Acoustics of the Bolshoi Theater before restoration. Good rumors about the big theater

Musical clarity, time of arrival of the first and energy of lateral reflections, volume, level of sound absorption... Only experts know by what criteria the acoustics of a concert or theater hall are assessed, and how difficult it is to achieve excellent sound. Disputes continue about the acoustics of the Bolshoi Theater after restoration. Today they held an exclusive “acoustic” excursion for journalists so that they could study this difficult issue in all its intricacies. They tell.

Acoustics is a delicate matter. Chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theater Vasily Sinaisky formulates even more sharply.

“Acoustics itself is an ephemeral and abstract concept,” he says.

As ephemeral and abstract as a Stradivarius violin. In the hands of a master, it sings, but can make anti-musical sounds if it comes into the hands of an unskilled violinist.

Specialists from Germany worked on the acoustics of the Bolshoi. Jürgen Reinhold said that they sought to bring the situation as close as possible to the original one created by Albert Kavos. The concrete pad under the auditorium floor was removed and the hollow space was restored. We increased the slope of the floor in the stalls and increased the size of the orchestra pit. And the stucco molding was made from papier-mâché, a somewhat unexpected material, but favorable for good sound. For engineers, acoustic quality is expressed in numbers. The most important parameter is the reverberation time - the duration of the echo.

"Before the restoration, in an empty hall with massive scenery of Boris Godunov, the reverberation time was 1.35 seconds. In 2012, in the same scenery, it increased to one and a half seconds. Yesterday we measured with the light scenery of Swan Lake, the reverberation time was 1.6 "For a historical theatre, these are very good figures. For comparison, La Scala in a similar situation would have received only 1.2 seconds," explains Jürgen Reinhold.

At first, musicians and listeners had complaints about the acoustics, but recently they have improved. The musicians adapted to the new sound situation.

“The orchestra and I held several special meetings, we seated the orchestra in different ways. Now after debate, reflection, reasoning... Although each opera has different styles, it requires its own acoustics, its own seating of the orchestra,” notes Vasily Sinaisky.

That is why the orchestra pit can be raised entirely or in parts. It is better to raise a light Mozart orchestra, and place a powerful Wagner orchestra deeper in the pit.

And finally, a piece of advice for viewers. If you can afford a stall ticket, try to avoid the front row on the trombones side. You may not hear the soloist.But holders of tickets to the gallery itself will not lose. But they should stock up on field binoculars.

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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.

The interior of one of the symbols of Russia - the Bolshoi Theater - is “dressed” in gold leaf TM “Raritet”. In 2012, the restoration of the interior of the Bolshoi Theater was completed, which became a colossal world-class project.

The history of reconstruction and restoration of the Bolshoi Theater building began almost from the first years of its existence. By the time the current reconstruction began, the deterioration of the building ranged from 50 to 70 percent, according to various estimates. Various options for its restoration have been proposed: 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, architects, cultural figures, etc. The project included 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 had to be preserved.

Restoration

The historical building of the Bolshoi Theater has been closed for reconstruction since July 2, 2005.
In the first years of the project, a thorough study of the building itself took place, scanning its position in space, the condition of its walls and foundations. And only in the fall of 2009, after numerous preparatory works, the huge and badly worn-out building of the Bolshoi Theater was moved from temporary supports to a permanent foundation, and large-scale restoration began in the theater. Over the next two years, a record amount of work was completed to restore and reconstruct the theater. Every day, over three and a half thousand professionals worked in the building, about a thousand of them were restorers. And another thousand specialists worked for the benefit of the Bolshoi in restoration workshops outside the theater.
Another equally important task was the need to combine strictly scientific restoration in the historical area and the installation of the most modern technological equipment in the stage part and new spaces of the theater.
Thanks to the restoration, the Bolshoi Theater has largely restored its historical appearance, lost during the years of Soviet power. The auditorium and part of its enfilade acquired the appearance in which the architect of the Bolshoi Theater, Albert Kavos, conceived them. The halls of the former imperial foyer were restored as they were in 1895, when their interiors were changed during preparation for the festivities that accompanied the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II. For each interior element being recreated or restored, a special project was created, and separate documentation was developed based on the results of numerous archival and field studies.
In 2010, the enfilade of the auditorium was restored: the Main Entrance Hall, the White Foyer, the Choir Hall, the Exhibition Hall, the Round Hall and the Beethoven Hall. Muscovites saw the restored facades and the updated symbol of the Bolshoi Theater - the famous quadriga of Apollo, created by the sculptor Pyotr Klodt.
The auditorium regained its original beauty. And now every viewer of the Bolshoi Theater can feel like a theatergoer of the 19th century and be amazed by its magnificent and at the same time “light” decoration. The bright crimson draperies of the interiors of the boxes strewn with gold, different plaster arabesques on each floor, a picturesque ceiling “Apollo and the Muses” - all this gives the auditorium the appearance of a fairy-tale palace.

Gilding of the Bolshoi Theater

Restoring the decor of the Bolshoi Theater auditorium turned out to be an extremely difficult job. After clearing the architectural decorations from later layers and inept reconstructions, the masters of the restoration bureau recreated the missing details using 17th-19th century technologies, and then applied polyment gilding technology.
Specialists from the restoration bureau of Vera Babich began work on restoring the decor of the auditorium of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia at the end of 2009. Restorers restored the papier-mâché stucco decoration in the auditorium.
In the restoration of the golden interiors of the Bolshoi Theater, gold leaf was used from TM "Raritet" - one of the reputable manufacturers of gold and silver leaf in the CIS. The restoration of the gilding has been completed, and the theater welcomes visitors in a shining golden atmosphere.

Stucco molding of the Bolshoi Theater after gilding

Recreating the legendary acoustics of the Bolshoi Theater directly depends on the form in which the decor is restored. Papier-mâché, like wood, has a cellulose base and does not burst from small deformations that are inevitable on the fencing of tiers in the theater, for example, when vibrating from the sounds of musical instruments and ovations that resonate with them. Restoring papier-mâché architectural decor in a large theater is a very complex procedure, which involves clearing and restoring lost parts of the decor using 18th-19th century technologies. The craftsmen working on the project had to remove six layers of paint to get to the very first author's layer! After clearing, restoration additions that distorted the original appearance of the stucco decorations were removed. Some elements lost during previous restorations were replaced with plaster inserts, which degraded the sound quality. They were carefully removed to reinstall the papier-mâché parts.
Each tier of the Bolshoi Theater has its own individual design. The lower the tier, the denser its relief, composed of elements inherent in the architecture of the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo styles.
The decoration of the auditorium uses antique motifs of acanthus leaf, rocaille, krtusha, and intricate interweaving of Byzantine ornaments. In addition, each rapport - a repeating decorative pattern - is distinguished by its originality. And the restoration of each lost fragment had to be approached individually, “remembering” and applying the secrets of manual techniques.
To restore the lost elements, special models were made, which were used to make papier-mâché castings. To do this, the required shape was “removed” from a piece of the author’s stucco decoration and a plaster model was made from this cast, and then a dense “finishing” mold was made for casting the decorative element. The restorers stuffed the finished papier-mâché composition into plaster molds and pressed them when the parts were dry, after which they adjusted the restored elements to match the historical decor and additionally polished the ornamented surface.