Information about recreation Alisher Navoi Grand Academic Theatre
The hall of Alisher Navoi State Academic Grand Theatre has 860 seats. Repertoire of the theatre includes classical plays and plays based on national Uzbek history, traditions and dance culture. Tickets for traditionally popular ballets, such as “Don Kikhot”, “Nutcracker”, “Giselle”, “Swan lake”, “1000 and one night”, as well as tickets for premieres should be purchased in advance. Among opera plays the most popular are “Seville barber”, “Carmen”, “Aida”, and “Magic flute”. Operas are performed in Italian, Russian and Uzbek languages. Alisher Navoi State Academic Grand Theatre is the only Grand theatre in Central and South-Eastern Asia. Its stage hosts concerts, tours of foreign performers, theatre festivals, recitals of leading soloists and various festive events. The theatre participates in different international projects and contests, cooperates with embassies and diplomatic representatives of foreign countries, accredited in Uzbekistan.
The theatre’s history started since 1929, when an amateur concert-ethnographic ensemble under the direction of M. Kari-Yakubov became a professional musical theatre. In 1939 it was renamed into State Uzbek opera and ballet theatre, and since March 1948 its was united with Russian opera theatre and was named Alisher Navoi State opera and ballet theatre. For successful development of opera and ballet art in 1959 the theatre was given the rank of Academic theatre, and in 1966 – Grand Theatre. Since the establishment of Alisher Navoi State Academic Grand Theatre there were 356 opera and ballet premieres played on its stage. More than 6 million spectators visited its hall, and amoing those who performed there were Z. Sotkilava, E.Obraztsova, E.Maksimova, V.Vasilyev, M.Liepa, Yu.Bashmet and other world class starts. M. Plisetskaya stage here “Anna Karenina” ballet for the first time. The theatre was numerously visited by first persons of foreign states, presidents and prime ministers. Theatre building is an architectural monument of the middle of XX century, and its inner interior represents a wonderful piece of folk applied art. The author of building project of Alisher Navoi opera and ballet theatre was an academic Aleksey Shusev, the same man who built a mausoleum on a Red Square in Moscow. Construction of the theatre started in 1939, and in 1942 it was suspended due to the difficulties of the wartime, but in 1944 construction works were continued. In November 1945 Japanese prisoners of war from Kwantoon army were deported to Tashkent. They worked at the final stage of construction.
Interior decoration of the building was undertaken at participation of the best local craftsmen of Uzbekistan – ganch carvers (nakkoshi) – Usto Shirin Muradov, Usto Boltaev and others. Interior of side lobbies of the theatre – Tashkent, Bukhara, Khorezm, Samarkand, Ferghana and Termez halls – have own peculiarities. For example, Bukhara hall is decorated with ganch carving, attached to a mirrored surface. Such technique was first applied during construction of Bukhara Emir’s castle. Khorezm hall is decorated by various panels, which are common to Khorezm. Halls and lobbies of the theatre are also decorated by wall paintings with subject images from A. Navoi poems and also those depicting landscapes of Uzbekistan. Authors of these wall-paintings are Ch.Akhmarov, A. Tatevosyan and others. Before the theatre construction there was a Sunday market – a main market of the new city - located on this place. Upon the end of construction the project author, Aleksey Shusev (who received the State Prize together with local craftsmen) proposed to establish a fountain on a square in front of the theatre. The square received a name Theatre Square and nowadays is one of the most beautiful places of the city. Ganch is an alabaster; patterns made using this material are traditional and they represent a favorite type of national interior decoration. Plays Begin: weekdays – at 18:00, Saturday and Sunday – at 17:00. Matinees (mostly children’s plays) are held on Sundays and start at 12:00. Day off: Monday
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