Excursion about the Theatre

Good afternoon. I would like to tell you about the building of the Perm State Academic Opera & Ballet theatre. Look at it. The building is rather empressive, isn't it? It was designed & constructed in 1879 by the architect Karvovsky. In 1965 it was named after P.I. Tchaikovsky, as he was born not far from Perm in the Udmurt town of Votkinsk. And it is Perm that is the nearest city to it to have an opera house. Another reason is that all Tchaikovsky's operas & ballets were staged here. And now let’s enter the theatre.

Follow me through the entrance hall to the cloak-room. You may leave your hats & coats in the cloak-room. Don’t forget to take a pair of opera glasses. And now we pass on to the foyer.

Now we open the door leading to the hall. Here you see rows of seats near the stage that are called orchestra stalls, behind them come the stalls and then the pit. On both sides you see the boxes, then higher up the dress circle, balconies and a gallery. The usher will show us to our seats if we have any difficulty in finding them.

And now let's go to the theatre museum. On the stands you can see the actors’ costumes. There are many things which are connected with the performances. The photographs and pictures of the most famous actors of the theatre and stories about the history of the theatre are on the stands.

Speaking about the history of our Opera House we often connect it with the name of the Dyagilev’s family of the 19-th century. They did a lot for the development of arts in our city. The theatre was constructed thanks to the money donated by the Perm citizens. The Dyagilevs were among the first contributors. Sergei Dyagilev was a great theatergoer and a fantastic spectator.

During the years of the Great Patriotic war of 1941-1945 the Perm stage accepted the Lelingrad Opera & ballet theatre.

The third bell is ringing and we must go to the hall. Follow me.

Did you enjoy the performance? Thank you for your attention, good bye.

Приложение 2: Тексты

II семестр.

OurTime–Table.

We are first-year students of the Actor’s Department. We are busy for 8 or 10 hours almost every day, because we have rehearsals in the afternoon after classes, even our day off. Our time-table is rather convenient. We have theoretical subjects in the morning and special subjects after the lunch break. Our classes are over at half past four, but on Fridays we have lectures till 7 o’clock in the evening.

At the lesson.

1. It is 9 o’clock in the morning. The professor comes into the classroom. The music lesson begins. One student goes to the piano. He opens the sheet music. He begins to play a sonata by Beethoven. He plays well. The professor listens to the student. He likes this music. He wants to teach his student to play the sonata very well. He sometimes stops the students and shows how to play this or that passage in it. The student listens to his teacher attentively.

2. Henry is a bad student. He doesn’t come to the lectures in time. He doesn’t like to study at all. He doesn’t do his homework every day. At the lessons he doesn’t listen to the teacher attentively. He doesn’t look at the blackboard, he looks at the window. He doesn’t know many simple things and he doesn’t understand the lectures. He doesn’t work hard.

We study at VGIK.

My friends and I study at the cameramen’s department of the Cinema Institute. We learn to make films. We study many subjects. Our professors teach the students how to make documentary and feature films. We study many theoretical subjects and we learn to do practical work. We learn to shoot and cut our films. Our students usually do all the creative and technical work during the production of their short films. The teachers criticize our work when we make mistakes and they are glad when we make progress. We know that the film studios of our country need good film-makers. We understand it very well and try hard to master our profession.