The beginnings of a century of opera

Tradition has it that opera at the Mikhailovsky Theatre began on 6 March 1918. On that day the Theatre’s stage was graced by Rossini’s opera Il barbiere di Siviglia, which has been an almost permanent fixture in our repertoire ever since.

This landmark event was preceded by a letter written in January 1918 by Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Soviet People’s Commissar for Education, to the head of what was then Petrograd’s state academic theatres, dictating that „The former Mikhailovsky Theatre must be reopened by 1 April 1918.“ In order to meet the Commissar’s deadline, Il barbiere di Siviglia was staged with the help of sets and artists from the Mariinsky Theatre, making this opera part of the shared legacy of Petrograd’s entire theatrical community.

The new opera theatre formed its own creative team in the summer of 1918, when the members of the choir and orchestra were selected. The Theatre’s first independently staged premiere was Jacques Offenbach’s opera-buffa La Périchole on 13 October 1918.

The one hundredth anniversary of opera at the Mikhailovsky Theatre is one that deserves to be celebrated with a succession of spectacular performances and concerts throughout the year.