Mikhailovsky Opera (Opera company) ![Mikhailovsky Opera](/photos_info/person/opera_company/Mikhailovsky_Opera/1453831914.4006.jpg)
The theatre was established in 1833 by decree of Tsar Nicholas I.
Before the 1917 Revolution, the Mikhailovsky did not have its own resident company. Performances were given either by a French company, hired by the Russian Imperial Theatres or at the end of the century by the Mariinsky Theatre and Alexandrinsky Theatre companies. Most of the great French actors of the period performed at the theatre: Those appearing included Jeanne Sylvanie Arnould-Plessy, Rachel Felix, Lucien Guitry and Sarah Bernhardt, as well as singers such as Hortense Schneider. Both classical and contemporary authors and composers had their works produced to great acclaim in French. Plays by Moliere, Victor Hugo, Victorien Sardou, and Alexandre Dumas, fils and operettas by Jacques Offenbach were praised by the intelligentsia and the Russian aristocracy, such as Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky.
When the Bolsheviks took power, the French company was forced to leave Russia. In 1917 the Mikhailovsky Theatre was closed. On March 6, 1918 the theatre was reopened as an opera theatre. Shortly afterwards the Mikhailovsky started changing its names. In 1918-1920, it was called the Ex-Mikhailovsky Theatre. In 1920 it was renamed to the State Academic Comic Opera Theatre, in 1921 the theatre changed its name to the Maly Operny (Maly Opera Theatre). In 1926 it got the name of the Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera Theatre, MALEGOT for short. New management and artists followed. In 1920-1930 the Maly Operny established itself as one of the leading experimental stages in Russian new musical theatre. Shostakovich made his debut at the Maly Operny: Samuil Samosud conducted world premiere performances of his The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the famous Vsevolod Meyerhold production of The Queen of Spades was staged there, and the world premiere of Prokofiev's epic opera War and Peace took place on the theatre's stage on June 12, 1946.
From 1989 to 2007 the theatre bore the name of Modest Mussorgsky, subsequently returning to its original name the Mikhailovsky Theatre.
In what was seen as a sensational move, in 2007 the Russian businessman Vladimir Kekhman was appointed as General Director of the Theatre. Russian theatre does not make a clear distinction between artistic and administrative management: Thus Kekhman’s efforts to build business-based organizational structures at the Mikhailovsky received critical reviews. However, when Mr. Kekhman donated 1 billion roubles ($40m US) for renovation of the building and invited Elena Obraztsova and Farouk Ruzimatov to coordinate the artistic revival of the Mikhailovsky, (he) “succeeded in making the ballet world sit up and take notice”.
In 2007, Obraztsova was appointed artistic director of the Mikhailovsky Opera and Ruzimatov became artistic director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet. As of 2009 both Obraztsova and Ruzimatov hold a seat on the Artistic Committee of the Theatre, while Peter Feranec is music director of the Theatre and Michael Messerer is ballet master in chief. As of 2012, Mikhail Tatarnikov is the company’s music director and Nacho Duato is the Mikhailovsky Ballet artistic director. Several ballets by Nacho Duato received their world premieres at the theatre, including Nunc Dimittis, Prelude, The Sleeping Beauty, Invisible.
In 2013 the Mikhailovsky Opera made its debut at the Savonlinna Opera Festival
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