The Drama Theater of Nizhny Novgorod named after M. Gorky is one of the oldest theaters in the country. It has existed for over 200 years.
How the theater was born
The Drama Theater in Nizhny Novgorod began its existence in 1798. Its founder was Prince N.G. Shakhovsky. It was a serf theater and all the actors came from serf families. Performances were shown in one of the prince’s houses, which was located well on the corner of the streets of Bolshaya Pecherskaya and Malaya Pecherskaya. The house was rebuilt into a theater, it had a stall designed for one hundred spectators, a gallery for two hundred spectators, lodges for 27 and 50 seats. The building was gloomy and dilapidated. Lodges were more like stalls. There were huge holes on the curtain into which someone’s nose protruded periodically, someone’s eyes peered out, his head stuck out. From the day of its foundation until 1824, the theater was called the Nizhny Novgorod City and Fair Theater of Prince Shakhovsky. The repertoire included tragedies, comedies, ballets and operas. Since 1824 the name changed, from now on it was the Nizhny Novgorod Theater, and since 1896 - the Nikolaev Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod). History its existence in different periods evolved differently.
The years from 1824 to 1896 were difficult for the theater. After the death of Prince Shakhovsky, his heirs sold the theater together with all the actors to two wealthy theatergoers, but after 10 years the owners changed again. This could not but affect the quality of the productions. Frequent change of entrepreneurs led to the fact that the performances became less interesting, the actors began to play worse, the income decreased, and the building and the troupe needed to be maintained, which led to losses. In 1853, the theater building burned down. The year of revival can be considered 1855. Then, at the request of the governor, the theater was reopened, but already in the house that belonged to P.E. Bugrov. During the period from 1863 to 1894, the building survived several fires. The City Duma sought funds for its restoration, but N. Bugrov, its owner, did not want the theater to be located in his grandfather's house again. He allocated 200 thousand rubles for the construction of a new building. The city added 50 thousand to this amount, the government provided a subsidy and after 2 years a new theater building was built on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, where it is located to this day. The opening took place in 1896, the premiere performance was the opera M.I. Glinka's “Life for the Tsar”, in which F. Chaliapin sang a young and still unknown. In different years, such great actors and actresses as K. S. Stanislavsky, V.F. began their careers on the stage of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater. Komissarzhevskaya, M.N. Ermolova, M.S. Shchepkin and others.
20th century
In the 20th century, the Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) repeatedly changed its name. In 1918 it was called Soviet, in 1923 - the First State, from 1932 - the First Gorky (after renaming the city to Gorky), it was both the State, and the regional, and regional. The name that he bears now was obtained by him in 1990 - the Nizhny Novgorod State Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Academic Drama Theater named after M. Gorky. For the period from 1928 to 1945, new productions in the amount of 191 appeared in the repertoire. Among them were performances on classical works, plays by foreign authors of that time, but the vast majority belonged to Soviet authors. The Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) has repeatedly received prizes and major prizes at theater festivals for its productions.
21 century
Now the director is B. Kainov (Honored Worker of Culture of Russia), the art director is G. Demurov (People's Artist of Russia). Since 2006, the Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) resumed touring Russia. In addition, he takes an active part in theater festivals (in Russian and international), as well as forums. The manual remains faithful to the productions based on the works of the classics, but at the same time, work is underway to update the repertoire.
Actors and Performances
The Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) brought together 40 wonderful actors into its troupe, 11 of which bear the title of Honored Artist of Russia and three of them are People's. Already the 217th season, the Drama Theater in Nizhny Novgorod continues to delight the audience.
The repertoire for the most part consists of classical plays, although there are works by contemporary authors, as well as fairy tales for children: “Twelfth Night” by W. Shakespeare, “Marriage” N.V. Gogol, “Imaginary Sick” JB. Moliere, “The Beggars' Opera” by J. Gay, “Classmates” by Yu. Polyakov, “Too Married Taxi Driver” by R. Cooney, “Puss in Boots” by S. Perro and others.