For decades Moscow has had a reputation as a city of theatres. The

birth plays of the historic "Bolshoy", "Maly" and "Moscow Art" theatres

the city has been and steel is a centre for the development exploretary

modern ideas in the dramatic art and is famous for it's great number of

highlygifted, interesting directors, actors, playwrigts and artists.

Every evening the doors of Moscow theatres open to streams of

theatre-gowers. The best Moscow theatres devoded themselves to

developing the principals of directing and acting laid down by

Stanislavsky, Meerhold, Nemerovich-Danchenko, Vachtangov and others. The

discoveries and successes of Moscow theatres today exists due to

experience and triumphs of preceding generations.

I'd like to tell you about the Bolshoy Theatre. The magestic building

of the Bolshoy Theatre stands in Theatre Square in Moscow's central

quater, not far from Kremlin. This is the leading Russian opera house

with the best vocalists and choreographers in it's company.

The Bolshoi traces it's history to 1776 when a standing opera company

was organized in Moscow. The first opera shown in Bolshoi theatre was

opera "life of tsar" (now "Ivan Susanin"). At later times operas by

Dargomyzhsky, Serov, Tcaikovsky, Borodin, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov

and Rubinstein were produced here.

At the same time the Bolshoi company staged the best operas and

ballets by West European composers-Mozart, Rossini, Weber, Verdi and

others.

The bolshoi ballet company enjoys well-deserved fame as the world's

finest. This is equally true of it's brilliant realistic style of

perfomance and repertoire.