"The lobby sets a theatre's style" - as the Russian proverb says, but what sets the Bolshoi's style is the main curtain. After a 5-year-long renovation project, the Bolshoi is about to open its doors again to welcome guests to its 236th season. The famous "golden" curtain, the symbol of the Bolshoi, has now been restored and will take its place in Russia's main theatre.
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| The new curtain for the Bolshoi |
The previous curtain was weaved of golden threads in 1955, had an area of 500 square metres and weighed over one ton.
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| The original curtain from 1955 |
In the beginning of the 90s the theatre had a temporary curtain with symbols of the "new era" as its design, but it was taken down in 2006 due to numerous defects. This is when a decision to recreate the original "golden thread" curtain was undertaken.
The new curtain was recreated completely from scratch, following a thorough analysis of materials and technics used in the previous USSR curtain. At the moment there are 2 curtains: a "Greek" draw curtain and a "German" raising curtain. There is also going to be a third "Italian" curtain, that opens like Roman blinds. Total rated weight of each curtain is 800 kg.
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| Parts of different curtains |
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| "Italian" curtain model |
The previous Soviet curtain served the theatre for half a century and had never been washed or dry-cleaned as it was made of natural silk with metallized gold coated threads. Now it is stored in the Bolshoi Theatre museum. The new curtain is expected to serve much longer as it is made of synthetic incombustible materials and fabrics created especially for this project.
It took 3 years to create the new curtain's design. This part of the work took place in Russia. Other works took place in Spain, Italy and France and took another year. Hence, it took 4 years altogether to create the new curtain for the Bolshoi theatre.
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| The new curtain pattern |
There were 2 art directors working on the main curtain's design. All symbols underwent heraldic expertise. Attentive spectators will notice that the two-headed eagle is not contemporary. It was restored from an 1856 pattern. Even more attentive spectators will notice that the curtain also displays notes. These notes are the first measures of the opera "Glory to our Tsar" from "Ivan Susanin" by Glinka* which is very popular in Russia. It is interesting to mention that the notes have never been changed or removed, even during the Soviet past. Somehow, no one paid attention to this little detail.
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| The curtain's heading displaying the notes |
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* It is said, that after watching the "Ivan Susanin" opera for the first time, a touched Nicolas II invited Mikhail Glinka to his box and thanked him for the masterpiece, offering a precious stone finger ring and suggesting to rename the opera into "A Life For The Tsar".
Source: Selective translation and photography from the original blog post by drugoi.
