Tatar State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater named after Musa Jalil is one of the largest theaters in Russia. Located in the capital of Tatarstan - the city of Kazan.

Before 1917

The beginning of public theatrical performances in Kazan is officially dated to 1791. Initially, the performances were held in the gymnasium theater, which had a specially equipped hall for 400 seats. The theater's own building was erected in 1803 (a wooden theater on a stone foundation) on the site of the current theater building.

The fire of 1842 destroyed almost the entire city; information about the theater buildings of those years has hardly survived. The performances were held in private houses.

In 1845, the laying of the first stone building of the theater began. The new red brick building stood on the site of the current square on Freedom Square, which at that time was the Theater Square. The first performances began to be given in 1851. In Kazan, the formation of the opera business has deep roots: opera has always coexisted with drama and operetta. Visiting opera troupes always performed, mostly Italian.

But the constant operatic seasons began in the enterprise of P.M.Medvedev in 1874. On August 26, 1874, for the first time completely by the artists of the Kazan opera troupe, MI Glinka's opera “A Life for the Tsar” was given; this date is considered the date of the beginning of the regular opera seasons in Kazan.

On the night of December 4, 1874, the theater building burned down. The stationary building of the Kazan Theater, rebuilt in 1875 after a fire in 1874, existed on the site of the current square on Freedom Square until the fire in 1919, after which it was not restored.

Soviet period

In 1934, the Council of People's Commissars of the TASSR adopted a resolution on the creation of the Tatar State Opera Theater in Kazan (namely, an opera house, not an opera and ballet). On June 17, 1939, the theater was opened with Nazib Zhiganov's opera "Kachkyn". The theater did not have its own building, and performances were staged on the stages of other theaters. The construction of the building began in 1936 according to the project of the Moscow architect Skvortsov (according to other sources, the chief architect was Nikolai Kruglov, who was repressed in 1937). Later the Kazan architect Ismagil Gainutdinov made adjustments to the project.

In connection with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the construction of a new large theater building was delayed for 20 years and was completed using the labor of German prisoners of war only in the mid-1950s. On September 28, 1956, the new theater building on Freedom Square was solemnly opened with N. Zhiganov's opera "Altynchech". In the same year, the theater was named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Musa Jalil. Before the war, the famous Tatar poet, who died in Nazi captivity, was in charge of the literary part of the theater.

On February 10, 1941, in connection with the organization of a ballet collective at the Tatar State Opera House, the Council of People's Commissars of the Tatar ASSR adopted a resolution to change the name of the theater. It became known as the Opera and Ballet Theater.

In June 1957, the Tatar State Opera and Ballet Theater. M. Jalil took part in the Decade of Tatar Art and Literature in Moscow. The next trip to Moscow took place in July 1986. It was a big tour of the theater, which received excellent reviews.

In 1988 the theater was awarded the title of "Academic".

Monuments to Pushkin (along Pushkin Street) and Tukay (along Teatralnaya Street) are erected on different sides of the theater building. The pediment of the building overlooks Freedom Square. A small square with a fountain and flower beds is laid out on the opposite side.

Modern period

The formation of the theater's repertoire is based on the principle of an anthology. It is based on the masterpieces of the world musical theater, Russian classics, as well as outstanding works of Tatarstan composers.

Since 2001, the artistic leadership began to carry out active creative searches in other directions, which are radically different from the usual academic style. We are talking about a number of international projects, the implementation of which allows the theater to be in line with the latest trends in contemporary world musical theater.

Since 1994, the theater annually conducts international tours to the countries of Western and Eastern Europe (Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, France, etc.), during which it presents all opera and ballet premieres to foreign audiences theater, giving more than 100 performances a year.

A distinctive feature of the theater's administrative and artistic structure is the rejection of the institution of “chiefs” (director, choreographer, artist), thanks to which the theater has for many years been able to avoid clashes of creative ambitions, including the monopoly of “chiefs” who do not allow competitors to enter their territory. The theater, one of the first in the country, introduced the positions of the artistic director of the opera and the artistic director of the ballet, who are not directors but enforce the artistic and administrative policy of the theater.

Thanks to the existing form of organization of work in the theater, its artistic boundaries are significantly expanded, which benefits, first of all, the viewer, because he gets the opportunity to see and hear the best that has been selected by time, namely, opera and ballet masterpieces. Thanks to the introduction in 1990 of the contract system with its fierce competition and the ability to widely use the practice of inviting guest performers, as well as post-performance remuneration (an individual fee for a single party plus a guaranteed salary), the theater was not only able to avoid a mediocre level of performance and, accordingly, empty visual halls - the fate of many Russian theaters, but also reached the level at which not a single performance today, not excluding the national repertoire, is held without the participation of guest performers. In addition, not a single performance is performed twice in the same cast, thanks to which it is possible to maintain the premiere level of all theater productions and avoid their division into event and ordinary.

According to the research of the magazine "FORBES" (October 2009), the Tatar Academic State Opera and Ballet Theater. M. Jalil is the second-largest venue in Russia in terms of room occupancy (93%); he is second only to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.