Bolshoi Theatre

The Bolshoi Theatre is one of the world's oldest and most significant opera and ballet houses, located in the center of Moscow on Theatre Square. Its founding date is considered to be 17 (28) March 1776, when the provincial prosecutor Prince Pyotr Urusov received permission from Empress Catherine II to maintain theatrical productions in Moscow; he was soon joined as a partner by the English impresario Michael Maddox. The troupe's first permanent building was the Petrovsky Theatre on Petrovka Street, built in 1780 to a design by the architect Christian Rosberg; it burned down in 1805.

After several years of performing on temporary stages, a new building was erected for the theatre on Theatre Square in 1820–1825, to a design by Professor Andrei Mikhailov as reworked by the architect Osip Bove; the construction was part of his plan for the post-fire reconstruction of Moscow. The theatre opened on 6 (18) January 1825 and was named the Bolshoi Petrovsky Theatre. The building was destroyed again by fire in March 1853, leaving only the outer walls and the portico colonnade intact. The restoration was led by the architect Albert Cavos, who increased the building's height and reworked the facades in an eclectic style; in place of the lost plaster sculpture of Apollo above the portico, a bronze quadriga by the sculptor Pyotr Klodt was installed. The rebuilt theatre opened in August 1856 with Bellini's opera "I Puritani."

In the early 20th century new foundations had to be laid beneath the building because of subsiding ground, and during the Soviet era its closure was repeatedly discussed but opposed by Stalin, Lunacharsky, and Kalinin. During the Great Patriotic War the troupe was evacuated to Kuibyshev, where it staged opera and ballet performances, and in March 1942 Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony received its Moscow premiere at the theatre's branch stage. The main stage reopened in September 1943 with Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar" ("Ivan Susanin").

In 1995–2002 a New Stage with 879 seats was built beside the historic building, and in 2005–2011 the Historic Stage underwent a large-scale reconstruction, during which only three load-bearing walls of the old building were preserved and a pit more than 30 meters deep was excavated beneath the foundation; the auditorium's capacity was reduced in the process from 2,155 to 1,740 seats. The renovated theatre reopened in October 2011 with a gala concert, followed in November of the same year by a premiere of "Ruslan and Lyudmila." Today the complex of Bolshoi Theatre buildings, including the historic building with its bronze quadriga of Apollo, is recognized as a cultural heritage site of federal significance.