Prices at the Bolshoi Theater soared under Gergiev: Muscovites are outraged

A wave of indignation arose in Moscow – prices for performances at the Bolshoi Theater jumped. Already in March, the price tag for such ballet hits as “Swan Lake”, “Don Quixote”, “Pharaoh’s Daughter” and others reached 25 thousand. It’s scary to think what will happen to The Nutcracker. What guided the new management and how the public and artists will suffer from this, discusses the MK columnist.

Why people are just now getting excited about the new pricing is not entirely clear – already in January-February, tickets at the Bolshoi for “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” officially cost 25 thousand at the maximum. For March, the price tag is the same, and almost all tickets with increased prices in all categories for “Swan”, “Don Quixote”, “Giselle” and others have flown away. The premiere of the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” scheduled for April costs 20 thousand for the daytime performance, and five thousand more for the evening performance. Minimum prices have also increased to higher prices, but there is nothing to talk about them, since cheap and more or less affordable ones are sold out immediately. Prices for opera performances are now also high, but not as much as for ballet performances, since opera in Russia has traditionally been inferior in popularity to ballet. Here, expensive ones cost 10 and 15 thousand.

Of course, such a policy will not bring points to the new first person of the country’s main musical theater – Valery Gergiev. “Does he think that only rich and fat people live in Moscow? – the capital’s music and balletomanes are indignant after learning about the Bolshoi’s new corrupt policy. “In St. Petersburg, he probably has different prices.” Yes, the purchasing power of St. Petersburg residents does not allow them to play with fire. “They won’t buy from us for 25 thousand, so the price for a ballet reaches a maximum of 15 thousand,” a source from the Mariinsky Theater told MK. And he emphasizes that online screenings of ballet and opera performances help maintain prices.

High prices (and not only for visiting the theater) do not please anyone. But in fairness it should be said that Bolshoi was not the first to start. The previous administration still kept in mind the concept of accessibility to cultural centers of the population, and of its most diverse categories. So, under Vladimir Urin, tickets to the Bolshoi could be bought from 800 to 8000. The exception was “The Nutcracker”, which in recent years reached 15 thousand and only last December rose to 20, and on the night of December 31 – to 30 thousand. I repeat, this is the official price, we are not talking about speculative prices (on websites and from hands at the theater columns).

So, one might say, the Bolshoi was simply trailing behind: theaters in drama have long indulged in high prices, when they easily charged 20 and 25 thousand for popular performances. At the same time, each time they make a reservation that they have “very few such places.” But “a little” is in fact still several dozen, and they have a noticeable impact on the minimum price. And it is precisely them that the dynamic ticket sales system focuses on: if they buy the most expensive ones, then it’s not a sin to let the cheap ones down.

It can be assumed that, looking towards the drama, the new management of the Bolshoi decided: “Why are we worse?” Moreover, the costs of producing ballet and opera performances are incomparably higher than dramatic ones, and this is a serious argument. So they rolled out the prices. But, firstly, not all Muscovites are rich and fat, and secondly, and this is the main thing, that the theaters, whatever one may say, are state-owned, not some private ones. Theatres, and especially musical ones, receive a decent annual budget from the state pocket. Therefore, the pricing policy for tickets of theater directorates, and not only the Bolshoi, looks strange. It will harm, first of all, art itself, which is increasingly becoming inaccessible to many categories of citizens.

There is another aspect to this ticket issue that directly concerns those who serve Melpomene. In musical, as well as in dramatic theaters, there has always been a system of service passes “for our own”. Thus, the Mariinsky Theater operates a discount ticket system, according to which artists and orchestra members can purchase tickets for relatives, friends or doctors at a significant discount. For example, a ticket worth 9 thousand could be obtained for 2.5. And at the Bolshoi the system of free passes still worked clearly, although not for everyone. Only leading soloists, prima singers, and conductors could count on them. The corps de ballet nervously smoked on the side. However, according to our information, no one received passes for the evening dedicated to the 85th birthday of Ekaterina Maximova, which took place in early February, and the employees regarded this as a signal that there would be no freebies. It is still unknown whether preferential prices will be introduced for his own people, because Gergiev has not yet installed a person at the Bolshoi Theater who would pursue a new artistic and economic policy on his behalf.

Our sources from the Bolshoi now characterize the situation as follows: “Nobody knows what and how it will happen. Everyone is shaking for their places because they understand that when Valery Abisalovich takes over the Bolshoi, changes are inevitable. But, knowing its unpredictability, they don’t even understand what to count on.”

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29222 dated February 22, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Is there any extra ballet?