THE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2011 - PrivatAir

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blood, deadlocks, accusations of embezzlement and fraud… it could
only happen in opera. In Moscow, however, it has been happening in the
opera house. Th e delays, alarming fi nancial haemorrhages, walk-outs and
rows that have bedevilled the restoration of the Bolshoi theatre in central
Moscow have appalled, amused and generally held Muscovites in thrall
for much of the last six years. Add in a star cast of towering artistic egos,
numerous spins of the Russian manic-depressive cycle, a scandal over an
erotic picture, allegedly showing someone resembling the director of the
Bolshoi ballet troupe, and lashings of vodka, and you have the makings of
an opera plot that Tchaikovsky would have hardly dared dream of. Th ree
years behind schedule and some 16 times over budget at $760m – much of
it state money – the Bolshoi theatre fi nally reopens this October.
A grandiose, porticoed 19th-century building that resembles an
accident between a Rolls-Royce and a large wedding cake, the Bolshoi is
located in central Moscow and was where Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake
was premiered in 1877. It has been crying out for restoration for decades.
Originally built in 1825, the acoustics of the theatre had been impaired by
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a sequence of botched cowboy renovations, which included concreting up
the orchestra’s barrel-shaped resonator sound box, tantamount to a
desecration. Th e present restoration is intended as an acoustic
rehabilitation. As Anatoly Iksanov, the Bolshoi’s director general, said in
2004 when announcing the restoration: ‘Th e theatre has suff ered a lot since
they started replacing wooden structures with concrete ones.’
Th ere was talk of renovating the state-backed theatre as long ago as
the 1980s, but lack of money failed to translate words into deeds.
Furthermore, reaching a consensus on what actually should be done to
the theatre meant that paralysis set in, while the building itself began to
sink into its perennially muddy foundations. Th en in 2005, the Russian
government knocked heads together, and decreed that it would be
restored. Th e 2,200-seater Bolshoi Main Stage closed in July 2005.
Opera and ballet performances were relocated to the smaller New Stage
next door, which seats 900.
Th e entire restoration project, which embraces the Bolshoi’s
collection of decorative art items, antique furniture, costumes and
production sketches by outstanding Russian theatre designers, which had