearance was constantly changing.
In 1802-1803, Thomas de Thomon, a brilliant architect and draftsman, carried out a major reconstruction of the internal layout and decoration of the theater, noticeably changing its appearance and proportions. The new Bolshoi Theater, which acquired a ceremonial and festive appearance, became one of the architectural landmarks of the Neva capital, along with the Admiralty, the Stock Exchange, and the Kazan Cathedral. However, on the night of January 1, 1811, a huge fire broke out at the Bolshoi Theater. Over the course of two days, the rich interior of the theater was destroyed in the fire, and its façade was also seriously damaged. Thomas de Thomon, who drew up the project for the restoration of his beloved brainchild, did not live to see its implementation. On February 3, 1818, the renewed Bolshoi Theater reopened with the prologue “Apollo and Pallas in the North” and Charles Didelot’s ballet “Zephyr and Flora” to the music of composer Catarino Cavos. We are approaching the “golden age” of the Bolshoi Theater.
The repertoire of the “post-fire” era includes “The Magic Flute”, “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, “La Clemenza di Tito” by Mozart. The Russian public is captivated by Rossini's Cinderella, Semiramis, The Thieving Magpie, and The Barber of Seville. In May 1824, the premiere of Weber's Free Shooter took place, a work that meant so much for the birth of Russian romantic opera. Vaudevilles by Alyabyev and Verstovsky are played; One of the most beloved and repertoire operas is Kavos’s “Ivan Susanin,” which ran until the appearance of Glinka’s opera on the same plot. The origin of the world fame of Russian ballet is associated with the legendary figure of Charles Didelot. It was during these years that Pushkin, who captured the theater in immortal verse, was a regular at the St. Petersburg Bolshoi. In 1836, in order to improve acoustics, the architect Alberto Cavos, the son of a composer and conductor, replaced the domed ceiling of the theater hall with a flat one, and above it an art workshop and a room for painting scenery were placed.
Alberto Cavos removes the columns in the auditorium that obstructed the view and distorted the acoustics, gives the hall the usual horseshoe shape, increases its length and height, bringing the number of spectators to two thousand. On November 27, 1836, performances of the rebuilt theater resumed with the first performance of Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar.”
By chance, and perhaps not without good intention, the premiere of “Ruslan and Lyudmila” - Glinka’s second opera - took place exactly six years later, on November 27, 1842. These two dates would be enough for the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater to forever enter the history of Russian culture. But, of course, there were also masterpieces of European music: operas by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Aubert, Thom... Over time, the performances of the Russian opera troupe were transferred to the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater and the so-called Circus Theater , located opposite the Bolshoi (where the ballet troupe continued to perform, as well as the Italian opera).
When the Circus Theater burned down in 1859, a new theater was built in its place by the same architect Alberto Cavos.
It was he who received the name Mariinsky in honor of the reigning Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II. The first theatrical season in the new building opened on October 2, 1860 with Glinka’s “A Life for the Tsar” under the direction of the chief conductor of the Russian Opera, Konstantin Lyadov, the father of the future famous composer Anatoly Lyadov. The Mariinsky Theater strengthened and developed the great traditions of the first Russian musical stage.
With the arrival of Eduard Napravnik in 1863, who replaced Konstantin Lyadov as chief conductor, the most glorious era in the history of the theater began. The half-century that Napravnik devoted to the Mariinsky Theater was marked by the premieres of the most significant operas in the history of Russian music. Let's name just a few of them - “Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky, “The Woman of Pskov”, “May Night”, “The Snow Maiden” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Prince Igor” by Borodin, “The Maid of Orleans”, “The Enchantress”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Iolanta” "Tchaikovsky, "The Demon" by Rubinstein, "Oresteia" by Taneyev... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the theater's repertoire included Wagner's opera (among them the tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung"), "Electra" by Richard Strauss, "The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh" by Rimsky-Korsakov, " Khovanshchina” by Mussorgsky... Marius Petipa, who headed the theater’s ballet troupe in 1869, continued the traditions of his predecessors Jules Perrot and Arthur Saint-Leon.
Petipa zealously preserved such classic performances as Giselle, Esmeralda, and Corsair, subjecting them only to careful editing. “La Bayadère,” staged by him, for the first time brought to the ballet stage the breath of a large choreographic composition, in which “dance became like music.” Petipa’s happy meeting with Tchaikovsky, who argued that “ballet is the same symphony,” led to the birth of “The Sleeping Beauty” - a true musical and choreographic poem. The choreography of “The Nutcracker” arose in the collaboration of Petipa and Lev Ivanov. After Tchaikovsky’s death, “Swan Lake” found a second life on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater - and again in the joint choreography of Petipa and Ivanov. Petipa strengthened his reputation as a symphonic choreographer with his production of Glazunov's ballet Raymonda. His innovative ideas were picked up by the young Mikhail Fokine, who staged at the Mariinsky Theater Tcherepnin's Pavilion of Armida, Saint-Saëns's The Swan, Chopiniana to the music of Chopin, as well as ballets created in Paris - Scheherazade to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, "The Firebird" and "Petrushka" by Stravinsky. The Mariinsky Theater has been reconstructed several times.
In 1885, when, before the closure of the Bolshoi Theater, most of the performances were transferred to the stage of the Mariinsky, the chief architect of the imperial theaters, Viktor Schröter, added a three-story building to the left wing of the building for theater workshops, rehearsal rooms, a power plant and a boiler room. In 1894, under the leadership of Schröter, the wooden rafters were replaced with steel and reinforced concrete, the side wings were built on, and the spectator foyer was expanded. The main facade also underwent reconstruction, taking on monumental forms. In 1886, ballet performances, which until that time continued to be performed on the stage of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater, were moved to the Mariinsky Theater.
And on the site of Bolshoi Kamenny, the building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory was erected. By government decree on November 9, 1917, the Mariinsky Theater was declared State Theater and transferred to the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education.
In 1920, it began to be called the State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet (GATOB), and since 1935 it was named after S. M. Kirov. Along with the classics of the last century, modern operas appeared on the theater stage in the 20s and early 30s: “The Love for Three Oranges” by Sergei Prokofiev, “Wozzeck” by Alban Berg, “Salome” and “Der Rosenkavalier” by Richard Strauss; ballets are born that establish a new choreographic direction that has been popular for decades, the so-called drama ballet - “The Red Poppy” by Reinhold Gliere, “The Flames of Paris” and “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” by Boris Asafiev, “Laurencia” by Alexander Crane, “Romeo and Juliet” by Sergei Prokofiev, etc. The last pre-war opera premiere of the Kirov Theater was Wagner's Lohengrin, the second performance of which ended late in the evening of June 21, 1941, but the performances scheduled for June 24 and 27 were replaced by Ivan Susanin
. During the Great Patriotic War, the theater was evacuated to Perm, where the premieres of several performances took place, including the premiere of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet “Gayane”. Upon returning to Leningrad, the theater opened the season on September 1, 1944 with Glinka's opera Ivan Susanin. In the 50-70s.
the theater staged such famous ballets as “Shurale” by Farid Yarullin, “Spartacus” by Aram Khachaturian and “The Twelve” by Boris Tishchenko, choreographed by Leonid Yakobson, “Stone Flower” by Sergei Prokofiev and “The Legend of Love” by Arif Melikov, choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich, “Leningrad Symphony” by Dmitry Shostakovich, choreographed by Igor Belsky, simultaneously with the production of new ballets, ballet classics were carefully preserved in the theater’s repertoire. In the opera repertoire, along with Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Verdi, and Bizet, operas by Prokofiev, Dzerzhinsky, Shaporin, and Khrennikov appeared. In 1968–1970
A general reconstruction of the theater was carried out according to the design of Salome Gelfer, as a result of which the left wing of the building was “stretched” and acquired its current appearance. An important stage in the history of the theater in the 80s were the productions of Tchaikovsky’s operas “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades”, carried out by Yuri Temirkanov, who headed the theater in 1976. In these productions, which are still preserved in the theater’s repertoire, a new generation of artists made their presence known.
For more than two centuries of its history, the Mariinsky Theater has given the world many great artists: the outstanding bass, the founder of the Russian performing opera school Osip Petrov, served here, such great singers as Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan Ershov, Medea and Nikolai Figner, Sofia Preobrazhenskaya.
Ballet dancers shone on stage: Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov. George Balanchine began his journey into art. The theater witnessed the flowering of the talent of brilliant decorative artists such as Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Alexander Benois, Simon Virsaladze, Fyodor Fedorovsky. And many, many others. It has long been the custom that the Mariinsky Theater traces its pedigree, counting its century back to 1783, when on July 12 a Decree was issued approving a theater committee “to manage shows and music,” and on October 5 the Bolshoi Stone Theater was inaugurated on Carousel Square.
The theater gave a new name to the square - it has survived to this day as Teatralnaya. Petersburg was under construction, its appearance was constantly changing.
In 1802-1803, Thomas de Thomon, a brilliant architect and draftsman, carried out a major reconstruction of the internal layout and decoration of the theater, noticeably changing its appearance and proportions. The new Bolshoi Theater, which acquired a ceremonial and festive appearance, became one of the architectural landmarks of the Neva capital, along with the Admiralty, the Stock Exchange, and the Kazan Cathedral. However, on the night of January 1, 1811, a huge fire broke out at the Bolshoi Theater. Over the course of two days, the rich interior of the theater was destroyed in the fire, and its façade was also seriously damaged. Thomas de Thomon, who drew up the project for the restoration of his beloved brainchild, did not live to see its implementation. On February 3, 1818, the renewed Bolshoi Theater reopened with the prologue “Apollo and Pallas in the North” and Charles Didelot’s ballet “Zephyr and Flora” to the music of composer Catarino Cavos. We are approaching the “golden age” of the Bolshoi Theater.
The repertoire of the “post-fire” era includes “The Magic Flute”, “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, “La Clemenza di Tito” by Mozart. The Russian public is captivated by Rossini's Cinderella, Semiramis, The Thieving Magpie, and The Barber of Seville. In May 1824, the premiere of Weber's Free Shooter took place, a work that meant so much for the birth of Russian romantic opera. Vaudevilles by Alyabyev and Verstovsky are played; One of the most beloved and repertoire operas is Kavos’s “Ivan Susanin,” which ran until the appearance of Glinka’s opera on the same plot. The origin of the world fame of Russian ballet is associated with the legendary figure of Charles Didelot. It was during these years that Pushkin, who captured the theater in immortal verse, was a regular at the St. Petersburg Bolshoi. In 1836, in order to improve acoustics, the architect Alberto Cavos, the son of a composer and conductor, replaced the domed ceiling of the theater hall with a flat one, and above it an art workshop and a room for painting scenery were placed.
Alberto Cavos removes the columns in the auditorium that obstructed the view and distorted the acoustics, gives the hall the usual horseshoe shape, increases its length and height, bringing the number of spectators to two thousand. On November 27, 1836, performances of the rebuilt theater resumed with the first performance of Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar.”
By chance, and perhaps not without good intention, the premiere of “Ruslan and Lyudmila” - Glinka’s second opera - took place exactly six years later, on November 27, 1842. These two dates would be enough for the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater to forever enter the history of Russian culture. But, of course, there were also masterpieces of European music: operas by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Aubert, Thom... Over time, the performances of the Russian opera troupe were transferred to the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater and the so-called Circus Theater , located opposite the Bolshoi (where the ballet troupe continued to perform, as well as the Italian opera).
When the Circus Theater burned down in 1859, a new theater was built in its place by the same architect Alberto Cavos.
It was he who received the name Mariinsky in honor of the reigning Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II. The first theatrical season in the new building opened on October 2, 1860 with Glinka’s “A Life for the Tsar” under the direction of the chief conductor of the Russian Opera, Konstantin Lyadov, the father of the future famous composer Anatoly Lyadov. The Mariinsky Theater strengthened and developed the great traditions of the first Russian musical stage.
With the arrival of Eduard Napravnik in 1863, who replaced Konstantin Lyadov as chief conductor, the most glorious era in the history of the theater began. The half-century that Napravnik devoted to the Mariinsky Theater was marked by the premieres of the most significant operas in the history of Russian music. Let's name just a few of them - “Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky, “The Woman of Pskov”, “May Night”, “The Snow Maiden” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Prince Igor” by Borodin, “The Maid of Orleans”, “The Enchantress”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Iolanta” "Tchaikovsky, "The Demon" by Rubinstein, "Oresteia" by Taneyev... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the theater's repertoire included Wagner's opera (among them the tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung"), "Electra" by Richard Strauss, "The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh" by Rimsky-Korsakov, " Khovanshchina” by Mussorgsky... Marius Petipa, who headed the theater’s ballet troupe in 1869, continued the traditions of his predecessors Jules Perrot and Arthur Saint-Leon.
Petipa zealously preserved such classic performances as Giselle, Esmeralda, and Corsair, subjecting them only to careful editing. “La Bayadère,” staged by him, for the first time brought to the ballet stage the breath of a large choreographic composition, in which “dance became like music.” Petipa’s happy meeting with Tchaikovsky, who argued that “ballet is the same symphony,” led to the birth of “The Sleeping Beauty” - a true musical and choreographic poem. The choreography of “The Nutcracker” arose in the collaboration of Petipa and Lev Ivanov. After Tchaikovsky’s death, “Swan Lake” found a second life on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater - and again in the joint choreography of Petipa and Ivanov. Petipa strengthened his reputation as a symphonic choreographer with his production of Glazunov's ballet Raymonda. His innovative ideas were picked up by the young Mikhail Fokine, who staged at the Mariinsky Theater Tcherepnin's Pavilion of Armida, Saint-Saëns's The Swan, Chopiniana to the music of Chopin, as well as ballets created in Paris - Scheherazade to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, "The Firebird" and "Petrushka" by Stravinsky. The Mariinsky Theater has been reconstructed several times.
In 1885, when, before the closure of the Bolshoi Theater, most of the performances were transferred to the stage of the Mariinsky, the chief architect of the imperial theaters, Viktor Schröter, added a three-story building to the left wing of the building for theater workshops, rehearsal rooms, a power plant and a boiler room. In 1894, under the leadership of Schröter, the wooden rafters were replaced with steel and reinforced concrete, the side wings were built on, and the spectator foyer was expanded. The main facade also underwent reconstruction, taking on monumental forms. In 1886, ballet performances, which until that time continued to be performed on the stage of the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater, were moved to the Mariinsky Theater.
And on the site of Bolshoi Kamenny, the building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory was erected. By government decree on November 9, 1917, the Mariinsky Theater was declared State Theater and transferred to the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education.
In 1920, it began to be called the State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet (GATOB), and since 1935 it was named after S. M. Kirov. Along with the classics of the last century, modern operas appeared on the theater stage in the 20s and early 30s: “The Love for Three Oranges” by Sergei Prokofiev, “Wozzeck” by Alban Berg, “Salome” and “Der Rosenkavalier” by Richard Strauss; ballets are born that establish a new choreographic direction that has been popular for decades, the so-called drama ballet - “The Red Poppy” by Reinhold Gliere, “The Flames of Paris” and “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” by Boris Asafiev, “Laurencia” by Alexander Crane, “Romeo and Juliet” by Sergei Prokofiev, etc. The last pre-war opera premiere of the Kirov Theater was Wagner's Lohengrin, the second performance of which ended late in the evening of June 21, 1941, but the performances scheduled for June 24 and 27 were replaced by Ivan Susanin
. During the Great Patriotic War, the theater was evacuated to Perm, where the premieres of several performances took place, including the premiere of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet “Gayane”. Upon returning to Leningrad, the theater opened the season on September 1, 1944 with Glinka's opera Ivan Susanin. In the 50-70s.
the theater staged such famous ballets as “Shurale” by Farid Yarullin, “Spartacus” by Aram Khachaturian and “The Twelve” by Boris Tishchenko, choreographed by Leonid Yakobson, “Stone Flower” by Sergei Prokofiev and “The Legend of Love” by Arif Melikov, choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich, “Leningrad Symphony” by Dmitry Shostakovich, choreographed by Igor Belsky, simultaneously with the production of new ballets, ballet classics were carefully preserved in the theater’s repertoire. In the opera repertoire, along with Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Verdi, and Bizet, operas by Prokofiev, Dzerzhinsky, Shaporin, and Khrennikov appeared. In 1968–1970
A general reconstruction of the theater was carried out according to the design of Salome Gelfer, as a result of which the left wing of the building was “stretched” and acquired its current appearance. An important stage in the history of the theater in the 80s were the productions of Tchaikovsky’s operas “Eugene Onegin” and “The Queen of Spades”, carried out by Yuri Temirkanov, who headed the theater in 1976. In these productions, which are still preserved in the theater’s repertoire, a new generation of artists made their presence known.
Reviews:
+ Elena Nikitina, 05/05/2017 at 17:36
I live in Rybinsk, Yarosl region. We had a neighbor Maria Alekseevna Kabanova. She lived modestly, sewed well, went to church. I recently found out that she was a prima ballerina in your theater, this was probably at the beginning of the 20th century, 10-20s. I would like to know if you have information about your actors, and in particular about Maria Kabanova. I really want to know!
