Bolshoi Theatre

Theatre Square in Moscow. The quadriga above the portico was sculpted by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg.

The Bolshoi Theatre is a theatre and opera company in Moscow, Russia, which gives performances of ballet and opera.

History

The company was founded in 1776 by Prince Peter Urussov and Michael Maddox. Initially it gave performances in a private home, but 1780 it acquired the Petrovka Theatre and began producing plays and operas.

Inside the Bolshoi Theatre

The current building was built on Teatralnaya Square in 1825 to replace the Petrovka Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1805. It was designed by architect Osip Bove, who had built the nearby Maly Theatre in 1824. At that time, all the Russian theatres were imperial property. In Moscow and St Petersburg, there were two theatres only, one of them intended for opera and ballet and another one for tragedies and comedies. As opera and ballet were considered nobler than drama, the opera house was named the "Grand Theatre" ("Bolshoi" being the Russian for "large" or "grand") and the drama theatre - "Smaller Theatre" ("Maly" being the Russian for "little").

The theatre was inaugurated on 18 January 1825. Initially it presented only Russian works, but foreign composers entered the repertoire starting from 1840. A fire in 1853 caused extensive damage; reconstruction was carried out by Albert Kavos, son of Caterino Kavos, an opera composer, and reopened in 1856. During World War II, the theatre was damaged by a bomb but was promptly repaired.

The Bolshoi has been the site of many historic premieres including Tchaikovsky's La Voyavoda and Mazeppa, and Rachmaninoff's Aleko and Francesca da Rimini.

The Bolshoi ballet

At the Bolshoi school of Ballet.

The Bolshoi has been associated from its beginnings with ballet, and is home to the Bolshoi Ballet troupe. Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premiered at the theatre in 1877.

Current status

The main Bolshoi (the "big" one and the primary subject of this article) is currently closed for restoration work.

The New Bolshoi theatre, adjacent to it, continues to stage an extensive repertory of concerts and performances. Since these two theatres are the most famous in Moscow, they are usually frequented by tourists and the prices can be correspondingly much more expensive when compared to other Russian theatres, particularly for ballets, where the prices are comparable to those for performances in the West. Concerts and operas however are still relatively affordable, with prices going up each year, and they range in the 200 to 1000 rouble bracket for good par-terre or balcony seats (US$1 = approximately 28 roubles).

Notes

*The Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre used to exist in Saint Petersburg. It stood next to the Circus Theatre (rebuilt in 1860 as the Mariinsky Theatre), but it was replaced in the 1890s by the present-day building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. It was at St. Petersburg's Bolshoi that the first great Russian operas, Glinka's A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila, were premiered.

Music directors

Bolshoi Theatre.

*Alexander Vedernikov (2001–)
*Mark Ermler (1998–2000)
*Alexander Lazarev (1987–1995)
*Yuri Simonov (1970–1985)
*Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1965–1970)
*Evgeny Svetlanov (1963–1965)
*Alexander Melik-Pashayev (1953–1963)
*Nikolai Golovanov (1948 –1953)
*Ari Pazovsky (1943–1948)
*Samuil Samosud (1936–1942)

External links

*Bolshoi Theatre website (in English and Russian)
*Google Maps satellite photo
*Moscow-Life: A brief introduction to the Bolshoi theatre, with user reviews!
*Chief Conductors