Many opera premieres in Russia were given in this theatre: Edison Denisov's The Foam of Days, Jules Massenet's Cléopâtre, Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, George Frideric Handel's Alcina, Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka, Rodion Shchedrin's Lolita, Anton Rubinstein's Christ, Alexander Tchaikovsky's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The theatre held the first festival in the 20th Century of the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev's work, where it opened with a two-evening version of the opera War and Peace and gave stage life to the opera The Fiery Angel.