A Magnet for Drama

While theaters across Russia are suffering declining audiences and a general lack of interest, one Urals troupe is bucking the trend with a vengeance. Oksana Voronova set off for one of Russia’s grimmest industrial cities and uncovered an unlikely gem. Photos by Igor Petinin.

Picture a theater foyer full of smartly dressed women and men in sober lounge suits, drifting effortlessly around, and a pianist in a white tuxedo playing jazz. There’s a buzz in the air, the expectation and foretaste of something special.

But this is no premiere at the Bolshoy, nor any fashionable gathering at one of St. Petersburg’s more stylish theaters. The location is Magnitogorsk, a southern Urals town spanning two continents, and notorious for a giant metallurgy combine which prompted the nickname “city of a thousand chimneys.”