Valery Gergiev has put the Mariinsky Theatre at the nexus of culture, power, and politics in Russia. Could this sort of accomplishment be replicated anywhere else? was a ten-year process, interrupted partway through when the original architect, Dominique Perrault, was fired and a new architect (eventually the Canadian firm of Diamond Schmitt Architects) had to be found. The Mariinsky now consists of three big pieces, the two largest being the 1860 opera house (Mariinsky I) and now Mariinsky II, which serve as shared homes for the company’s opera and ballet companies. Then there’s the 1,100-seat concert hall, just a few blocks away, built in 2006, where the Mariinsky Orchestra performs concerts and makes audio recordings. Mariinsky I—with its frothy, wedding-cake exterior, sumptuous gold-and-blue curtain, and green velvet chairs—is more striking than americanorchestras.org
either of the newer spaces. And of course it has its illustrious history: world premieres of works by Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich. The roster of the orchestra has just been upped from 180 to 250 musicians, who play in operas, ballets, and orchestra concerts at the three St. Petersburg venues, as well as on the company’s frequent tours within and outside of Russia. Mariinsky I, however beautiful, is badly in need of upgrades—new opera productions can take several days to set up, and some cannot be mounted there at all. Despite their more bland exteriors—some have taken to calling the newest theater “the Mariinsky Mall”—both the Mariin-
Natasha Razina
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sky II and the concert hall shine sonically and functionally, at least judging by this spring’s celebratory opening events. At the opening gala at Mariinsky II, singers, dancers, soloists, and orchestra performed on a stage that moved every whichway, displaying its technical prowess and flexibility. The acoustics are excellent. In addition to stateof-the-art backstage facilities, Mariinsky II also boasts an open-air rooftop theater for outdoor summer performances during the White Nights Festival. Taken together, the three Mariinsky structures are nothing less than an aspiring Lincoln Center-style complex grafted onto, and fitting tightly into, the existing cityscape, lacking only infrastructure such as connecting walkways,
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