The Donetsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet was founded in 1932 in the cities of Lugansk and Vinnitsa, based on the Lugansk Theatre of Opera and Ballet and Vinnitsa's Itinerant Opera of Right-Bank Ukraine.
The Theatre's first season was opened on 1 September 1932 with Aleksandr Borodin's opera "Prince Igor".
In 1936, as part of a major redesign, construction works on a new theatre started in the city of Donetsk (then Stalino), to an original design by the architect Ludwig Kotovsky.
In November 1940, the Donetsk Russian Musical Theatre (as the company was originally known) started its work.
On 12 April 1941, with a premiere of Mikhail Glinka's opera "Ivan Susanin", the Theatre opened its season in the new building. On 7 August of the same year, the Donetsk Theatre's stage saw a premiere of its first ballet, Aleksandr Krein's "Laurencia".
During the Second World War, a part of the company (those whom the message reached fast enough) were evacuated to the village of Sazanovka, Kyrgyzstan. Later, in June 1942, the Theatre's company moved to the town of Karakol (then Przhevalsk), Kyrgyzstan. There, the Donetsk Theatre performed concert-related activities in hospitals, military bases and for workers of the home front; the Theatre also worked on new productions.
In late January 1944, the Theatre returned to Donetsk, and as early as in September, in order to commemorate the first anniversary of the Donbass region's liberation from the Nazi troops, the Theatre held a premiere of Borodin's "Prince Igor". During the same years, the Theatre staged the ballet "Lilaea" to the music by Konstantin Dankevich and based on the poem by Taras Shevchenko.
In September 1947, the Donetsk Russian Musical Theatre was renamed the Stalin State Russian Theatre of Opera and Ballet. In 1957, the Donetsk Theatre's company was the first to stage the ballet "Black Gold" by the composer Vadim Gomolyaka.
In the autumn of 1977, for its great contribution to the development of Soviet art, the Theatre was awarded the title of an Academic Theatre.
In 1989–1994, redesign and selective major repair works were done in the Theatre.
In 1999, the Theatre received the name of the Soviet Ukrainian opera singer Anatoly Solovyanenko (a decree of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers (the Government), as of 9 December 1999).
The Theatre's building belongs to the Classical style. Access to the Theatre is provided from three sides. The auditorium and the foyer are decorated with moulding. Originally, the auditorium was designed to seat 1,300 people. At present, it seats 976 people. Over the dress circle and the balconies of the auditorium as well as in some niches of the foyer, decorative vases and busts of composers, poets and dramatists are placed.
The Theatre features a mechanised stage that includes the main stage having the area of 560 square meters (or around 6,000 square feet); the stage may withstand a load of up to 75 tonnes (or around 165,000 pounds).
The biography of Donetsk State Music and Drama Theatre (the Theatre, for short) started in 1927 when it was created as a Ukrainian worker's theatre, in Chernozavodsky District of the city of Kharkov (then the capital of Ukraine); the Theatre had a mission to bring culture and education to eastern Ukraine. The core of the Theatre's company was made ...
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