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Founded in
1776 in Moscow, it is a major Russian and world center of the
performing arts and the home of the world-famous Bolshoi Ballet
Company. Its Empire-style building in the center of Moscow with a
massive columned portico and four Phoebus-guided bronze horses on
the pediment was opened in 1825. |
The theater is
renowned for its productions of operatic and ballet classics
authored by Russian (Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky, Borodin,
Rimsky-Korsakov), Soviet (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturyan),
and foreign composers. Many outstanding opera singers have performed
on its stage, including Fyodor Shalyapin, Leonid Sobinov, Antonina
Nezhdanova, Nadezhda Obukhova, Sergei Lemeshev, Ivan Kozlovsky,
Maria Maksakova, Irina Arkhipova, and Yelena Obraztsova.
A great number
of ballet stars are also associated with the Bolshoi, including
Alexander Gorsky, Galina Ulanova, Marina Semyonova, Olga
Lepeshinskaya, Maya Plisetskaya, and Yekaterina Maximova. Among the
Bolshoi’s choreographers were
Marius Petipa, Yury Grigorovich, and
Vladimir
Vasilyev.
For Russian
lovers of art the Bolshoi is more than a theater of opera and ballet
and has come to symbolize the best in the Russian arts. See also
BALLET.
