State Sakaria Paliashvili Theater for Opera and Ballet
The State Sakaria Paliashvili Opera and Ballet Theater ( Georgian ზაქარია ფალიაშვილის სახელობის თბილისის ოპერისა და ბალეტის პროფესიული სახელმწიფო თეატრი ) is an opera house founded in 1851 in Rustavelis Gamsiri in Tbilisi . Since 1896 the theater has resided in a building with oriental architecture , which was built by Viktor Schröter . The opera house is one of the cultural centers of the city and was once the place of activity of the Georgian national composer Sakaria Paliashvili , after whom the house has been named since 1937. The theater is also the seat of the country's state ballet. National celebrations and the inauguration of the Georgian President are also celebrated here.
history
The foundation
The founding of the Tbilisi Imperial Opera is closely linked to the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801. In the first half of the 19th century, the region remained a scarcely integrated part of the tsarist empire. In 1832 Georgian nobles planned a plot against the Russian authorities, but it was exposed and met with imprisonment and repression for the population. To help cool the heated mood, the new Viceroy of the Caucasus, Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov , founded several cultural institutions, including the city's opera. The declared aim of the new opera house should be to contribute to the public good. But an important political goal was the integration of the Georgian aristocracy into the social life of the tsarist empire in order to prevent anti-Russian resentment and to win the Georgians for "the Russian cause".
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To accommodate the Georgians, Vorontsov also supported Georgian-language theater performances. The reason for this was also the Caucasus War . Not a few Russians saw Georgia as the last bulwark to defend the southern border of the empire. But Vorontsov's efforts were also viewed critically, and many Russians were not very pleased with the non-Russian contributions to the city's cultural development.
At Vorontsov's suggestion, the original theater was built on Rustavelis Gamsiri boulevard. The Tbilisi Governorate donated the building plot to the theater.
The theater was founded on April 15, 1847. The Italian architect Giovanni Scudieri , who had come to Tbilisi from Odessa , was supposed to oversee the project. The construction was completed in 1851. The interior of the theater was decorated by a Parisian interior designer with velvet, gold and silver decorations and expensive silk fabrics. A chandelier weighing 1218 kg provided magnificent lighting. The Russian painter Gregori Gagarin was responsible for the painting of the house. Vladimir Sollogub became the first director .
opening
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On April 12, 1851, the theater was inaugurated in the presence of the city's high society. Since the stage was not yet finished, a masked ball was organized to collect donations for the St. Nino Girls' School .
In October 1851 the French newspaper L'Illustration printed an article by Edmond de Bares with two pictures of the interior of the theater. The author enthused that it was "the only theater in the city, the interior of which is completely in the oriental style and it is without a doubt one of the most elegant, beautiful and fascinating theaters that have ever been created by a person."
In the spring of 1851 the director invited an Italian opera company that was touring the tsarist empire under the direction of Francisco Asenjo Barbieri . The Italians traveled from Novocherkassk , but fell ill while traveling through the Caucasus. When they arrived in Stavropol , they had grown so tired and impatient that they refused to travel any further to Tbilisi. It was difficult to persuade the group to drive on. Finally they arrived in Tbilisi on October 9, 1851 via the Georgian Army Road .
A month later, the theater opened its first season with Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti .
Fire and redevelopment
On October 11, 1874, shortly before the performance of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, a fire broke out. Even though the fire station was on the other side of the street, the firefighters reacted slowly and initially forgot the ladders. So the theater was completely destroyed, including the rich music library, the costumes, sets and props.
However, plans were quickly drawn up to rebuild the theater. While the theater business continued in other locations, an architecture competition was announced, which was won by the German-born architect Viktor Schröter from Saint Petersburg . The planning dragged on for a long time, however, as the Transcaucasian Governor General Michael Nikolayevich Romanov refused to bless the project until 1880. There were also several delays during construction, so that the theater could not reopen until 1896.
In the 20th century
In 1937 the theater was named after Sakaria Paliashvili, one of the most important Georgian composers. In the late 20th century, with the end of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the new state of Georgia, little money was left for the country's cultural institutions. In 1991 the house was used by paramilitary militias as a shelter and was damaged. The new governments paid little attention to the budget of the theater, which subsequently suffered from austerity measures. The situation only improved in the 2000s.
From 2010 to January 2016, the opera house was extensively renovated for around 40 million US dollars.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Austin Jersild: Orientalism and Empire: North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845-1917 . McGill-Queen's Press, p. 64
- ^ Donald Rayfield: Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia . Reaction Books, 2013, p. 286
- ^ Donald Rayfield: The Literature of Georgia: A History. Routledge , 2013, p. 151
- ↑ Michael David-Fox, Peter Holquist, Alexander Martin: Orientalism and Empire in Russia . Slavica, 2006, p. 305
- ↑ a b c d e f g Malkhaz Ebralidze: ru: Тбилисская опера - история создания ( ru ) In: Tbilisi Week . January 9, 2013. Archived from the original on February 15, 2015.
- ^ Andrew North: Tbilisi to reopen opera house that has survived tsars, Soviets and civil war , The Guardian , January 27, 2016 (English)
Coordinates: 41 ° 42 ′ 4.7 ″ N , 44 ° 47 ′ 46.2 ″ E