“More Than Theater: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Bolshoi Theatre”
Museum of Contemporary Russian History
Moscow, Russia
November 1, 2026
by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf
The announcement of a large-scale exhibition to celebrate the Bolshoi Theatre’s 250th birthday made me reflect on the period from 1776 (when Empress Catherine the Great granted Prince Pyotr Urusov permission to establish a theater company in Moscow, the Bolshoi Theatre’s predecessor) to today, admittedly, a gigantic undertaking. But, after all, the Bolshoi is Russia’s most prestigious theater.
But the Museum of Contemporary Russian History’s exhibition More Than Theater takes a different approach. In collaboration with Moscow’s private MustART Gallery, the museum assigned sixteen contemporary Russian artists to “unravel the Bolshoi’s stage’s captivating and infinite mystery.” It is questionable whether the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations to which the theater added archived video performances achieved this goal. Many of the works show past and present artists, but the selection criteria remained unclear. I didn’t count the objects but had the impression that the ballet company was better represented than the opera company. Continue reading “Selective”
