Bolshoi Theatre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Bolshoi Hall)

The Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow, Russia

The Bolshoi Theatre (Russian: Большой театр, Bol'shoy Teatr, Large Theater) is an historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, which gives performances of ballet and opera.

1 History
2 Ballet and opera
3 Current status of the Bolshoi
4 Notes
5 Music directors
6 See also
7 External links

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

Main Hall of the Bolshoi Theatre

The current building was built on Theatre Square in 1824 to replace the Petrovka Theatre, which had been destroyed by fire in 1805. It was designed by architect Andrei Mikhailov, 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 (these were known as the Bolshoi Theatres) 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 Bolshoi Theatre's original name was the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow, while the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theatre's (demolished in 1886) name was Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre.

The theatre was inaugurated on 18 January 1825 with the Fernando Sor's ballet Cendrillon. 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 Voyevoda and Mazeppa, and Rachmaninoff's Aleko and Francesca da Rimini.

The Bolshoi is a repertory theatre, meaning that it draws from a stable of productions, any one of which may be performed on a given evening. It normally introduces two to four new ballet or opera productions each season and retires a similar number. The sets and costumes for most productions are made in the Bolshoi's own workshops. The performers are drawn primarily from the Bolshoi's regular ballet and opera companies, with occasional guest performances. In the post-Communist era, there have been some attempts to reduce the theatre's traditional dependence on large state subsidies.

The Bolshoi has been associated from its beginnings with ballet. Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premiered at the theatre on Saturday, March 4, 1877. Other staples of the Bolshoi repertoire include Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, Adam's Giselle, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and Khachaturian's Spartacus. During the Soviet era, international touring companies from the Bolshoi were an important source of cultural prestige, as well as foreign currency earnings, with the result that the "Bolshoi Ballet" became a well-known name in the West. Bolshoi-related troupes continue to tour regularly in the post-Soviet era.

The opera company specializes in the classics of Russian opera such as Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Glinka's A Life for the Tsar, and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, as well as the operas of Tchaikovsky. Many operas by western composers are also performed, especially works of Italian composers such as Rossini, Verdi and Puccini. Until the mid-1990s, most foreign operas were sung in Russian, but Italian and other languages have been heard more frequently on the Bolshoi stage in recent years.

Some operas, such as Borodin's Prince Igor, include extensive ballet sequences. Many productions, especially of classic Russian opera, are given on a scale of grand spectacle, and can have dozens of costumed singers and dancers on stage for crowd or festival scenes.

The main Bolshoi (the "big" one and the primary subject of this article) is currently closed for restoration work. According to the theatre's website, the main stage will reopen for some performances during 2008 and the full renovation will complete in 2010.

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 300 to 2 000 rouble bracket for good par-terre or balcony seats (US$1 = approximately 25 roubles).

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.