Maria Bieșu National Opera and Ballet Theatre

A. Gorshkov and N. Kurennoy designed the Opera and Ballet Theatre on Ștefan cel Mare Boulevard, completed in 1980, with a colonnaded portico rising from a broad staircase with white marble balustrades as the central entrance composition. The main auditorium seats 1,200, with a second concert hall accommodating 400. Interior and facade sculptures were produced by B. Novikov, B. Dubrovin, G. Dubrovin, and N. Sazhin. Decorative materials including limestone and sandstone were brought from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Chișinău opera company itself was founded in the mid-1940s and became a professional company in 1956, gaining its own troupe only in 1957 after artists returned from training in Leningrad. Following the collapse of the USSR it became one of the few former Soviet opera companies to retain its own orchestra, chorus, soloists, and ballet company. The theatre was named after Maria Bieșu, Moldova's celebrated opera singer and patron of the annual Maria Bieșu Invites international festival held at the theatre since 1990, in May 2012 following her death that year. A mosaic titled "Art," dating to 1974 and measuring approximately 230 square metres, was originally located on the facade of the former Trade Union Palace of Culture on Kyiv Street. Between 2020 and 2022 it was restored and relocated to the facade of the theatre's auxiliary building, and was subsequently added to the National Register of Monuments of Public Importance by parliamentary vote. The forecourt square was recently refurbished, but the original lampposts were removed in the process and the paving no longer reflects the original design. The lobby glazing has also been replaced with double-glazing in frames that no longer correspond to the building's original character.