“Everything breathes art here”
Exactly 190 years ago, on November 8, 1833, a new theater in St. Petersburg opened with its first two performances. The Imperial Mikhailovsky Theater was established by a decree of Nicholas I dated 1831 and named for the ruler’s younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich.
For two years, on a site near the Mikhailovsky Castle where the Russian Museum now stands, bordered by Mikhailovskaya Square, Inzhenernaya Street and the Catherine Canal, the architect Alexander Briullov designed a modest theater building meant to blend with the surrounding interior. The Arts Square ensemble by Carlo Rossi was laid out in a classical style nearby.
The building of the Mikhailovsky Theater initially looked like a residence, with only the stage box visible above the roof. Briullov worked to compactly fit the auditorium, stage, auxiliary rooms and grand staircase into a luxurious interior. The challenge was the limited area: width 38 meters and length 108 meters. The development period shortened to 68 meters, presenting further difficulties. As a result, auxiliary spaces were reduced, large foyers and the chamber for decorative painting were abandoned, and the stalls gave way to a steep amphitheater rising upward.
Despite these constraints, the interior decoration gained momentum with significant support from the theater’s early “big brothers.” The venue hoped not to fade between the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Literaturnaya Gazeta would later write in 1843, Let’s enter the Mikhailovsky Theater, how light it is, how fragrant, how everything here breathes art.
The auditorium floors rested on slender supports, while the boxes and seats were finished in dark red velvet and gilded. Ceiling, railing and wall ornaments drew on Pompeian paintings, and the foyer featured sculptures guiding visitors toward the corridor, which could accommodate 900 people.
Theater opening and repertoire
On the grand opening day, Emperor Nicholas I, his wife, grand dukes, and poets Vasily Zhukovsky and Pyotr Vyazemsky filled the hall. Two performances graced the stage: the ballet Cupid in the Village choreographed by Alexis Blanche, and the comedy Familiar Strangers by Pyotr Vaudeville, performed by Karatygin’s troupe from the Alexandrinsky Theater.
At that time, the play had enjoyed three years of success in Alexandrinka, and the 1830s marked a peak for Russian vaudeville. Familiar Strangers was Karatygin’s first foray into the genre and was met with enthusiastic reception from critics and audiences alike. A personal note from Karatygin recalls receiving a diamond ring from His Majesty as a mark of royal favor.
Records show that the Emperor rarely visited the Russian stage, with Italian opera and French theater drawing more attention among high society. Originally designed for the imperial circle, Mikhailovsky later hosted French and German theater companies and became known in some circles as Theater Michel or Michael-Theatre in the French and German languages, respectively.
Vaudeville and ballet performances thrived, and the theater even hosted a French troupe regarded by some as second only to Paris’s Comedy-Française. They hosted orchestras led by Johann Strauss and welcomed renowned Russian artists such as the Karatygin sisters, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, Matilda Kshesinskaya, and Fyodor Chaliapin. Since 1894, operas began to be staged there in connection with renovations at the Mariinsky Theatre.
In 1859, the Mikhailovsky was rebuilt by architect Alberto Cavos, adding two hundred seats to the hall.
Own group
The theater formed its own troupe after the October Revolution. German artists left Russia in 1914, followed by the French in 1917. The new season opened on March 6, 1918, making Mikhailovsky the second state opera house in Petrograd. In 1920 it was renamed the State Academic Comic Opera Theatre; in 1921 it became the Maly Academic Theater, and in 1926 it was named the Leningrad Academic Maly Opera Theater (MALEGOT). The 1920s and 1930s saw the premiere of new Soviet operas such as The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Dmitry Shostakovich, and Quiet Don by Ivan Dzerzhinsky.
In the 1930s Mikhailovsky founded an in-house ballet company. In January 1932, dancers staged their first closed performance in the Russian Museum’s ethnographic department, presenting a dance suite inspired by a Greek festival crafted by choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov. The production proved successful and propelled Mikhailovsky toward becoming a distinguished opera and ballet theatre.