Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra

The orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg is nearly twice as old as the theater itself, which dates from 1860. It dates itself from 1729, when the Imperial Court of the Tsars issued a proclamation establishing an orchestra. […]

The site of the Imperial Opera […] was clearly outmoded by the middle of the nineteenth century and was replaced by a new edifice, the magnificent Mariinsky Theater, which opened in 1860. […]

Almost immediately, one of the great names in Russian musical history arrived to take charge of it and the opera: Edward Napravnik. Beginning as an assistant conductor on the opera staff in 1863, he rose to take charge of the theater for more than 50 years. Under his rule, all of Tchaikovsky's operas, most of Rimsky-Korsakov's, and the great Mussorgsky operas Boris Godunov and Khovanschina received their premieres on the Mariinsky stage. Napravnik was open to all the important developments of European music, and the Mariinsky was one of the first places outside Germany where Wagner's four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelungen was played in its entirety.

Also under Napravnik the Imperial Ballet rose to world fame under its director and choreographer Marius Petipa. The orchestra thus played the original performances of Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

[…] In 1935, following the assassination of popular local Party leader S. M. Kirov, the theater and its opera, ballet, and orchestra were renamed after him […].

Cultural exchange with the U.S.S.R. and the West beginning in the 1950s made the organization world-famous […]. It saw the premieres of such important works as Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk and Prokofiev's War and Peace and Cinderella. During World War II, the company was evacuated before the German blockade of the city.

While many important conductors appeared, standards declined in comparison with Moscow's Bolshoi Theater and the Leningrad Philharmonic. This situation has been entirely reversed by the reigns of two strong head conductors, Yuri Temirkanov (1976-1988) and Valery Gergiev (1988 to present). […] Gergiev has established concert series and his orchestra now rivals the Philharmonic, and the opera and ballet has similarly risen to the level of the Moscow Bolshoi.

Following the end of the Communist State, the Kirov Theater reverted to its original name and the orchestra is now also called the Mariinsky […]. AllMusic