Helikon Opera

Helikon Opera is a child of the perestroika years. The director Dmitry Bertman founded the company in 1990, opening on 10 April with Stravinsky's Mavra, and by 1993 it had earned the status of a state theatre. Its home is a former aristocratic estate on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street that once belonged to Princess Shakhovskaya-Glebova-Streshneva, a nineteenth century patron of the arts. For years the troupe squeezed grand repertoire into her little white-columned ballroom, turning intimacy into a signature.

A sweeping reconstruction between 2007 and 2015 roofed over the estate courtyard to create the 500 seat Stravinsky Hall, joined by a 200 seat second stage and the restored historic rooms, while the company worked in exile on Novy Arbat. Reopened in November 2015, Helikon now gives over 200 performances a year and is famous for irreverent, theatrically charged stagings. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte entered the repertoire in 2018 in the Stravinsky Hall, with a shortened children's version playing alongside it.

architect: Konstantin Tersky

On stage here

Performance dates

Data: open sources (opera houses, ticketing platforms, Wikidata). Part of the worldwide Die Zauberflöte map.