Hermitage Theatre, Palace theatre in Dvortsovy district, Saint Petersburg, Russia
The Hermitage Theatre is a neoclassical theatre at the corner of Palace Embankment and the Winter Canal in Saint Petersburg, built by Giacomo Quarenghi from 1783. Its pale green facade has a rusticated ground floor, arched windows above, and a green metal roof with dormer windows. Inside, a semicircular auditorium is decorated with coloured marble and ten niches holding statues of Apollo and the muses.
Empress Catherine II commissioned architect Giacomo Quarenghi to build the theatre starting in 1783, with construction completing in 1787. The new structure replaced the earlier Imperial Theater and shifted how opera performances took place in the city.
Catherine II wrote comedies and opera librettos for this stage, and costumes came from a 15,000-dress wardrobe of the late Empress Elizabeth. A separate box was kept for the architect Quarenghi and his family. Mathilde Kschessinska, Anna Pavlova and Fyodor Chaliapin performed here for the last tsar.
The theatre stands at the corner of Palace Embankment (house 32) and the Winter Canal, completing the chain of Hermitage buildings along the Neva. Its entrance to the ground-floor exhibition of Peter I's Winter Palace is on the embankment side. Since 1988 an arched gallery by architect V. P. Lukin links the courtyard directly with the State Hermitage.
The building stands on the foundations of Peter the Great's Third Winter Palace, with its remains still visible in the ground-level structure. These hidden layers beneath the surface tell the story of earlier imperial residents who occupied the site.
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