Mikhaylovsky Theatre, Opera house in Arts Square, Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Mikhaylovsky Theatre is an opera and ballet house on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, opened in 1833. Its yellow three-storey facade, designed by Alexander Bryullov, has white pediments over the middle-floor windows and gold lettering reading "МИХАЙЛОВСКИЙ ТЕАТР". After Albert Kavos's 1859 reconstruction the auditorium gained an extra tier and caryatids above the proscenium.

Tsar Nicholas I commissioned the building in 1833 to provide a frame for the French stage tradition in the Russian capital. Over the next eight decades French-language troupes dominated the programme, before Russian ensembles took over after the October Revolution and shifted the focus to domestic composers.

The theatre takes its name from Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, the younger son of Paul I, whose Mikhailovsky Palace stood on the same square; the square itself received its present name only in 1940. Before the revolution the house had no resident company: French and German troupes toured here, and French operettas by Offenbach were frequent. Regular spectators included Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky.

The theatre stands at 1 Arts Square, and its main entrance faces the square's central monument. The building has three storeys, with tall wooden doors on the ground floor; the box office is reached through the right-hand door. Cloakroom facilities are on the ground floor, and the main staircase leads to the upper tiers.

The theatre's stage hosted the world premiere of Prokofiev's opera War and Peace on 12 June 1946, conducted by Samuil Samosud. Earlier, Shostakovich's The Nose (18 January 1930) and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (22 January 1934) also premiered here, when the house was known as MALEGOT.