Gala performance

The Mariinsky Theatre – one of the oldest in Russia – can trace its history back to 1783, when a Decree was issued on 12 July on the establishment of a theatre committee “to direct spectacles and music”, while on 5 October the Bolshoi Stone Theatre opened amid great pomp on Carousel Square, today known as Theatre Square.
In time, performances by the Russian Opera Company also began to be staged at the so-called Circus Theatre, which was located opposite the Bolshoi Stone Theatre (where the Ballet Company and the Italian Opera Company continued to perform).

The Circus Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1859. “Now, alongside our public pleasures, we are faced with emptiness following the fire at the circus, which will, in all probability, quickly be built upon,” one newspaper wrote. Because of the fire, the reconstruction of the Alexandrinsky and Mikhailovsky Theatres was postponed, and work began immediately to design a replacement for the theatre that had burned down. And by 1860 the theatre had been rebuilt under the guidance of architect Alberto Cavos.

The grand opening of the rebuilt theatre, called the Mariinsky in honour of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II, took place on 2 October 1860 when the season opened with Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar. On the occasion, The St Petersburg News wrote enthusiastically that “One can draw excellent conclusions about this building in every aspect. This theatre will be one of the greatest theatres in Europe. The reader will not think that there is anything over-exaggerated in our review.”

The Mariinsky Theatre has been a symbol of Russian theatre for one hundred and fifty years now. The Mariinsky Theatre is connected with many of the great names in Russian Theatre, among them Marius Petipa, Anna Pavlova, Osip Petrov, Fyodor Chaliapin, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mathilde Kschessinska, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. It witnessed the birth of the talents of such renowned theatre designers as Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Simon Virsaladze and Fyodor Fyodorovsky.

Over the course of its one hundred and fifty year history, the Mariinsky Theatre has hosted numerous world premieres of operas and ballets that have subsequently gone on to become acclaimed classics at theatres throughout the world. Among them are Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty and The Queen of Spades, Alexander Glazunov’s Raymonda and Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to name but a few. The role played by the Mariinsky Theatre in introducing Russian audiences to the masterpieces of European music has been great indeed, and the Mariinsky Theatre was the first theatre in Russia to stage Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Strauss’ opera Elektra and Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck.

The Mariinsky Theatre is, apropos, the only theatre in Russia today that has staged Wagner’s entire tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen in German. The theatre’s repertoire also takes great care to preserve the great Russian opera classics as well as ballets by Petipa, Zakharov and Lavrovsky. At the same time, it also has its eyes set on contemporary operas and ballets. A witness to the triumphs of numerous generations of opera and ballet stars, today, too, the Mariinsky Theatre is both preserving and furthering the glory of Russian art.