Bolshoi Theater after renovation. Good rumors about the big theater
Foyer of the administrative building. Now the entire Bolshoi Theater complex is connected by underground and overground passages.
From the gallery connecting the main and administrative buildings there is a view of the theater square.
New dressing room. One of 50. According to modern theater standards, for 1 volume of space for the audience there should be 4 volumes of space for the troupe, including utility rooms, mechanics, warehouses and dressing rooms. Before closing, this ratio was 1:1. Now the Bolshoi fully meets these requirements.
There are 14 buttons on the elevator control panel - from 10 to -4. However, the theater does not end with the 4th floor, but goes down another 2 levels - the mechanics are located on these auxiliary floors. After reconstruction, the theater received 17 elevators, 6 of which are located in the historical part.
Venetian mosaic, painstakingly restored from two fragments found during work in the director's area. Initially, part of the mosaic was made of sandstone, and women who walked here in high-heeled shoes knocked out these fragments. As a result, the entire floor was covered with holes. In the middle of the 20th century, it was simply removed and thrown away and oak parquet was laid.
The main stage auditorium seats 1,768 people. Before restoration there were 2100 people.
In the first years after the opening of the Bolshoi Theater building restored by Albert Kavos, the premises were illuminated with candles and oil lamps. In order to light the oil lamps of the auditorium chandelier, it was raised upstairs to a special room.
In 1863, this chandelier was replaced with a new one with 408 gas jets. According to the testimony of contemporaries, the glass lamps of gas lamps became so hot that they sometimes burst and their fragments fell on the heads of spectators.
30 years later, electricity appears at the Bolshoi Theater. It is interesting that for electric lighting of the Bolshoi and Maly Theaters, in the early 1890s, a separate power station was built in one of the premises of the Maly Theater building. In connection with this innovation, the gas chandelier of the auditorium is being converted into electric lamps. It remains in this form to this day.
According to the plan of Albert Kavos, who supervised the restoration of the burned Bolshoi Theater in 1853-1856, to improve the acoustics of the hall, the ceiling was made of wooden panels, canvas was stretched over them, and a painting was made on this canvas. This work was carried out by academician Alexey Titov and his students. In the middle of the 19th century there was no reverent attitude towards antiquity, and Academician Titov was able to take some liberties. He understood that Greece had never had a muse of painting. But he threw out the muse Polyhymnia from the pantheon of muses and painted a muse with a brush and palette. She is still present at the Bolshoi Theater.
In the 19th century, a hole was made in the central part of the ceiling of the auditorium, which served to extract smoke and soot from candles and oil lamps. Through it, cold air penetrated into the room in winter, and in summer moisture accumulated on the painting canvas. It is not surprising that the first restoration of Apollo and the Muses had to be done just a few years after the opening of the theater. In total, the history of the ceiling includes 6 major restorations.
When restorers climbed the scaffolding in 2005, they found the paintings in terrible condition. The canvases were so loose in some places that they hung from the ceiling in pieces 1.5 meters long. In some places the canvases were sealed with tissue paper to prevent further tears. During previous restorations, the figures of the muses were cut out, and the background that was around them was done on a new canvas. But the technology of those years did not make it possible to ensure the similarity of colors. The wooden structures were also severely bent.
During the restoration, the wooden shields were straightened as much as possible, the canvases on all backgrounds were replaced with new ones that did not differ in color, the painted patterns were restored, and the muses preserved on the old canvases were completely restored.
Theater buffet. This is a mandatory attribute of the Bolshoi Theater. It moved to the 4th floor and now occupies a huge area. The Bolshoi Theater buffet is unique today - it is the only place in the building where you can see windows on both sides.
Under the architect Osip Bov there was a passage here. Kavos, who was restoring the theater after the fire of 1853, did not set himself the task of restoring the theater as accurately as possible, so he blocked some passages with bricks and boarded up some rooms with boards. Some of the bricks in this masonry are from the 18th century. It turned out that the answer to this riddle is simple: when Beauvais restored the theater in 1825, he used bricks left over from houses that burned down during Napoleon's invasion.
Beethoven Hall. Previously, the main hall of the imperial foyer was Beethoven's. This is a concert and rehearsal hall. Behind the wall there are 70 meters to the Teatralnaya metro station, but there is almost perfect silence here. In addition to its main function, this hall will become a recording studio for the Bolshoi Theater.
The stage is a transformer. 5 independent platforms allow you to create a hall of any configuration. The normal condition of the floor is level with the foyer. In 5 minutes, this floor can drop to a level of minus 20.5 meters. Now it is lowered to the middle of the amphitheater. In half an hour, it turns from a flat foyer into a hall for 300 people, and in the same way it turns into a hall for an orchestra or orchestra and choir.
Central foyer. The tiles were made in the same factory as the original ones in the 19th century.
The furniture is waiting for everything to be washed and cleaned. In general, the entire theater is now a place of grandiose cleaning.
Fabric inserts on theater furniture were also restored based on surviving samples.
The vases on the railing are made of alabaster - natural quartzite. It is thick and translucent.
The doors and fittings have been restored. Marks from the 19th century can be found on them.
The main hall of the imperial foyer. In the 19th century, no one except the emperor and his retinue could be here.
The acoustics of the room are amazing, whispers from one corner can be clearly heard in the other.
You can’t sit on the furniture, it’s here solely for the interior, but no one can see it yet....)
Mikhail Sidorov, advisor to the president of the Summa Group, the general contractor for the reconstruction and restoration of the Bolshoi Theater.
The tapestries are so dilapidated that at first there was a question about the feasibility of restoration; their restoration took 5 years, every centimeter of fabric was cleaned by hand using cotton tassels.
The chandelier weighs 2 tons, reaches 6.5 meters in diameter, and the crystal pendants weigh 200 kilograms. It took 300 grams of gold leaf to gild it.
In recreating the theater, Kavos, being a brilliant acoustician, used many unusual solutions: every element works for sound, the hall repeats the shape of a violin soundboard, all panels are made of resonant spruce, there are many acoustic cavities in the hall, the ceiling and the stage itself are resonators. Thanks to this, the Bolshoi Theater took first place among theaters in the world in terms of sound quality in the 19th century. However, during the 20th century, the hall lost its unique acoustics: chips in the papier-mâché were repaired with plaster or even cement, resonant voids were insulated with foam plastic, the deck under the stage was filled with concrete, etc. By 2005, the hall loses up to 50% of its acoustic properties.
The restoration of the acoustics was undertaken by the Müller BBM company; during the restoration process, the original sound model of the theater was completely recreated, each element of the hall is calculated, each panel is tested, all materials, including the upholstery of the chairs, are agreed upon with the Müller BBM specialists. This allows us to hope that the Bolshoi will regain its glory as one of the best acoustic halls in the world.
150 people worked on gilding the panels; four kilograms of gold 5 microns thick were used for the entire theater.
The scenery for the opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila” is being assembled on stage, but filming it is strictly forbidden.
The Atlanteans holding the Royal Box are also made of papier-mâché.
The six upper levels of the theater are connected by so-called circular corridors. They have now been restored to the form Albert Cavos intended them to be in the 19th century.
The new curtain is embroidered with double-headed eagles and the word “Russia”.
One of the wardrobes. Here I’m being original and instead of starting with a hanger, I’ll end with it.
Coming to see Don Giovanni in Milan this Monday, I found myself at the Bolshoi Theater for the first time since reconstruction. Much has been written about how pleasant it is to enter a refreshed, but still the same hall familiar from childhood. The lights go out, the overture begins, and with it amazement. At first, I began to blame the conductor: why was he twirling his baton that the orchestra was giving out such a lack of clarity? But it soon became clear that the problem was not with the conductor. The orchestra is simply hard to hear - as if the sound coming out of the pit is being passed through a meat grinder. Things went even more fun with the singers. As soon as the conductor released the orchestra behind the mezzo piano, half of the soloists simply ceased to be audible; if behind the mezzo forte, only two remained at least somehow audible. We were shown a completely circus trick at the end of the first act. By the will of the director, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and Don Ottavio find themselves in the hall for some time - at the first row of the stalls. They sing and you can hear the singers’ painted eyelashes rustling. Then, having received an invitation to the ball, they rise up and sing from the proscenium, standing five meters further. Just five meters - and as if through a layer of wet cotton wool. Almost to the last, it seems, only the magnificent Don Juan, Peter Mattei, resisted this plague: even the sotto voce of his flying baritone was clearly audible; but they managed to cope with it too. Some movement of the scenery was added to the orchestral forte - and no one heard Don Juan’s dying cry in the hall of the Bolshoi Theater. Not clearly didn't hear, didn't hear at all.
Don't believe me? I didn’t believe myself - and rushed to ask people. Of about a dozen acquaintances who visited Don Juan, only two did not say that it was difficult to hear. I was touched by the report from the box adjacent to the director's: while sitting, a man heard the singers but did not hear the orchestra; standing - vice versa. No, I didn’t imagine it: the sound was really bad - and that’s surprising. The corridors, staircases and living rooms - slippery, uncomfortable and hauntingly reminiscent of a hammam in a five-star Turkish hotel - did not surprise: why be surprised? A typical Luzhkov remake. The state of the acoustics was striking for two reasons. Firstly, the blow was unexpected: no one warned us. All the available music journalism covered both the gala concert of the opening of the Bolshoi and the premiere of “Ruslan”, but the abundant speeches of the general director of the theater Iksanov about the magical revival of former acoustics were not disputed in a single note. Secondly, the acoustics were handled by Müller-BBM, which has dozens of high-profile projects under its belt. She recently did, for example, two of the three main halls of Salzburg, including the most difficult hall of the Felsenreitschule - and you can hear everything there perfectly. How do these two indisputable facts combine with the full hall of cotton wool given to us in the sensation of Don Juan? I tried to figure it out: I talked to whoever I could, I asked my friends about the same thing - and this is what has turned out so far.
A prominent BT employee brought me simple consolation: the problem was not with the theater’s acoustics. This Milanese “Don Giovanni” is acoustically unfavorable for such a large stage: there is a lot of empty space, the sound is not good
On October 28, the grand opening of the historical stage of the Bolshoi Theater will take place after a lengthy reconstruction.
The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow opened on January 18 (6th according to the old style) 1825.
Over the long history of the Bolshoi Theater, construction, repair, restoration, redevelopment and other work were carried out in the building many times. In 1894, due to repairs, the theater was closed for a year. A large decoration warehouse was added to the northern façade of the building, and the foundations under the outer walls, in which cracks began to appear (due to the Neglinka River, hidden in a pipe, and other drainage work), were strengthened.
In 1921, a thorough examination revealed the emergency condition of the theater building. The wall, erected in 1855 on soft sandy soil, gave rise to significant settlement. There was a danger of complete destruction of the auditorium. At the end of August 1921, emergency repair work began, which was carried out in emergency mode - around the clock, without disrupting the normal work of the theater. In the summer of 1923, work on laying the foundations for two semi-circular walls of the auditorium was completed; construction work continued until 1929. As a result, the theater building was saved from destruction, however, due to numerous alterations and an unprofessional approach to a number of restoration issues, irreparable damage was caused to both the monument itself and its unique acoustics.
In 1938, in a short period of time (5.5 months), large-scale work was carried out in the Bolshoi stage area, which included the replacement of engineering structures (walls, ceilings, etc.). After reconstruction, the area of the theater's main stage increased significantly.
On October 28, 1941, the theater was hit by a 500-kilogram bomb, which penetrated the façade wall and exploded in the lobby. Significant damage to the main facade, vestibule, foyer, and auditorium was repaired in 1942-1943 (headed by architect Alexander Velikanov). Under the direction of artist Pavel Korin, the painting of the ceiling was restored.
In 1958, the first major restoration of the building was carried out. At the same time, the theater was equipped with an air conditioning system.
Stages of modern reconstruction
In 1993, by decree of the government of the Russian Federation and decree of the government of Moscow, a number of adjacent buildings and plots were transferred to the Bolshoi Theater, which determined the concept of development of the Bolshoi Theater. The project for the reconstruction of these quarters (the so-called first stage) was developed in workshop No. 14 of Mosproekt-2. This includes: branch building, auxiliary, engineering. art and production building.
In 2004, on behalf of the Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration, FAKK Technointorg held a tender for the general contractor of the second stage. The Yugoslav company Napred won with a contract worth $250 million. However, Napred soon refused to carry out the work and the directorate entered into a general contract with SUIproekt CJSC with a contract worth $430 million.
The winner of the competition to select a supplier of technical equipment was the German Bosch Rexroth AG.
On February 17, 2005, at an off-site meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Main State Expertise of Russia, which took place on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, the reconstruction project of the main building of the Bolshoi Theater was almost unanimously approved.
In April 2006, the Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation supported the proposal of Roskultura to replace the bas-reliefs of the State Emblem of the USSR with bas-reliefs of the historical coat of arms of Russia from 1856 during the reconstruction of the State Bolshoi Theater of Russia. It was decided to replace them on the façade of the building, above the central royal box. The coats of arms of the USSR will be sent to museum storage.
By the spring of 2006, it became clear that the amount of work was much greater than expected and the deadline for completing the reconstruction (March 2008 - the launch of the troupe into rehearsal rooms, autumn 2008 - the beginning of the spectator season) could not be met. It was then assumed that the Bolshoi Theater would open in 2009, but in the summer of 2008 the deadlines were pushed back again.
On November 27, 2008, at a closed briefing, Russian Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev announced that the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater would be completed by the end of 2010 - beginning of 2011. According to him, the delay in construction was due to four reasons. Among them, the minister named the weak project manager, the ineffective interaction scheme between the firms participating in the project and their weak coordination, as well as the lack of interaction with the Moscow government and the different speed of execution of various types of work.
Yakov Sarkisov was appointed as the new project manager.
In May 2009, by order of the President of the Russian Federation, an Interdepartmental Working Group was created on the implementation of the second stage of reconstruction, restoration and technical equipment of the Bolshoi Theater complex of buildings. The functions of the group are control over the implementation of second-stage activities, consideration of proposals from the state customer - the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation on changes in the volumes, timing of allocation, directions and procedure for spending funds allocated from the budget.
On November 18, the press service of the general contractor of the project, the SUIproekt company, announced the completion of the restoration of eight columns of the main facade of the Bolshoi Theater. As part of the work on the external improvement of the building, the builders also completed the restoration of the southern facade of the building and carried out waterproofing work on the side of Shchepkinsky Proezd and Teatralnaya Square.
In the historical part of the building, the installation and painting of the copper roof has been completed, and window units have been installed.
On December 1, it became known that the general contractor for the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater, ZAO SUIproekt, and the designer, Kurortproektservis, have created a joint working group that will operate directly on the construction site. The working group is designed to speed up the adoption of all decisions related to the ongoing work.
On February 2, 2010, the Bolshoi Theater opened its doors to the public for the first time since 2005, when its reconstruction began. In the first of the restored halls, the Choir Hall. The concert program was composed of works by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dargomyzhsky, Verdi and Puccini. The Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Avdeev, the head of the Bolshoi Theater Board of Trustees, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, members of the board of trustees in full, and the Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov came to listen to them.
On February 2, the press secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Natalya Uvarova, announced that the head of the Federal State Institution “Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration,” which is the customer and developer of the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Yakov Sarkisov, was relieved of his post at his own request. For his part, the Minister of Culture RF Alexander Avdeev "Sarkisov's activities, his professional and organizational qualities as head of the directorate."
On August 22, copies of sculptures of the muses Erato (muse of lyric poetry) and Terpsichore (muse of dance), destroyed by an aerial bomb in 1941,. The height of the restored figures of the muses reaches 3.5 meters, and the weight of each of them is more than two tons. Each sculpture consists of 7 plaster elements. Parts of the sculptures were strung on a metal frame that had been preserved from the 19th century.
Previously, a picturesque rising canvas “The Entry of Minin and Pozharsky into Moscow” was installed in the theater.
On October 2, a special show of the renovated building was held for builders, and on October 24, the results of the reconstruction were demonstrated to journalists.
On October 28, the Bolshoi Theater, after a six-year reconstruction, will open the main stage with a festive concert, which will be broadcast to everyone on Theater Square. The first production after the reconstruction of the historical stage of the theater.
At various stages of reconstruction, scandalous situations constantly arose, including in September 2009, regarding the fact that funds allocated for the restoration of the theater were unreasonably spent.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources.
Restored from a miraculously preserved example found in the director's box. Previously, the entire floor of the theater was covered with such a mosaic - very difficult to repair, made in the 19th century from limestone, in the middle of the 20th century it fell into disrepair, so they decided to get rid of it. The current one consists of twelve types of granite.
Metlakh tiles
Thanks to the fact that signature Villeroy & Boch tiles were preserved in the stairwells of the foyer, the restorers only had to order the missing tiles from the same factory in the German city of Mettlach where they were manufactured in the 19th century.
Muses
The sculptures on the façade of the theater roughly replicate those that decorated it at the end of the 19th century. In Soviet times, there were plaster muses here made by sculptors Rukavishnikov and Koltsov.
1. Hall
The acoustics, which were almost completely destroyed in the 20th century, have been restored. The sound is now provided by: an air cushion under the auditorium (it was filled with cement during the construction of the metro), panels made of resonant spruce, which in Soviet times were almost completely replaced with plywood, furniture upholstery and papier-mâché stucco. Papier-mâché was brewed according to an archival recipe in old vats discovered in one of the Altai factories.
2. Furniture
There are fewer chairs in the auditorium - instead of 2185 there are now 1740, as there were at the end of the 19th century. The design of the chairs is identical to the previous ones; the upholstery is impregnated with a special composition necessary for proper acoustics. Each individual chair underwent acoustic testing. In addition, several mobile rows appeared in the hall, transforming into places for the disabled.
3. Orchestra pit
Instead of 100 musicians, it now accommodates 137. Depending on the needs of the orchestra, the size of the pit can increase or decrease, and it is now possible to seat the musicians level with the auditorium.
4. Curtain
The main curtain, created according to the sketches of the main artist of the Bolshoi Theater until the 50s, Fedorovsky, has been restored. The main curtain, also known as the Golden Curtain, is woven in Italy from a tapestry imitating silk using gold threads. Instead of Soviet symbols, the word “Russia” is now embroidered on it. Opens up, sideways and diagonally. The second curtain, “The Entry of Minin and Pozharsky into Moscow,” is a copy of the one that appeared in the Bolshoi Theater after the fire in 1856. The fabric for it was woven in the Penza region by craftswomen of the Sursky technical cloth factory.
5. Imperial Foyer
The Great Hall of the Imperial Foyer is the former Beethoven foyer, famous for its silk wall panels made for the coronation of Nicholas II. Starting from the 1920s, the panels gradually fell into disrepair: first, the coats of arms of the Russian Empire woven with wool were cut out of them with scissors, and in the 70s, the fabrics were dry-cleaned, after which they finally deteriorated. The panels were restored for several years on jacquard hand looms, made according to the model of the last century in the Moscow scientific and restoration workshop “Antique Fabrics”.
6. Main foyer
The bright paintings on the ceiling and walls have been restored, and the vases that disappeared from the balustrades of the hall in Soviet times have been recreated. The foyer was opened for the coronation of Nicholas II, and initially this hall was one of the most elegant in the theater. Everything changed after the capital moved from Petrograd to Moscow - the Bolshoi Theater became the main platform for political congresses and performances. The constant congestion of the hall prevented the restorers from making a full renovation, and it all ended with the mirrors framed in gold leaf being removed, and the pink marble paintings and colored ceiling being painted over with white paint. After this, the foyer was called White for many years.
7. Underground hall
The new space for 300 people, consisting of three mobile platforms, can be lowered or raised, and the platforms can be formed into an amphitheater or concert hall. It will be used for performances, concerts, receptions and rehearsals. The beautiful glass houses that appeared on the square between the fountain and the theater are the exits from this hall.
8. Buffet
The buffets are now located on the minus first level, where a new transformable hall for 300 people has appeared, and on the 4th tier - in a huge space from window to window. Previously, there was a small square foyer, flanked by ballet halls. They say that ballerinas in tutus sometimes ran into the buffet. The buffets have wheelchair ramps. It is not yet clear what they will be fed.
The broadcast of the opening ceremony can be seen on October 28 at 19.00 on the Rossiya channel on TV or ontheater channel on YouTube There are no tickets for performances taking place on the Main Stage until the end of the year.
Restoration of the Bolshoi Theater
In recent years, the theater has been going through hard times and there was a time when the very existence of the building in its current form was in question. It was very interesting to find out how things are going with the reconstruction and restoration of the theater premises, so I tried to get there several times. Finally, I succeeded - the VTB press service invited me on a tour.
The structures of the Bolshoi Theater (walls, foundations, ceilings) at all stages of its construction and expansion always contained elements of old buildings. The first Old Petrovsky Theater (1780) has large fragments of the previous building on Petrovka. The Bolshoi Petrovsky Theater of Osip Bove (1825) in the stage part and other places included the structures of the walls of the Old Petrovsky Theater.
From the press release:
Over the entire design period, 9 options for the restoration and reconstruction project of the Bolshoi Theater were considered: from trivial major repairs to complete reconstruction of the existing building. As a result, a project was chosen that was approved by the theater troupe, cultural figures, architects, etc.The project included: carrying out a scientific restoration of the spectator part of the theater and a radical reconstruction of the stage part with deepening of the underground space. At the same time, the historical appearance of the building as an architectural monument is preserved.
In accordance with the design assignment and the decision of the Methodological Council of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation dated 02/05/2004, the main building of the Bolshoi Theater must retain its island position and familiar historical appearance. Serious volumetric superstructures and extensions to the building are excluded. Only reconstruction of the northern facade is allowed. The passage along Kopyevsky Lane between the northern facade of the main building and the S.A. House is being restored. Khomyakova. The main entrance to the building is preserved through the front colonnade from the Teatralnaya Square side. The service entrance is located in the Auxiliary building.
Before reconstruction, the area of the main building was 30,366 sq.m. After reconstruction it will be increased by 42,454 sq. m. m and will be 72.830 sq.m. During the reconstruction process, the area of the service building was increased from 3992 sq.m. up to 6705 sq.m. The theater buildings will be connected by four underground corridors, the area of which will be 380 sq.m., for this purpose 100 sq.m. of auxiliary and 100 sq.m. m of engineering buildings.
The main theater building has the following dimensions:
- ground part 117.45x62.30 m, including portico, floor height - 2.91 - 3.02 m;
- underground part 151.72x77.72 m, floor height 2.80; 3.30 and 3.60 m.Now about 3,000 people work on the construction site every day, 950 of them are restorers. Monitoring the progress of work is carried out on the basis of daily reports submitted by the general contractor on the implementation of monthly and daily work schedules.
This is not a factory floor, this is the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. A wall in front separates the stage and the auditorium. A new fire curtain will then be installed at this location, which will be lowered after the end of the performance.
I photographed this place near the stage on purpose - the assembly teams were divided into two sides: left and right. This is the place for our side, here we stood before the change of scenery during the performance. Now everything is different here - even the walls are new.
Stage space from above. The stage surface is approximately the middle of the total height of the room - 20.5 meters above the stage, 24 meters below it. Previously, I remember, six floors with different structures fit under the stage.
The stage part of the theater will be equipped with modern technical equipment. Covent Garden in London, the Grand Opera and Opera Bastille in Paris, Carlo Felice in Genoa, La Scala in Milan, San Carlo in Naples, and the theater center were taken as analogues of the organization of stage technology in Tokyo.
The bells, which previously stood at the bottom, were raised to the very top. The ringing of bells in “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” made me shiver. The largest bell weighs 6.4 tons, the smallest - 8.7 kg.
Over the years of the theater's existence, this plaster stucco in the side lobbies and circular corridors was redone many times - the compositions often consist of pieces from very different times.
Instead of the old creaky parquet floors laid in Soviet times, the original stone floor, made using the Venetian mosaic technique of the 19th century, has been restored. They managed to recreate her drawing based on a single fragment found in the director’s box. Eleven types of marble of different shades of the color palette were used to recreate the pattern.
The underground rehearsal and concert hall is one of the theater's new premises. It goes beyond the main building and ends where there is a square with a fountain at the top.
White foyer above the entrance to the theater (16 in the diagram above). An air bomb hit here in 1941 during an air raid. The foyer interior has been restored as it was in 1856. On the walls and ceiling there is painting using the grisaille technique: it is done in different shades of the same color and creates the impression of convex stucco images. Large mirrors appeared again - with their help, Kavos increased the visual volume of the room. Instead of one chandelier with glass balls, three crystal ones appeared.
Those parts that could be restored and preserved are left in their places - like this lock on the door.
The Great Hall of the Imperial Foyer. Now it is called Beethoven's. In Soviet times, party meetings of the theater staff were held here, and Galina Vishnevskaya was expelled from the party here. At the far end of the hall, on the right, is the door to the box that Stalin used. As a big lover of opera, he could come to the theater to listen to only one, his favorite, aria. A semicircular concrete wall was built in the box, which reliably sheltered the leader from the spectators in the hall. In the theater they talked about a special chair on which the short Stalin sat - at the bottom there was a step for his legs so that they would not hang in the air.
Before the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II in 1895, unique silk fabrics were ordered from France in order to decorate the halls of the Imperial Foyer for the celebrations. French craftsmen wove satin fabric the color of “hot cast iron” for the upholstery of the hall and 12 silk panels embroidered with multi-colored wool. The pattern on the walls is a composition of floral patterns combined with architectural details and elements, in which the craftsmen also included the coats of arms of the Russian Empire and the monogram of the last Emperor of Russia.
The unique panels suffered greatly during this time - monograms and coats of arms were cut out with scissors in Soviet times, the fabric constantly suffered during repairs and painting, and in the 70s it was decided to dry clean the panels, which caused irreparable damage to the structure of the canvas.
The panel was restored literally thread by thread over the course of three years. To do this, we had to create special tools and brushes to then manually clean every millimeter of the fabric from dirt. As a result, every thread of the artistic canvas was renewed, and specialists recreated the lost threads from materials identical to those used in 1895.
From archival materials it is known that the stucco work in the interiors of the Great Imperial Foyer was carried out by the sculpture workshop of M.D. Kutyrina. The surviving contract contains a detailed description of these works:
“... in 2 lunettes of the Imperial Grand Royal Foyer, place a laurel festoon on the transverse walls along the oval of the vault, separate the middle of the lunettes with the same festoon and place moldings in the middle of the lunettes in the form of a cartouche with the initial of their Imperial Majesties, a crown and ornaments.”
The choir hall has also been recreated as it was in 1856.
The fact that you are in the auditorium of the Bolshoi becomes clear only when you raise your head and see familiar figures on the ceiling. Here everything is in scaffolding, work is underway on gilding the stucco of the tiers, and in the center they are preparing to assemble the beauty and pride - a large crystal chandelier.
For the first time I saw these Atlanteans without covering. They, it turns out, are made of papier-mâché - this is required by the acoustics of the hall, which before perestroika in Soviet times was famous for it throughout the world.
Since its opening in 1856, the acoustics of the Bolshoi Theater have been directly related to the wooden structures and the decoration of the hall with resonant spruce panels. According to the plan of the architect Albert Kavos, who erected the theater building after the fire of 1853, the auditorium was built according to the principle of a musical instrument: wooden floors, wooden wall panels, wooden ceilings.
To improve the resonance, the architect even made adjustments to the instructions, according to which all work on the creation of theaters was to be carried out. Instead of making an iron ceiling according to these instructions, Kavos chose wood to avoid the excessive resonance inherent in metal. The original design of the ceiling-deck, made of rectangular wooden panels, and the cladding of stone walls with wood contributed to a significant improvement in the acoustics of the Auditorium. The room began to resemble a huge instrument, made according to all the rules of musical science.
In order to hold large official events in the Bolshoi hall, it was rebuilt in the 1920s to increase the number of seats for spectators. Along with this, a large amount of the resonant spruce lining was lost, which led to a deterioration in sound quality. Now everything is being restored according to the previous scheme developed by Kavos.
On the scaffolding installed along the balconies of the tiers, painstaking work is underway to gild the papier-mâché decor. Over the next 150 years, up to 5-6 layers of gilding, made using other techniques, were applied to the gold layer that covered the decor. This was largely due to the fact that previous restoration work was often carried out without following the technological cycle. In some places, gilding was even imitated with powder based on a copper alloy diluted with varnish. Restoration work carried out during Soviet times was carried out without clearing the previous layers of gilding over the newly applied layers of gesso. All this spoiled the original gilding layer and led to distortion of the decorative relief.
During one of my walks around Rome a couple of years ago, I watched a master gilding antiques at work. In the Bolshoi, everything happens in a similar way - only craftsmen apply the decor using the “gold for polyment” method (polyment is a special handmade primer made from fine red clay and protein). This type of gilding, also called “Russian,” was practically lost during Soviet times. Masters proficient in this unique ancient technology had to be gathered literally throughout the country.
Gilding uses very thin and light gold. When gilding large smooth surfaces, gold is applied from a booklet in whole sheets. When gilding a relief surface, the gold is “blown” out of the book onto a special suede cushion and cut into separate pieces with a special gold knife.
When you first touch it, the gold sticks to your fingers. Therefore, a special tool is used - a lampemsel (a fan-shaped brush made from a squirrel tail). Before taking the gold onto the lampemsel, fan it over the oil plate two or three times so that a slight greasy coating appears on it. After this, the fan is applied to a sheet of gold and transferred to the place where the gilding should be.
From the fan, the gold sticks to the polyment soaked in vodka. Vodka slightly dissolves the glue contained in the polyment, draws in the leaf, and then evaporates. The gold sheet becomes one with the polyment, and the unevenness can no longer be corrected. Therefore, the sheets should lie without wrinkles, one on top of the other with an overlap of a few millimeters. The gold leaves are carefully “stuck” with a short squirrel brush, especially in the recessed areas.
Gold polishing is carried out 2-3 hours after gilding. Places of gilding are smoothed to a shine with agate or carnelian - a well-polished stone in the shape of a spatula from one to three centimeters wide. This is done in order to give the gold a bright shine.
Previously, gold was polished with bear, boar or wolf fangs, so the classic form of the chisel (a tool made of agate or carnelian in the shape of hooks) resembles a fang. The agates are inserted into metal tubes and placed on cuttings about a finger thick, somewhat longer than a pencil. When polishing, gently pressing on an agate spatula smoothes out small defects on gold leaf.
This is what the auditorium looks like from the top tier now.
While I was being taken around the theater, specialists were preparing to test the recently restored and reassembled Main Chandelier that illuminates the auditorium.
The diameter of this three-tier structure is 6.5 meters and the height is 8.5 meters. The weight of the steel frame with brass elements is about 1860 kg. Together with the crystal elements, the chandelier weighs about 2.3 tons.
To decorate the chandelier in 1863, 15 thousand crystal pendants were made, weighing more than 260 kg. However, during operation, a significant part of the crystal decoration was damaged and lost. When the restoration of the chandelier began in 2006, out of 24 thousand crystal elements, restorers had to restore more than 13.5 thousand parts.
During the restoration of the frame, the remaining gilding had to be completely cleared and reapplied.
In the 19th century, the chandelier was gas - the design still retains the tubes and valves.
Specialists were preparing for dynamic and weight tests of various elements of the chandelier.
The decoration of the theater's façade, the quadriga of Apollo, was also damaged by a bomb in 1941. During an examination in 2007, numerous cracks, dents, and copper patches were discovered on the surfaces of the sculptures. Restoration of the sculptural group began in the fall of 2009 immediately after the theater building was installed on a new foundation.
First of all, the podium structures were restored, the brickwork was reconstructed in the places where the beams support, and work was done to protect the surfaces of the sculptural compositions from corrosion. In February 2010, restorers began work on restoring the sculptural group. Two months later, the lost details were returned to the figure of the ancient god (including that same fig leaf).
After restoring the sculpture of Apollo, the craftsmen carried out the restoration of the chariot, horse figures and supporting attachment points for the sculptures. The updated quadriga is covered with several layers of a special protective composition.
Things were also very sad with the famous columns of the theater façade. They are made of limestone and, to protect the stone from moisture, they were placed on birch bark pads. The birch bark decayed over time and moisture from the ground began to penetrate into the stone of the columns.
Large black spots began to appear from the salt protruding to the surface (they are clearly visible in old photographs of the theater building). Restorers had to try to restore the stone to its original state by desalting it.
Restorers began cleaning the white stone at the end of March 2010. To reduce salts, special compositions of cellulose and clay were applied to the surface of the columns, wrapped in film for one and a half to two weeks - they made such unique compresses. The condition of the limestone will now be constantly monitored.
The floor lamps were also remade and were also badly damaged. The study, by the way, showed that most of them were inaccurate copies of the original Kavos lanterns.
