10 Best Performing Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia

With a smattering of performances with English, French, and Italian subtitles, the MDT is home to one of the best theater companies in Russia and is well worth seeing. The repertoire includes productions of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde. The theater is also one of the few companies in town to continue to stage the finest plays from the Soviet era. Seeing their whole repertoire has been compared to living through the entire 20th-century history of Russia. If you have a whole day to spare and lots of stamina, the nine-hour performance of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed makes for an incredible theatrical experience, although it can be a bit hard on the posterior and comes without translation. It takes two consecutive evenings to sit through the company's veteran show, Fyodor Abramov's Brothers and Sisters, but it's an great experience. Order tickets well in advance, because it's rare that the Maly plays to a less-than-packed house.

Russia's oldest theater opened in 1756 and is one of the country's most elegant and comfortable. Its repertoire is dominated by 19th-century classics but with prominent Moscow director Valery Fokin at the helm, the company is enjoying a prolonged renaissance and staging new productions that have been critically acclaimed. Fokin's interpretations of Dostoyevsky's The Double and Gogol's The Government Inspector are thought-provoking and engaging. The theater also hosts an international drama festival in the early summer.

An umbrella venue for a dozen experimental companies of various genres holds performances in its large hall and a variety of basements, attics, and backrooms. Once a full-fledged theater, it has turned into a modern art complex, where aspiring directors experiment with material by playwrights like Luigi Pirandello, Ivan Turgenev, and the Presnyakov Brothers. Each October the theater hosts an impressive four-week Baltic Theater Festival, attracting the best talent from the Baltic Sea region.

Known as BDT, this theater is one of the jewels in St. Petersburg's crown and with a repertoire that focuses on classics—from Chekhov and Ostrosky to Shakespeare and Albee—attracts Russia's top acting talent to its boards. With the appointment of one of Russia's most respected directors for the stage, Andrei Moguchi, as artistic director, big things are expected.

One of the oldest continuously operating children's theaters in Russia began at the start of the 20th century. The theater has delighted generations of Soviet and Russian children with its charming renditions of classics like The Ugly Duckling and The Nutcracker.

The theater is a bit out of the way but the symphony orchestra and puppet theater stage musicals and operas that both kids and adults can enjoy.

Set just across a small canal from the historic Mariinsky Theatre, Mariinsky II is the company's state-of-the-art opera, ballet, and concert hall. The massive theater seats 2,000 spectators and features one of the world's most technologically advanced stages.

The company revels in an avant-garde and experimental tradition in which works by Swift and Andersen are adapted for marionettes. It has a varied repertoire of fairy tales and children's stories.

Although most troupes in town tend to rely heavily on only their most seasoned players, this theater is brave enough to showcase younger talent. Shows are bursting with youthful energy and romanticism, yet there's no amateur-student feel to them; most are expertly staged by artistic director Semyon Spivak, a professor at the renowned St. Petersburg Academy for Theatre Art. The company's signature show is Alexei Tolstoy's The Swallow. Isaac Babel's Cries From Odessa and Alexander Ostrovsky's Love Lace are also among its hits.

This charming theater is a great place for parents and their children to catch a show together. Masterfully blending dramatic and musical elements, the captivating productions are famous for their daring experiments. The company is good at winning children over to opera with entertaining versions of serious repertoire such as Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore—during which Nemorino sings his famous aria while riding a bike—or Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann and Puccini's La Bohème. Shows can last anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours.