Nationaloper Baku

The Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre stands on Nizami Street in the centre of Baku. The building was commissioned by the businessman Daniel Mailov to designs by the architect Nikolai Bayev; working in three shifts with 200 labourers, construction took less than ten months. The then Mailov Theatre opened on 28 February 1911, and the soprano Antonina Nezhdanova was the first singer to perform there. In 1916 Pavel Amirago's opera troupe became its permanent company, and in 1920 it became the state Opera and Ballet Theatre. In 1927 it was named after the writer Mirza Fatali Akhundov, and in 1959 it received the title of an academic theatre. In 1985 the newly renovated theatre burned down; it reopened in 1987. Today it is a repertory house for opera and ballet.