given at the Theatre of the Hermitage for the Imperial Family and their special guest, Kaiser Wilhelm II. By 1885 the now sixty-seven-year-old Petipa began to experience what appeared to be a severe case of eczema. The pain and suffering caused by his illness began to debilitate the Ballet Master a great deal, forcing him to be absent from work for long periods. In 1881, the newly crowned Russian Emperor Alexander III appointed Ivan Vsevolozhsky director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. In 1885 the new director prompted the inspection of the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre by architects who found the building to be unsafe. Rather than spend millions of roubles on renovations, the director ordered that both the ballet and opera companies be relocated to the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, much to the chagrin of the orchestra and opera singers who found the theatre's acoustics to be weaker. In honor of the relocation to the new theatre, a lavish gala performance was planned for February 1886, which included the Petipa/Minkus work Les Pilules magiques (The Magic Pills). The work included three danced tableaux: the first took place in a cave inhabited by sorceresses, while the second included various card games brought to life through dance. The third and final tableau was known as The Kingdom of the Laces in which a Grand divertissement of national dances from Belgium, England, Spain and Russia was performed. The golden age of Russian ballet During the twilight of Imperial Russia, the ballet of St. Petersburg flourished before a public that possessed a high level of connoisseurship. The treasury of the Russian Emperor—who was at that time the wealthiest person on earth—lavished millions of rubles a year on the Imperial Ballet, opera, and the Imperial Ballet School (today known as the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). Each new season required that Petipa create a new multi-act Grand ballet, that he choreograph the dance sections for various operas, and that he prepare galas and divertissements for court performances, royal nuptials, etc. With the ballet thriving in such an environment, the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw what is considered to be the golden age of Russian ballet. This era coincided with an important change: upon the retirement of Ludwig Minkus in 1886, the director Ivan Vsevolozhsky abolished the official post of Ballet Composer in an effort to diversify the music supplied for