Moldavian Music and Drama Theater

(full name, A. S. Pushkin Moldavian Music and Drama Theater), one of the leading theaters of the Moldavian SSR. Founded in 1933 in Tiraspol as the First Moldavian Drama Theater, it became a theater of music and drama in 1939. In 1940 it was moved to Kishinev, and during the Great Patriotic War (1941–5) some members of the company went to the front and the rest were evacuated. The actors joined the Moldavian Song and Dance Ensemble and concert groups that performed for the troops. The entire company returned to the Moldavian capital in 1944.

A ballet studio was added to the theater in 1945, and an opera studio in 1947. From 1955 to 1957 the theater was known as the Moldavian Theater of Opera, Ballet, and Drama. RomLebedev’s highly theatrical heroic and romantic play Haiduks (1937), incorporating music and dance, laid the foundation for the theater’s repertoire of musical drama. Outstanding productions have included Trenev’s Liubov’ larovaia (1938), Pogodin’s Kremlin Chimes (1947), Lupan’s Light (1949), Kornianu’s Iliana’s Rug (1953) and Mother-in-law With Three Daughters-in-law (1957), based on Creanga’s story, Bukov’s The Seething Danube (1958), Drutse’s Kasa Mare (1962) and Birds of Our Youth (1973), Malarchuk’s Do Me No Favors! (1963), Vidrashku’s Two Lives and a Third (1963), Aleksandri’s Synziana and Pepelia (1956), Ovid (1958, 1969), and lasi Carnival (1969), and Gogol’s The Inspector-General (1972). Foreign classical and contemporary plays and plays by authors of the fraternal republics are also presented.

In 1957 the theater was renamed the A. S. Pushkin Moldavian Music and Drama Theater, and in 1960 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor after participating in the ten-day Festival of Moldavian Literature and Art in Moscow. The company has been joined by graduates of the Odessa Theatrical School (1937–39), Leningrad Theatrical Institute (1952), G. Musicescu Institute of the Arts (1961, 1964), and the State Institute of Theatrical Arts (GITIS, 1969). As of 1974 the company included People’s Artists of the USSR D. T. Darienko, E. V. Ureke, and K. A. Shtirbul; People’s Artists of the Moldavian SSR M. M. Apostolov, P. N. Barakchi, T. I. Gruzin, E. G. Kazimirova, K. T. Konstantinov, and A. M. Platsynda; and the costume and set designer A. E. Shubin, Honored Art Worker of the Moldavian SSR. Since 1963 the principal director has been Honored Artist of the Moldavian SSR V. P. Kupcha.