48 Best Performing Arts Venues in St. Petersburg, Russia

Every year in July, the Peter and Paul Fortress hosts three days of performances of bands from Russia and beyond.

Also known as the Free Arts Foundation, this ramshackle maze of studios, galleries, yards, cafés, and performance spaces was once a legendary squat for the pioneering artists of the Nonconformist, unofficial, and Neo-Academy art movements that flowered here in the 1980s, as the Soviet Union's grip on cultural life began to loosen. Today the foundation receives state funds, but it has lost none of its thirst for exhibiting modern art that thumbs its nose at the establishment. Pushkinskaya 10 includes, among others, the New Academy Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Nonconformist Art, the St. Petersburg Archive and Library of Independent Art, FOTOImage, Navicula Artis Gallery, GEZ-21, and Kino-FOT-703.

The Conservatory is directly opposite the Mariinsky, but the opera and ballet performances come nowhere near the level of its famous neighbor—partly because the Mariinsky is so good at siphoning off the Conservatory's brightest talent.

The ensemble revives the traditions of 18th-century Russian horn music, and is the only one of its kind in Russia. Apart from baroque pieces written specifically for horn, the musicians perform a repertoire of arrangements of well-known classical works.

This gallery exhibits and sells contemporary Russian Orthodox icons. It's possible to order customized pieces.

This spacious gallery exhibits a good collection of contemporary artists.

Charming evening concerts are held in authentic surroundings. The museum displays memorabilia related to Russia's greatest composers, musicians, conductors, and dancers.

Chamber concerts are held in one of the grand rooms of this palace that also houses Russia's national collection of musical instruments.

Two excellent symphony orchestras perform in the Philharmonic's newly refurbished grand concert hall (Bolshoy Zal): the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academic Philharmonic (a fine outfit, although it's officially the B-team). Both troupes have long, illustrious histories of collaboration with some of Russia's finest composers, and many famous works have premiered in this hall.

Next to the prestigious Mukhina Academy for Arts and Design, this gallery exhibits St. Petersburg's young artistic talents and some of the big names in the local contemporary art scene.

Popular with foreign worshippers, the church also hosts an engaging classical concert program that mixes secular and religious music.

The ground floor gallery hosts a program of temporary exhibitions, and works by artists are for sale upstairs.

This marvelous choir led by artistic director Vadim Afanasiev, is a must-see. Their favorite venues are the Capella and Petropavlovsky Cathedral in Peter and Paul Fortress, where the choir performs Orthodox chants and choral works by Russian composers. The sound can be mesmerizing.

The company is based in the former mansion of Baron Derviz, where the famous theatrical director Vsevolod Meyerhold staged productions at the end of the 19th century. The company's repertoire is small and dominated by Russian classics and light Italian operas, with occasional experimental performances.

St. Petersburg's premier arts event stretches from the end of May until the middle of July or longer. The event's founder and driving force is the Mariinsky's indefatigable artistic director Valery Gergiev, who brings together a lineup of international stars and orchestras that other Russian festivals can only dream of inviting. It helps that Gergiev, a principal guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra, is a regular with the world's most acclaimed orchestras. The festival interweaves opera, ballet, symphony, and chamber music in almost equal proportions and provides a rare opportunity to see the Mariinsky's most renowned soloists—who spend most of their time between La Scala, Opera Bastille, and the Met and include mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Vladimir Galuzin, bass Ildar Abdrazakov, baritone Nikolai Putilin, and soprano Anna Netrebko.

These famous local musicians have adapted classic works such as Oginsky's "Polonaise" and Schubert's "Ave Maria" for balalaika, bayan, domra, and alto domra to superb effect. Virtuosi in their instruments, and highly interactive in their performing style, which critics have branded "instrumental theater," they freely mix J.S. Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" with Russian folk songs, and make every concert a fun experience.

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.