Description of the attraction
The Music Hall is currently the only operating theater of its kind in Russia and St. Petersburg, working in the genre of musical and revue.
The concept of "music hall" originated in hotels, taverns and inns in 18th century England. Then, for an additional fee, entertainment was attached to the feast - comic songs, circus numbers, buffoonery, farce. In the middle of the 19th century, music halls spread throughout England and received their own buildings, and by the end of the century they spread throughout Europe. Russia was no exception.
The St. Petersburg Music Hall starts from the People's House. The people's houses were organized according to the decision created at the end of the 19th century. By the Ministry of Finance of the City Guardianship of People's Sobriety in St. Petersburg. This was done in order to distract the townspeople from drunkenness. Therefore, it was decided to organize accessible entertainment theater performances for the public of different social strata. Thus, the People's Houses were educational cultural and entertainment clubs for small officials, the average intelligentsia, soldiers, workers and students.
At the beginning of the 20th century. the number of such institutions in St. Petersburg was approaching 20. The largest People's House in 1900-1912 was built in two stages on Kronverksky Prospekt in Aleksandrovsky Park. The People's House called "The Emperor Nicholas II's Folk Entertainment Establishment" was consecrated in 1900. That way the building existed until 1932, when a fire broke out. In its place, another was built, where today the ticket offices and lobbies of the Music Hall, the Baltic House theater and the Planetarium are located.
In the winter of 1912, the construction of the People's House complex was completed and a building was added, called the “Auditorium and People's Auditorium named after His Highness Prince A. P. Oldenburgsky . This part of the People's House functioned as the Opera Hall. The authorship of the project of the Opera Hall belongs to the architect G. I. Luciansky. For its construction, a unique metal frame of the pavilion, developed by the architect A. Pomerantsev, brought from the Nizhny Novgorod All-Russian Exhibition was used.
This Opera Hall became the largest theater in the world, as it accommodated 2,800 people at the same time. The amphitheater had 728 seats; the theater had three tiers and 78 boxes. The stage of the Opera House was larger than the Mariinsky Sunnah. It was opened in early January 1912 with a production of the opera "A Life for the Tsar" by M. Glinka.
In total, 3 troupes worked in the People's House of Nicholas II. The first theater performed a drama theater, while ballet and opera troupes performed in the Opera Hall. Pyrotechnics were often used in the performances. The famous director of extravaganza and historical plays A. Alekseev was engaged in theatrical performances, and then in 1909 he was replaced by S. Ratov, who staged serious modern plays.
The famous tenor of the Mariinsky Theater N. Figner was engaged in opera performances for five years from 1910, but his ideas for creating a director's opera house did not find support from officials and as a result he had to leave the troupe in 1915. It is noteworthy that from 1913 to 1917. the hall of the People's House was the "official stage" of Fyodor Chaliapin who performed there.
In 1966, the II Music Hall, founded by I. Ya. Rakhlin, who became its artistic director. In October 1967, the first performance-revue "You are not more beautiful" was shown in the Music Hall. From the moment of its first show for many years the theater turned into a noticeable phenomenon in the cultural life of our country. The orchestra was conducted by S. Gorkovenko, choreographic group - choreographer I. Gaft, choreographer I. Belsky, music for performances was created by composers A. Zhurbin, M. Kazhlaev, D. Tukhmanov, S. Pozhlakov.
Soon after the formation of the Music Hall, a studio appeared at the theater, which produced many pop performers: S. Zakharov, F. Kirkorov, T. Bulanova, M. Kapuro. In different years M. Magomayev, E. Piekha, I. Kobzon, B. Bentsianov, A. Asadullin and others performed with the theater collective.
Under the leadership of I. Rakhlin, the Music Hall became famous not only in our country, but all over the world: in France, Greece, Italy, Germany, Japan, USA, Mexico, Australia.
Since 1988, the Music Hall again began to occupy the building of the former Opera Hall of the People's House, where his life began in 1928.
Recently, the Music Hall has been actively developing as one of the best design and rolling sites in St. Petersburg. In addition to their own performances, touring groups perform here every month, among which one can note domestic and foreign performers, entreprise troupes. For example, Deva Premal from Germany, Markus Miller from America, actors of the Moscow Lenkom and V. Wolf, the theater of R. Viktyuk and O. Menshikov, a Chinese circus and Japanese drummers and many others.
