The Chelyabinsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre — named after Mikhail Glinka — occupies a grand Stalin-era building on one of the city's main squares. Founded in 1956, it operates a full repertoire of Russian and European opera and classical ballet, performed by a company of professional dancers and singers that regularly attracts guest artists from Moscow and St Petersburg.
The building itself is worth a look from the outside: a commanding piece of Soviet neoclassicism with columns and reliefs that were designed to announce the cultural ambitions of an industrial city. Check the theatre's programme in advance — an evening here is genuinely good value and gives a strong sense of Chelyabinsk's civic pride.