Theatres

There are more than forty theatres in St Petersburg, and many touring companies also perform in various local "palaces of culture". The first theatre was established in St Petersburg in 1714, in the palace of Natalia Alexeyevna, sister of Peter the Great, and the opera and ballet companies were formed at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna in the 1730s. Since then opera and ballet performances in the Russian capital have never ceased and St Petersburg ballet has never lost its leading position in world art.

The Mariinsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet situated on Theatre Square is a pride of the city. This square was used for theatrical spectacles since long ago. Carnivals and performances of amateurish troupes took place in the wooden building of the theatre put up in 1765. Seventeen years later Antonio Rinaldi erected on the site of the wooden building a stone theatre, which was known as the Bolshoi Theatre and was the largest of this kind in Europe. Operas, ballets and dramas were performed on its stage. The building was repeatedly reconstructed, burnt down and was built again. In the late nineteenth century, after a new reconstruction, it was used for the Conservatoire, the first high er musical establishment in Russia. Among its graduates were Piotr Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich and other well-known composers and musicians.

Opposite the building of the Conservatoire until the middle of the nineteenth century was located the Imperial Theatre-cum-Circus. Its architecture was based on the type of theatrical building with several tiers of boxes and seats that was evolved in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. After a fire of 1859 the architect Albert Cavos reconstructed the building and it was handed over to the Mariinsky Theatre, named so in honour of Empress Maria Fiodorovna, wife of Alexander II. The theatre opened in I860 with a performance of Mikhail Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin). The best achievements of the Russian ballet and operatic art are associated with this building. Maurice Petipa headed its ballet company for several years. Many outstanding soloists performed on its stage, including such world celebrities as the singers Fiodor Chaliapin and Leonid Sobinov, and the dancers Anna Pavlova, Tatyana Kar-savina, Mathilda Kschessinska, Vaclav Nijinsky and Galina Ulanova. The theatre changed its name several times. Today it bears again its original name and remains the company of beautiful performers famous all over the world.

TheMariinsky Theatre.
Architects: Albert Cavos, 1847-59; Victor Schroter, 1885