Smolensk State Drama Theater named after A.S. Griboyedov

The first secular theater appeared in Smolensk in 1780. The construction of the opera house was timed to coincide with the visit of Empress Catherine II and Austrian Emperor Joseph II. Since then, theatrical performances in Smolensk have become permanent. In those years, very popular estate theaters, among which one of the most famous was the theater of A.A. Glinka, uncle of the famous composer Griboyedov.

From the Smolensk serfs came a lot of beautiful actors who won fame and enthusiastic reviews of critics, for example, the former serf – Ekaterina Semenova, whom A.S. Pushkin called “the queen of the tragic scene”.

The nineteenth century was marked for the Smolensk Theatre by the heyday of the entreprise - dramatic and operatic. With their performances in the city came outstanding actors of that time. At the beginning of the XX century, the Moscow Art Theatre under the leadership of K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, the Tairov Chamber Theatre and many others played on the Smolensk stage.

In 1919, the Smolensk Theatre was transformed into the State Theatre of Drama and Opera. In the late 1920s, the great Faina Ranevskaya played on his stage. A few years later, the theater performed on tour in Moscow, and in 1939 received its own building. After surviving a difficult wartime, evacuation, work on the Western Front and returning to his hometown, the theater resumed operations in 1944. The Smolensk Theatre received its modern status and name in 2004, and since then it has been a regular participant of theater festivals, hosts the International Theatre Festival "Smolensk Ark" and actively tours Russia and Belarus.