Saint Petersburg Theatre of Musical Comedy
13 Italianskaya Street
A theatre with a rich history located in an old mansion. The repertoire includes classical operetta, musical comedy and show.
On December 18, 1910, a theatre called “the Palace-Theatre” opened in a building on Italianskaya Street. Operettas featuring the best artists of the capital - M. Rakhmanova, V. Kavetskaya, E. Zbrozhek-Pashkovskaya, A. Bragin, M. Rostovtsev, Y. Morfessi - were played here. A restaurant with a cabaret opened on the ground floor where actors of various genres performed.
“The Palace-Theatre” had been operating for 9 years.
In 1920, the premises were transferred to the State Theatre of Comic Opera under the direction of K. Mardzhanov. In 1921, the "Lame Joe" cabaret, which immediately became famous, was opened in the renovated basement. Every night at the end of the performances the leading actors of the Petrograd theatres presented small funny scenes and interludes there, and the theatre scene hosted mostly the Neo-Viennese operetta.
The theatre's birthday is September 17, 1929, when two united operetta groups - the Leningrad and Kharkov Musical Comedy – showed one of the first Soviet operettas on its stage for the first time. It was N. Strelnikov's "The Maidservant". At that time, the theatre occupied the building of the State People's House in the Alexander Garden. The troupe moved to the mansion on the Italianskaya Street in 1938.
There are pages in the history of the theatre staff related to the heroic defense of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War: all the years of the siege, artists and musicians had performed in front of residents and defenders of the city. During this time 15 premieres had been released; thousands of concerts were played in hospitals and on the frontline. A large-scale exhibition located in the foyer as well as a memorial plaque installed in front of the entrance to the auditorium is dedicated to this heroic period of the theatre's life.
In the post-war years, creative searches were associated with the names of bright directors and outstanding soloists: Y. Khmelnitsky, Z. Vinogradova, V. Kopylov, A. Shargorodsky and others. The next important step in the development of the theatre was made due to the activities of V. Vorobyov. It was by his initiative that the first musical shows many of which had been written by modern authors appeared in the repertoire, thus becoming the first domestic experiments in this genre: "Krechinsky's Wedding", "Truffaldino", "The Case", etc.
By the 80s, the theatre was in dire need of major repairs. This difficult stage had lasted almost 10 years. The troupe wandered through the Houses of Culture and, of course, was deprived of the opportunity to work fully and productively. As a result, the theatre lost its usual audience over the years.
The artistic director of the theatre, A. Belinsky, who came in 1995, accelerated the renovation and in the spring of 1996 a newly equipped Small Stage (which had not been there before) finally opened. Eventually, following the Small one, the Big Stage opened as well.
Since 2005, the theatre has been headed by Yu. Schwarzkopf. As the general manager he began a new era of musical comedy development. A long-term creative cooperation has been established with the world's leading operetta theatres, in particular, with the Budapest Operetta and Musical Theatre, the first licensed shows appeared in the repertoire, productions of the classical repertoire became attractive in the eyes of the jury and experts of professional awards and competitions.
The legendary show by R. Polanski to the music of J. Steinman's "Vampire Ball", a unique project "Bely.Petersburg" written by composer G. Firtich specifically for the theatre, classical operettas by F. Lehar "The Merry Widow", "Count Luxemburg" and "Frasquita", musicals by composers of the XXI century – "The Thieves' Ball" by A. Pantykin and "Alice and the Wonderland" by G. Matveychuk, wonderful works for children's audience by Soviet/Russian composer S. Banevich and much more form the repertoire poster of the theatre today.