Empire model in Empire style

An exhibition in honor of the Alexandrinsky Theater was opened at the Marble Palace of the State Russian Museum

The Marble Palace once again fulfilled its function as a “house of gratitude.” The building was once donated by Empress Catherine the Great to the Orlov brothers in gratitude for their help in enthroning them. After the expulsion of the Lenin Museum, which captured the Marble Palace during the period of perestroika, the place of the armored car was taken by Alexander III by Paolo Trubetskoy, the halls are most often occupied by current exhibitions prepared by the department of the latest trends of the Russian Museum. Thanks to the imperial pathos, the theatrical exhibition dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Alexandrinsky Theater is also appropriate behind the bronze horseman. The exhibition is called “Theater of Illustrious Masters”, and indeed, the first hall contains many wonderful portraits. They depict those actors who played in the newly built Alexandrinka designed by the architect Karl Rossi, named after the wife of Emperor Nicholas I, Alexandra Feodorovna. Alexandrinka was opened with a grandiose patriotic performance in 1832, on the 20th anniversary of the War of 1812.

Under Empress Elizabeth, the 250th anniversary of whose decree is now celebrated, a Russian professional theater was established. A quarter of a century later, the democratic Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg Kolomna and the elite court Hermitage Theater at the Winter Palace were built. You can learn about all this from the exhibition section “Theater Space”, where projects, finishing sketches and paintings with views of the mentioned buildings are presented. Moscow theaters are not represented, although their history dates back to 1756.

Alexandrinka to a certain extent became the main theater of the empire and its reduced model. Even architecturally, Alexandrinka is a monument of the “Russian Empire”, and, probably, the inscription “Museum of the [Imperial] Theater” should have been placed on its facade long ago. Actually, such a museum exists in St. Petersburg and is now located directly behind the theater. It was created in 1918 on the basis of objects exhibited in the foyer of that very Alexandrinka after the clinical death of the great theater. Now this foyer has been partially recreated in the third hall of the exhibition, where on separate stands you can see memorial items, addresses and posters of K.A. Varlamova, M.G. Savina, V.V. Samoilov and others.

The Marble Hall, the main museum space of the palace, is dedicated to the circumstances of the completion of the imperial theatrical biography. There are many soft pastel costumes from the Silver Age, made mainly from the sketches of Alexander Golovin. They go well with the multi-colored marbles of the early classicist decoration of Antonio Rinaldi. In the center, the only dark spot is the black costume of the Unknown for Masquerade, which premiered on February 25, 1917. As you know, it was this performance by Meyerhold with costumes based on Golovin’s designs that closed the history of the great empire.

Our theater, having interrupted productions only for a while and received the name of Alexander Pushkin in 1920, continued to live under the leadership of Yuri Yuryev, who set the task of preserving its good name. Artists N.P. worked in the theater. Akimov, V.M. Khodasevich, V.A. Shchuko. Their sketches for performances are an impressive section of the exhibition. After the war, the theater's authority was still high. It is enough to recall the names of Vasily Merkuryev, Nikolai Cherkasov and Yuri Tolubeev (a separate room is dedicated to the late 40s - 50s, where a funny portrait of Georgy Tovstonogov by the early I. Glazunov is dedicated).

Gradually, interest in the building began to dominate over interest in the performances. It would be great if, in the anniversary year, Alexandrinka ceased to be perceived only as a museum to itself.

Sergey KUZNETSOV, St. Petersburg