National Theater "Vasile Alecsandri"

The National Theatre "Vasile Alecsandri" in Bălți has occupied two buildings across its history. The first, inaugurated in 1934 as the Scala Theatre, was a 659-seat interwar building with a balcony and a mosaic in the small foyer bearing its name. It hosted touring companies from Iași and Bucharest before being partially ruined in the war and restored in 1945. In 1957 a Moldovan-language troupe was founded within what was then the Moldovan-Russian Musical Dramatic Theatre; its debut production was a Vasile Alecsandri comedy, staged by Boris Harcenco. The current building was constructed between 1978 and 1991 to a design by Moscow architect Ianina Galperina, and inaugurated on 19 May 1991, just before Moldovan independence. It is a late Soviet cultural building of considerable architectural ambition. Iurie Hvorovski designed the sculptures on the facade, titled "Teatru". The theatre holds 584 seats in the main hall and 64 in the Mihai Volontir Studio. It was the first dramatic theatre in the republic to receive National status, conferred by government decision on 26 January 1990. The building is listed as a monument of national artistic importance.