Russia's Bolshoi returned to old glory by 2008

Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre has been saved from virtual disintegration by massive renovation works and is now racing against time to reopen in autumn 2008, the theatre's head said on Tuesday.
In July 2005 the Bolshoi, one of the world's leading opera and ballet companies, closed for restoration, its facade tarnished and walls and columns pitted by decades of neglect.
Behind the facade, however, things were much worse.
"More than 60 percent of the building was in a dilapidated state, its bricks virtually crumbled in your hands," Bolshoi Director General Anatoly Iksanov told a news conference.
"Restoration and reconstruction continues round-the-clock. The problems the workers face are truly colossal," he said.
"We very much hope we will enter a renovated building in autumn 2008 ... But so far it's all in God's hands."
Founded by a decree of Empress Catherine the Great in 1776, the Bolshoi acquired its current building in 1825 after fire gutted the original home, the Petrovka Theatre, in 1805.
In 1853 the Bolshoi was again badly damaged by fire, but within three years it reopened.
This time, the state allotted 15 billion roubles ($585 million) to renovate the Bolshoi. Its eight-columned portico crowned with the Greek God Apollo riding a four-horse chariot appears on chocolate wrappers and 100-rouble banknotes.
Workers have stabilized the Bolshoi's foundations with hundreds of piles and reinforced its walls and columns with steel bars. Modern stage technology will be installed and backstage areas will be repaired as well.
The Soviet Union's huge hammer-and-sickle coat of arms on the facade has been replaced by the original two-headed eagle of imperial Russia.
Russian tsars and Soviet leaders alike loved to visit the Bolshoi and invited important foreign guests to the theatre.
In 1944 Soviet leader Josef Stalin took British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Bolshoi where he was accorded a standing ovation. In 2002 an unexploded World War Two bomb was found under one of the Bolshoi's entrances.
Famous ballerinas such as Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya and bass opera singer Fyodor Shalyapin and tenors Ivan Kozlovsky and Sergei Lemeshev all performed at the Bolshoi.
"We are carrying out a lot of work to recover the original quality of sound," Iksanov said.
"But we do not try to invent something new, we simply want to regain what existed back in 1856." Dmitry Solovyov, Reuters