BALLET AND OPERA

Ballet is an integral part of St. Petersburg's cultural tradition and at the center of this is the world-renown Vaganova Ballet School. Founded in 1738, the extremely competitive Vaganova (there are only about eighteen people accepted per year) matriculates world-class dancers every year.

Ballet in Petersburg tends to be on the conservative side, though in recent years there have been some semi-spirited attempts to bust out and do something innovative. As many leading dancers have the chance to go abroad and dance with major Western troupes, they are coming back with new ideas and techniques which will undoubtedly be integrated into the romantic-classical style that now prevails. The repertoire consists mostly of proven standards like Swan Lake (), the Nutcracker (), Giselle (), and Sleeping Beauty ().

Opera also occupies an important place in Petersburg's cultural tradition. As in Europe, 19th century Petersburg aristocrats used to go to the opera and check each other out through opera glasses before leaving at intermission. The 19th century was also a prolific period for Russia's greatest opera writers. Leading the way was Tchaikovsky, who set Pushkin's epic poem Eugene Onegin () and the story the Queen of Spades () to music. Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov (), an operatic history of Russia's first dynastic crisis, was also penned in this time. If you plan on going to the opera, it is most likely you will see one of these three as they run over and over again in all the theaters.

The Mariinsky Theater (formerly the Kirov) is an exquisite building that features one of the best ballet troupes in the world, the Kirov Ballet (formerly the Mariinsky). The troupe, which performs only classical ballets, goes on tour every summer for about two months and its stars often disappear during the year as well. The Kirov Opera is also quite famous, performing international favorites as well as Russian operatic classics. As the Mariinsky is numero uno in the city for evening cultural entertainment tickets are the most expensive and can be hard to come by but there are plenty of hotel service bureaus and tourist organizations who will be more than happy to help you in this department. Teatralnaya Ploshchad 1. Metro: Sadovaya then a 15 minute walk. Tel: 114 1211.

The Maly Opera and Ballet Theater (also known as the Mussorgsky Theater) is where tourists get herded when the Mariinsky is sold out or on tour so as to provide their opera or ballet fix. Sometimes the Maly hosts festivals which attract outside participation and are on a higher artistic level. The repertoire is similar to the Mariinsky. Ploshchad Iskusstv 1. Metro: Nevsky Prospekt. Tel: 219 1949.

There are also a couple of free-floating ballet troupes that don't have their own permanent stages. Performances are indicated in fifteen-day repertoires (in Russian, of course) hung in ticket booths, and in hotel service bureaus. Theater of Ballet under the direction of Boris Eifman (a graduate of the Vaganova School) is a modern ballet troupe. Eifman created a sensation in the Russian ballet world with overtly homosexual themes in his interpretations of Tchaikovsky, causing conservative Tchaikovsky loyalists to picket his performances. He has continued to create waves with avant garde interpretaions of Karamazov Brothers, Don Quixote, and the famous Red Giselle, the story of the emigre Russian ballet dancer Olga Spesifzeva.