Gala concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Mikhailovsky Opera

The Mikhailovsky Theatre, one of the oldest opera and ballet theatres in St. Petersburg, is celebrating the centenary of its opera company. The company’s history is an essential narrative in the theatrical life of this city in all its incarnations, from Petrograd to Leningrad to St. Petersburg. It is a story best told not through dates but in dramatic highlights: the talent-studded shows, crowded premières, and exceptional artists who have glorified the opera house and contributed to its multifaceted past.

The opera company’s origin is generally dated to 6 March 1918. Prior to the Russian Revolution, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s stage had been the setting for boisterous performances by Sarah Bernhardt and Johann Strauss, dramatic shows starring popular French and German troupes, and benefit performances by stars of the Alexandrinsky Theatre and Moscow Art Theatre. But on 6 March 1918, the formerly imperial theatre presented its very first opera: Il barbiere di Siviglia, a production essentially brought in from the Mariinsky Theatre. The company eventually developed its own repertoire, including classics, operettas, and twentieth-century works. Within just a few years, the theatre had become a true ‘laboratory’ of Soviet opera. Here in the Mikhailovsky Theatre, new artists and innovative compositions made their debuts and left lasting impressions on many generations of audiences. Operas such as Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace, and Ivan Dzerzhinsky’s Quiet Flows the Don had their world premières in the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

A century after it was founded, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s opera company continues to be a platform for dynamic projects, bold artistic experimentation, and creative collaboration.

Maestro Vladimir Jurowski is preparing a gala concert dedicated to the most important anniversary of the season. The programme includes beloved selections from the company’s twentieth-century repertoire that have marked milestones in the theatre’s history: Tosca, The Golden Cockerel, Don Giovanni, and The Queen of Spades, and operas by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Kabalevsky, and Slonimsky. Performers will include both the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s own soloists and guest stars: Aida Garifullina, Sergei Leiferkus, Nina Romanova, and Mikhail Agafonov.