Other Life of the Odessa Theatre. A New Building

CONTENTS

1. Introduction 2

2. The first Odessa city theatre 3

3.Other Life of the Odessa Theatre. A New Building 5

4. Conclusion 7

5. Vocabulary 8

6. References 9

Introduction

One can recognize quite a few peculiar traits of many beautiful cities in Odessa, however Odessa is unique.

This city founded on the Black Sea shore in 1794 is not a replication but a blend, a melting pot of cultures, customs, traditions, beliefs and bloods. Upon its builders’ will, Odessa had embodied all urban construction experience accumulated by the beginning of the 19th century. People compared Odessa to Paris in 1810 and they considered it to be one of the wealthiest and the most beautiful cities of Europe just thirty years afterwards.

A young port city had a theatre that ranged among the best European ones in the beginning of the 19th century. The city’s mayor, an outstanding statesman Duke de RICHELIEU, initiated construction of the first theatre in Odessa. The people living in Odessa today call him “duke” for short up to now, and do it with great love and warmth. Being preoccupied with military, commercial, construction and other thoughts Duke de Richelieu did not forget that Odessa was a blend of cultures and languages and understood that music was the best means to connect people with different interests and traditions.

The first Odessa city theatre

The best voices of Europe sang in the theatre at Richelieu time. They sang in that very theatre that was built with Duke and set in PUSHKIN’s poetry forever (Eugene Onegin):

But dusk, dark blue, is darkening, gleaming,
The Opera awaits, we race,
There ever-charming-us, Rossini,
All Europe’s darling, Orpheus plays!
He pays no heed to direst critics;
Always the same, yet new, and witty,
He pours forth sounds: and how they boil!
And how they flow and burn and hiss!
Passion’d as young lovers who kiss
In bliss, in happiness of love,
Like champagne, ever bubbling, rolling,
In streams and sprays of droplets golden
But folks, is it perhaps a crime,
With do-re-mi comparing wine?

The building for the first Odessa City Theatre was constructed upon the design project of an Italian architect Francesco FRAPPOLLI with some changes made by a French architect Thomas de THOMON, who designed many buildings in St Petersburg, the capital of Russian Empire. The grand opening night took place on the 10th of February 1810. A snow-white building was facing the port and resembled an ancient Greek temple. The auditorium numbered 800 seats (at that time Odessa had 12.5 thousand people). Three tiers had 44 seats behind which there was some semicircular space where about 700 people could enjoy the performance standing as in Italian old theatres.

The memoirs read, “The auditorium had three tiers with seventeen boxes, the balcony was right under the ceiling. The ceiling, though, was so low that the visitors almost touched it with their heads. There was no chandelier at that time as it was put up later. The auditorium was lit with lard or wax candles put into the candleholders. Each candleholder had 5 candles in it and was fixed on the external wall of the boxes. The stage was lit with big oil lamps. The balcony did not have any lightening so the stage lights seemed too bright for our eyes. The theatre had its specific smell of burning candles and perfumes”.

An opera in one act “ New Family “ by Sergey VYAZMITINOV and a vaudeville “ Mourning or Consoled Widow ” by Jacob KNYAZHIN were on stage on the day when the City Theater was first opened. They were staged by the Porphyry Fortunatov’s Drama Company staged the shows; Prophyry FORTUNATOV was a Russian actor and entrepreneur. On signing the contract with the Russian Prince A. Shakhovsky’s Drama Company in 1811 regular shows started in the theatre. Prince Alexander SHAKHOVSKY was a playwright, a member of the Russian Literature Academy and a literary society “ Conversations between Fans ”. The repertoire had tragedies, vaudevilles and comic operas.

However, 11 years later Russian companies stopped performing in the City Theatre and Italian opera commenced its dominance. Some Italian entrepreneurs, such as Giuseppe MONTOVANNI, Josef ZAMBONNI and Guillermo BUANAVOLIO and others, obtained monopoly on productions in the City Theatre.

The word ‘opera’ appeared in the name of the theatre later, in the 20th century as at first the theater was called simply the City Theatre. Its stage saw performances of the famous opera singers, Imperial and Royal theatrical companies. Drama and comedies also frequented the stage. The playbills were full of famous actors and playwrights’ names. Ballet divertissements in operas and ballet performances entered the theatre repertoire a bit later.

The opera repertoire of the first City Theatre included works by Gioachino ROSSINI, Vincenzo BELLINI, Domenico CIMAROSA, Gaetano DONIZETTI, and Giuseppe VERDI. The Odessa audience applauded to Ekaterina AMATI, Arrigo and Angelica CATALANI, Giuseppe MARINI, Ekaterina PATTI-BARILLA, Josefina and Teresina BRAMBILLA, Ponti del ARMI, Alde BIANCA.

Other Life of the Odessa Theatre. A New Building

In 1873, 64 years later, The City Theatre was completely destroyed by the fire.

“The picture of the flames striving out and playing outside was really grandiose. The columns were rolling over the square as if chasing the people who had come to watch the fire”, Alexander DERIBAS wrote in his book “Old Odessa”. Only ashes were left on the place where the City Theatre used to be.

A year later the Odessa Municipality announced a competition among the architects to create a design for the new temple of arts that would be equipped with the latest innovative machinery and would become equal to the best European samples. As a result two Viennese architects Ferdinand FELNER and Herman HELMER, who had already created the theatre buildings in Vienna, Budapest and other European cities, took up the construction.

The Felner and Herman’s design was not detailed and the architects did not come to Odessa during the construction period. The best local architects, in particular Felix GONSIOROVSKY, Alexander BERNARDAZZI and Yuri DMITRENKO, had to revise and amend the design project.

It had been almost eleven years between the fire and the first stone that was put into the foundation of the building. The construction was performed by the contractors and the local constructing materials were used. 1,5 mln rubles was the enormous sum spent on the labor and materials. It was natural that such expenses would not be welcome by everyone and some critical articles with ideas of better application of funds frequented in the newspapers. Nevertheless the contractors did not breech the agreement terms and the works were completed on the 15th of September, 1887. It was the date stipulated in the contractual agreement. It was the first building in Novorossiya equipped by electricity and steam heating.

“The Odessa Theatre is the best in the world!”, Ferdinand Felner exclaimed when he came to Odessa to participate in the ceremonies dedicated to the completion of the works. Ferdinand Felner handed in a symbolic golden key to the Odessa Theatre to Gregory MARAZLI, the Odessa Mayor. That symbolic key was placed into the metal box and fixed at the foot of the big mirror installed on the stairs of the French entrance facing Pas-le-Royal Park.

The opening ceremony took place on the 1st of October, 1887. The orchestra led by the Odessa composer Gregory LISHIN performed a solemn cantata after which the drama company under I. CHEREPENNIKOV, the first entrepreneur of the renewed theatre, presented a scene from Alexander PUSHKIN’s drama Boris Godunov and Act 3 from Alexander GRIBOYEDOV’s comedy Grief of Wits.

Up to 1919 the theatre existed as a private entertainment enterprise run by entrepreneurs. I. N. GREKOV, an actor of Imperial Theatres, became the head of the enterprise in 1891. In a year, he decided to include the Russian opera into the repertoire and the enterprise started working over Demon by Anton RUBINSTEIN and The Queen of Spades by Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY. P. Tchaikovsky visited Odessa and gave certain recommendations to the lead performers and to the conductor N. B. EMMANUEL.

Conclusion

According to Forbes Magazine 2008, the Odessa National Opera and Ballet Theatre is one of the 11 most interesting sights in Eastern Europe, and it is the only theatre in the list. The pages of this theatre`s amazing history are full of names and events out of which emerge much of the cultural history of Odessa.

Vocabulary

peculiar traits – своеобразные черты

melting pot – плавильный котел

embodied – воплощенный

preoccupied – занятый

resemble – иметь сходство

semicircular – полукруглый

ceiling – потолок

chandelier – люстра

candleholder – подсвечник

playbill – театральная афиша

References

http://odessatourism.org/en/do/theatres/opera-ballet

http://opera.odessa.ua/en/about-the-theatre/history/

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