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On March 17, 1776 Prince Petr Urusov was granted the government's privilege for keeping a permanent company in Moscow with the obligation to build a theatre which might serve as the city's adornment and in which opera, ballet and drama performances and also masquerades could be held. The date when this privilege was granted is regarded as the day of foundation of a professional theatre in Moscow and of the nascence of its company. It was quite small at the beginning - just 13 actors and nine actresses, four female dancers, three male dancers with a choreographer and 13 musicians. The same actors appeared in the plays, operas and ballets.

On the day of its opening - December 30, 1780 - the audience attended the opening ceremony was shown a performance which included the allegoric prologue "Pilgrims" and the pantomime ballet "Magic School". In the afternoon of October 8, 1805 the Petrovski Theatre was burned down - "due to the costumer's negligence who had left two burning candles in the costume room after he left it".

"It seems as if the Petrovski Theatre had never existed", S. Zhikharev, a Moscow theatre lover wrote in his diary, "there is nothing in its place but charred walls." For the two decades that followed, Muses never visited the Neglinka river banks. However, the company went on with its work performing on the stages of private Moscow houses.
The Bolshoi Petrovski Theatre was opened in a solemn ceremony on January 6, 1825. The spectators who arrived there in the evening were amazed by the noble architectural design and its realization, by the unprecedented dimensions of the building and the beauty of the auditorium decor.

The writer Sergei Aksakov wrote later: "The Bolshoi Petrovski Theatre which has risen from the old charred debris ... stunned me and I admired it... The magnificent great building, devoted exclusively to my favourite art made me happy and I was agitated even by the sight of it...". Before the play began the audience made Osip Bovais step onto the stage and greeted him with applause.

On the day of the theatre's opening the actors performed the prologue "The Triumph of Muses" (music by A. Alyabiev and A. Verstovski), an allegory which showed how Russia's Genius with the help of Muses created a temple of art - the Bolshoi Petrovski Theatre from the ashes of the old one. The company's best actors took part in the prologue: Russia's Genous was impersonated by the famous tragic actor Pavel Mochalov, the god of the arts Apollo - by the singer Nikolai Lavrov, and Muse Terpsichore - by the leading dancer Felicite Virginie Gullen-Sore . Ferdinand Sore's ballet "Cinderella" was shown after an intermission. "The shining costumes and the beautiful scenery, in a word, the entire theatrical magnificence was combined here, just as in the prologue", V. Odoyevski, a musical critic, wrote. In order to make "all Moscovites equally happy" the theatre management decided to repeat the show on the next day.

In the cloudy frosty morning of March 11, 1853, fire broke out in the theatre for an unknown reason. The flames engulfed the entire building but the fire raged with special ferocity on the stage and in the auditorium. "The sight of that giant engulfed in flames was horrible", an eyewitness described it." While it was burning it seemed to us that a person near and dear to us was dying in front of us who had conveyed most beautiful thoughts and feelings to us...".

The Moscovites fought the flames for two days and on the third day the theatre looked much like the ruins of the Roman Colosseum. What had remained of the building smouldered during the week that followed. The fire had gutted the theatrical costumes, which had been collected since the late 18th century, the excellent scenery of its plays, the company's archives, a part of its music library and rare musical instruments.

On August 20, 1856 the Bolshoi Theatre, restored by A. Cabos, was opened in a ceremony, attended by the royal family and by the representatives of all states. On that night an Italian company performed V. Bellini's opera "The Puritans". The success of the Moscow ballet of that period was owing to the talent of Marius Petipat, who had taken residence in St. Petersburg. The choreographer visited Moscow several times to produce ballets there. L. Mincus' "Don Quixote" was the most significant of his Moscow productions, first shown in 1869. Later, Petipat transferred the ballet's Moscow version to the St. Petersburg stage.

Petr Tchaikovsky's music was of great importance for the development of performing culture. Tchaikovsky made his debut in opera music on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre by the opera "Voivode" (1869) and the ballet "Swan Lake" (1877). The full-fledged premiere of "Eugene Onegin" was held in the Bolshoi in 1881, although the opera was first shown in the Conservatory. Premiere of "Mazepa" was also held in the Bolshoi (1884) which is regarded as a peak of the composer's operatic creative activity; the final version of the opera "Blacksmith Vakula" was shown as "Cherevichki" (Shoes) in the Bolshoi in 1887. By the way, the first night of "Cherevichki" in the Bolshoi on January 19, 1887 was Tchaikovsky's debut as an operatic conductor. M. Musorgsky's "Boris Godunov", a popular drama, premiered by the Bolshoi on December 16, 1888, proved a memorable event in the theatre's history. N. Rimsky-Korsakov's "Snow Mlada" (1893) was the composer's first opera to be staged in the Bolshoi. It was followed by "The Night on Christmas Eve" (1889). Also in 1898, the Bolshoi premiered A. Borodin's opera "Prince Igor", and two years later ballet lovers could see A. Glazunov's "Raymonda". Along with its productions of Russian repertory, the best operas by foreign composers were staged by the Bolshoi Theatre, with G. Verdi's "Rigoletto", "Aida", "Traviata", C. Gounod's "Faust" and "Romeo and Juliet", J. Bizet's "Carmen", R. Wagner's "Tanhauser", "Walkyrie" and "Lohengrin", etc., added to those staged earlier.

The Bolshoi opera company of the late 19th-early 20th century included many outstanding singers, such as Eulalia Kadmina, Anton Bartsal, Pavel Khokhlov, Nadezhda Salina, Ivan Gryzunov, Margarita Gunova, Vasili Petrov, etc. The Bolshoi stage of those years saw the singers whose name soon became famous not only in Russia but also abroad, such as Leonid Sobinov, Fedor Chaliapine, Antonina Nezhdanova.

Sergey Rakhmaninoff, who proved to be a musician of genius as a conductor, performed with success in the Bolshoi. Rakhmaninoff improved the quality of Russian classical operatic music as performed in the theatre. And it was Rakhmaninoff's idea to move the conductor's stand where it is now, for in old times the conductor stood behind the orchestra facing the stage.

"Sleeping Beauty" was first shown in the Bolshoi in 1899. The production of this ballet, which asserted the happy combination of music and dancing in Russian Ballet ushered in an era of the fruitful work in Moscow of Alexander Gorski, a choreographer, librettist and teacher. He worked with a group of talented dancers, such as Yekaterina Geltser, Vera Karalli, Sofia Fedorova, Alexandra Balashova, Vasilii Tikhomirov, Mikhail Mordkin, composer and conductor Andrei Arende, etc. For the design of a new version of "Don Quixote" (1900), Gorski invited for the first time the young artistes Konstantin Korovin and Alexander Golovin who were to become great masters of theatrical painting in future. A. Arends' ballet "Salambo" (1910) became the peak of Gorski's career, for in it he attained the harmony of music and dancing, of the design and the production's literary basis.

The successful development of Moscow ballet became so obvious that many Petersburg master dancers sought to take part in Bolshoi productions. Matilda Kszesinska, Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Fokine, among others, often gave guest performances in Moscow, and in 1911 the Moscow company was invited to London for the production of a show as part of the celebration of Coronation of George the Fifth.

The 1917-1918 season was opened on November 21. The theatre was at that time managed by Leonid Sobinov, elected by the company's general meeting on March 9. In the days of the October Revolution the theatre was damaged - half of its window panes burst because of the thundering artillery. The windows were soon replaced. Life went on again but the actors pursued a wait-and-seat policy with respect to the new authorities. The season was opened in its usual procedure, but "Life for the Czar", "Boris Godunov" and a few other operas were dropped from the repertory. To make up for it, "Snow Mlada" and "Sadko" were again included in it. In line with the times, Glazunov's symphony poem "Stenka Razin" was turned into a ballet that was premiered in the next season. General dislocation made life difficult, the theatre lived through hard times but it continued operating in spite of the vicissitudes of life. In 1918, a studio guided by Konstantin Stanislavsky, was formed in the Bolshoi Theatre, and the principles of operatic direction were formulated there. It had became a tradition since 1919 to hold in the Bolshoi Theatre the sittings devoted to the celebration of revolution anniversaries, party congresses, and jubilee meeting devoted to events of national importance. That determined the status of the Bolshoi Theatre as the centre of national culture as a whole.

The 1920s were marked by the promotion of classical music, with some Soviet operas making their appearance, such as Zolotarev's "Decembrists", Vasilenko's "The Sun's Son" and Shishov's "Tupee Painter". In 1927 the Bolshoi premiered the first Soviet ballet, Glier's "Red Poppy", which starred Ekaterina Geltser.

In the 1930s new operas appeared in the Bolshoi repertory: Spendiarov's "Almast" and Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Uyezd". Bolshoi opera company included outstanding singers, such as Nezhdanova, Obukhova, Barsova, Derzhinskaya, Stepanova, Davydova, Maksakova, Kruglikova, Kozlovsky, Lemeshev, Nortsov, Baturin, Mikhailov. In the 1930s the Bolshoi ballet company was proud of such dancers as Semyonova, Messerer, Ulanova, Ermolayeva, Lepeshinskaya, Gabovich, Preobrazhensky, Kondratov. Their admirers used to wait all night long in order to buy a ticket for a show in which their idol sang or danced. "Khovanchtchina" was the last premiere, shown in the Bolshoin on February 13, 1941. And in the second half of the summer of 1941 Moscow looked quite stern. Anti-aircraft guns appeared on Sverdlov Square and barrage balloons were swaying on the ground.

The year of 1941 was very hard for the Bolshoi Theatre. On October 14, 1941 the government showed concern about its creative workers and artistic values by evacuating the Bolshoi personnel and their families to Kuibyshev (Samara). The Bolshoi building stood lifeless in Moscow...

Its personnel spent a total of 21 months far from Moscow. Initially only the concerts of its actors, the opera "Traviata" and the ballet "Swan Lake" were shown on the stage of the Kuibyshev Palace of Culture, and in late 1942 G. Rossini's opera "Wilhelm Tell", which won a State Prize, was premiered on November 8 and V. Yurovsky's ballet "Crimson Sails", on December 30.

In 1943, Bolshoi's nine operas and five ballets, not to speak of the numerous concerts, were performed in Kuibyshev.
On March 5, 1942 Dmitry Shostakovich's Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony was performed in Kuibyshev, for the first time in the country, by the Bolshoi orchestra under Samuil Samosud's baton. The symphony, composed by Shostakovich in the besieged Leningrad, has become a musical monument to the Great Patriotic War. "I devote my symphony to our victory over fascism, to our future victory over the enemy, to my native city Leningrad," the composer wrote.

The premiere of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was a memorable event in the musical life of our country and of the entire world. Subsequently, recollecting about those unforgettable days, the composer wrote in his address to the Bolshoi collective: The premiere of my symphony in Kuibyshev was a happy event for me... In the grim atmosphere of the first months of hostilities, the orchestra, the soloists and your remarkable conductor S. Samosud displayed great skill, a genuinely high degree of artistism".

Not all of the Bolshoi company had left for Kuibyshev, many of them had stayed on in Moscow. Under the government decision, that part of the company started performing in the building of the Bolshoi Branch in daytime. The performances were often interrupted by airraids, so the spectators had to retire to shelters, but after the all-clear signal, the performance went on. In those grim years the company produced quite new works, D. Kabalevsky's opera "On Fire" among them, which was the theatre's first response to the hostilities. It was premiered on the Bolshoi Branch stage on September 19, 1942.
On October 28, 1941 a German bomber, which had managed to reach Moscow, dropped a bomb on the Bolshoi Theatre, which exploded in its entrance hall. The theatre had no electricity - it looked dark, was enveloped in camouflage meshes and seemed to be dead. However, restoration and repair works were launched immediately in its unheated premises.

In July 1943 the Bolshoi company came back to Moscow. In fulfilment of their duty to the Motherland, its dancers and singers went on with their performances and concerts, thus contributing to the country's Defence Fund, for the construction of tanks and war planes. They gave their personal savings for gifts to be sent to Red Army men fighting at the front - they collected a total of 3300000 roubles for the purpose.

A total of 16 teams of Bolshoi actors went to the frontline for concerts - about 2000 concert in all. They also performed at agitation and military recruitment centres, at military registration and enlistment centres and hospitals. Bolshoi actors gave a total of 10,000 voluntary concerts in wartime.

Some of them who performed for frontline units near Moscow followed the army all the way from the Volga to Berlin.
On Victory Day - May 5, 1945 - the leading stars of the Bolshoi opera and ballet took part in the gala concert held on the steps of the smashed Reichstag.

The end of the hostilities was celebrated by the Bolshoi Theatre by the performance of S. Prokofiev's ballet "Cinderella" (choreographer R. Zakharov, designer P. Williams, conductor Yu. Faier). The title part was brilliantly performed by Olga Lepeshinskaya.

The year of 1946 saw the first night of one more Prokofiev's ballet, "Romeo and Juliet", produced by L. Lavrovsky, with a whole galaxy of performers such as G. Ulanova, M. Gabovich, S. Koren and A. Ermolayev.

The operas of B. Smetana's "The Sold Bride" (1948), S. Moniszko's "Halka" (1949), L. Janacek "Her Stepdaughter" (1958), F. Erkel's "Bank Ban" (1959) were the theatre's tribute to the classical heritage of the peoples of Czechoslavakia, Poland and Hungary.

New versions of classical Russian operas were produced, many of which have got a new scenic life, such as P. Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" (1944) and N. Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sadko" (B. Pokrovsky's version of 1949); M. Musorgsky's "Boris Godunov" (1943) and "Khovanchtchina" (1950, L. Baratov's production); N. Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh" (1983, producer R. Tikhomirov) and "The Golden Cockerel" (1988, producer G. Ansimov). In continuation of its work on what is the best in the Western heritage, the Bolshoi staged G. Verdi's operas "Aida" (1951), "Falstuff" (1962), D. Auber's "Fra Diavolo" (1955), L. Beethoven's "Fideglio" (1954), and somewhat later, the operas that are only rarely to be seen on the stage (which were produced in the Bolshoi for the first time ever) - G. Hendel's "Julius Cesar" (1979) and C. Gluck's "Iphigenie in Aulide (1983).

Search for new forms of choreography was typical of the following productions by the choreographers V. Vainonen (S. Vasilenko's "Myrandolina", 1949), L. Yakobson (F. Yarullin's "Shurale", 1955), V. Chabukiani (S. Krein's "Laurencia", 1959), I. Grigorovich (S. Prokofiev's "Stone Flower, 1959), O. Tarasova and A. Lapauri (S. Prokofiev's "Second Lieutenant Kizhe", 1963, starring Raisa Struchkova), K. Sergeyev (K. Karayev's "The Path of Thunder, 1959), K. Goleizovsky (S. Balasanyan's "Leili and Mecnun", 1964). Interesting creative solutions were the productions of the following ballets: N. Karentikov's "Heroic poem" (1964, N. Kasatkina and V. Vasiliev's choreography), K. Khachaturyan's "Cipollino" (19797, G. Mayorov's production), A. Schnitcke's "Sketches" (1985, A. Petrov's production).

The Bolshoi maintains close contacts with creative workers in various countries. The Czech conductor Zdenek Halabala took part in the production of V. Shebalin's opera "Taming of the Shrew" (1957), and the Bulgarian conductor Asen Naidenov took part in the production of G. Verdi's opera "Don Carlos" (1963). The German producers Ioachim Hertzi Erhard Fischer produced R. Wagner's operas "Phantom Ship" (1963) and G. Verdi' "Il Trovatore" (1972), and the La Scala designer Nicolai Benois painted the scenery of B. Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1965), G. Verdi's "A Masked Ball" (1979) and P. Tchaikovsky's "Mazepa" (1986). Cuban choreographer Alberta Alonso staged the ballet "Carmen-Suite, music by Rodion Shchedrin (1967) and the French choreographers Vera Boccaderot and Roland Petit produced the ballets of T. Khrennikov's "Love for Love" (1976) and M. Constant's "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1988).

The productions of B. Pokrovsky, who had devoted over half a century of his life to the Bolshoi Theatre, determine its musical, performing and producer image, with Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" (1972), Verdi's "Othello" (1978) and Prokofiev's "War and Peace" (1959), "Semyon Kotko" (1970) and "Gambler" (1974) serving as a model.

The gift of many outstanding singers was revealed in the productions of the postwar repertory: Sergei Lemeshev, Ivan Petrov, Mark Reizen, Pavel Lisitsian, Irina Arkhipova, Evgeny Nesterenko, Vladimir Atlantov, Alexei Krivchenya, Bella Rudenko, Tamara Milashkina, Alexander Ognivtsev, Zurab Sotkilava, Artur Eizen. Galina Vishnevskaya, Yuri Mazurok, Tamara Sinyavskaya, Makvala Kasrashvili, etc.

Yuri Grigorovich was the Bolshoi Theatre's chief choreographer within 30 years. His best productions include A. Melikov's "The Legend of Love" (1965), S. Prokofiev's "Ivan the Terrible" (1975), D. Shostakovich's "The Golden Age" (1982).
A. Khachaturyan's ballet "Spartacus" (1968) produced a veritable sensation and became a triumph for its producers Yu. Grigorovich S. Virsaladze and G. Rozhdestvensky and the dancers Vladimir Vasiliev, Mikhail Lavrovsky, Maris Liepa, Ekaterina Maksimova, Natalia Bessmertnova, Nina Timofeyeva and Svetlana Adyrkhayeva.

In the past few years the company's leading soloists have acted as choreographers. Vladimir Vasiliev, has asserted himself as a mature master choreographer and produced S. Slonimsky's ballet "Icarus" (1976), the dancing composition "Those Charming Sounds..." and the ballet "Macbeth", based on K. Molchanov's music (1980). The audiences gave a big hand to the premiere of V. Gavrilin's ballet "Anyuta" with Vasiliev's production and Ekaterina Maksimova in the title part.

In their work choreographers strive for generalisations and resort to the allegoric forms of poetic imagery. Maya Plisetskaya pursued exactly that line in her work on Rodion Shchedrin's ballets "Anna Karenina" (1972), "Seagull" (1980) and "The Lady with the Dog" (1985).

Outstanding achievements in dancing are associated with the names of Nina Sorokina, Lyudmila Semenyaka, Nadezhda Pavlova, Yuri Vladimirov, Boris Akimov, Vyacheslav Gordeyev, etc.

The Bolshoi orchestra is the pride of Russia's performing culture. Its performance is marked by faultless technique and the finest sense of ensemble. It involves first-class musicians, many of whom are winners of international competitions and teachers of musical institutions. The Bolshoi choir performance is highly successful and it forms an important element of any opera.

The history of modern theatrical decorative is are represented by works of such outstanding designer of the Bolshoi Theatre, as F. Fedorovsky, M. Kurilko, V. Dmitriyev, P. Williams, V. Ryndin, N. Zolotarev, S. Virsaladze and V. Levental.