SAMB plays the Sand

Google Sand Du Plessis and the results will be for schools and a theatre so who Sand Du Plessis is or was, I don’t know. But he lives on in the theatre that bears his name in Bloemfontein, a lighter, more elegant 1985 building than the brutalist (from beton brut, an architectural term meaning, roughly, raw concrete) State Theatre built in Pretoria in the early 1980s. And where our company, South African Mzansi Ballet, opens tonight for a short season of Bloeming ballet. So if you live anywhere within 500 km’s of Bloem, a night at the ballet could be yours.

 

The Sand Du Plessis, Bloem

 

SAMB's steamer trunks ready for the trip to Bloem

 

We live in an exciting age for opera house architecture but one that’s bypassing SA. We have other priorities so building opera houses is on the back burner. Not in St Petersburg though, where the legendary Mariinsky is gearing up to inaugurate a second house adjacent to the historic green building from tsarist times famous as the home of the Mariinsky Ballet, later the Kirov Ballet (Google may not know who Sand DuP was but it knows who Commissar Kirov was), and now the Maryinsky again. Below are images of what is, what may have been, and what will be.

 

The old(er) Mariinsky, St. Petersburg

 

Inside the old Mariinsky

 

An architectural competition a dozen years ago for the new house drew designs from architects around the world. The winner was France’s Dominique Perrault but in the web of Russia's opera house, civic and national intrigue and politics, the winner lost.

 

 

Dominique Perrault's modernist "Faberge Egg" new Mariinsky alongside the old opera house.

 

 

Perrault's proposed Mariinsky auditorium.

 

Another competition entry: Facade of US architect Eric Moss' new Mariinsky.

 

The interior as it would have been in Moss' design.

 

Now the new Mariinsky, due to open in 2013, is by Canadian firm, Diamond Schmitt Architects (also designers of Toronto’s opera house, the Four Seasons).

 

The Mariinsky's new house as it will be, by Canadian firm Diamond Schmitt.

 

Inside the new Mariinsky.

 

Cousin to the new Mariinsky: Diamond Schmitt's opera house in Toronto. 

 

In addition to the two opera houses, old and new, that make up the Mariinsky complex, there's also the Mariinsky Concert Hall that opened in 2007, putting the Mariinsky on a par with New York's Lincoln Center.



 

 

And if you're in St Petersburg and the Maryinsky's two houses are not doing anything that appeals, you can hot foot it over to the city's third opera house, the Mikhailovsky, where the ballet company is becoming a magnet for some of the world's greatest ballet stars.

 

The Mikhailovsky's white, red and gold auditorium.

 

But what ballet companies in the world can match SAMB's own magnificent studios at the Joburg Theatre below? We imagine there can't be many. Or even any.

 

 

Disclaimer: Some photos with this post are from the worldwide web. If the owners of the images feel copyright has been infringed or images inappropriately used, please contact us.