Bolshoi Theatre

The Bolshoi Theatre is the opera house where Professor Preobrazhensky goes to hear Aida, a cultural destination that gives concrete form to his belief in the division of labor: the theatre should sing, while he should operate. Its presence also sharpens the contrast between an evening of cultivated leisure and the unsettling work carried on in his study.

Opera and the Division of Labor

After the experimental rabbit dies, Professor Preobrazhensky tells Doctor Bormenthal that he will not be operating that evening and plans to attend Aida at the Bolshoi Theatre. He has not heard it for a long time and recalls a duet, humming its rhythm as he discusses his plans. His pleasure in the opera is not presented as a retreat from professional seriousness; rather, he treats cultural enjoyment as something that can be made possible through an unhurried and orderly use of time.

When Doctor Bormenthal asks how he finds time for such pursuits, the professor answers that a person can find time for everything if he is never in a hurry. He contrasts attending meetings and spending the day singing with going to the theatre, then states his principle plainly: the Bolshoi Theatre’s work is to sing, and his is to operate. He imagines that keeping these functions distinct would prevent what he calls “ruin.” The theatre therefore represents more than entertainment: it is part of an argument for specialized work and the preservation of everyday order.

A Counterpoint to the Study

The Bolshoi Theatre recurs in the account of the professor’s evenings as one of the engagements that can take him away from home. If there is no Aida at the theatre and no meeting of the All-Russian Surgical Society, he settles into a deep armchair in his study, where a green-shaded desk lamp provides the only light. From the shadows, Sharik watches the jars of human brains in murky liquid as the professor, wearing red rubber gloves, cuts into brain tissue with a small knife.

The contrast is stark: the professor remembers the theatre’s gilded auditorium while working among preserved brains and surgical instruments. He quietly hums the recurring phrase “to the sa-acred Nile” as he licks his lips, bringing the opera into the same room as his clinical work. The Bolshoi Theatre thus marks both a real leisure destination and an imaginative counterpoint to the study’s disturbing experiments; the professor’s cultivated tastes coexist with, rather than soften, the bodily procedures performed there.