Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre

Begun in 1931 and opened in May 1945, the building is the largest theatre in Russia by volume, and its dome spans about sixty metres with a shell only a few centimetres thick relative to its span, carried without internal columns - an engineering solution unusual for the time and still cited. The original design was far stranger: a fully mechanised building for mass spectacle, with a stage that could take cars and horses, projection onto the dome, and audience movement built into the performances. That was abandoned in the later 1930s for a conventional theatre with a colonnaded front, and what was built is a compromise between the two. During the war the building stored evacuated collections from the Hermitage, the Tretyakov and other museums, which is why it opened only in 1945. The company performs opera and ballet, and the auditorium seats around fifteen hundred.

What you actually see

• The dome - about sixty metres across, built as a thin shell without internal supports.
• The abandoned design - the mechanised mass-spectacle theatre that was never completed.
• The wartime store - evacuated Hermitage and Tretyakov collections kept here until 1945.
• The colonnade - the classical front applied over the original constructivist scheme.

When to go

The season runs September to June. An evening for a performance; tours run in the day and need booking.

Honest expectations

Tours are limited and mostly in Russian. The auditorium is large and the cheapest seats are far from the stage. Novosibirsk winters are severe, and the square outside is exposed. Ticket prices are well below the capitals, which is one good reason to go.

Nearby

Lenin square and the local history museum are outside; Akademgorodok is half an hour south.