Mariinsky Theatre Second Stage

The Second Stage has been completed and a gala concert celebrating the opening, and featuring performers Plácido Domingo, Rene Pape and Anna Netrebko, was presented on 2 May 2013.

The post-modernist French architect Dominique Perrault won a much-publicised contest for his design for a new home for the theatre,[2] which is to be located adjacent to the current building.

[citation needed] With a budget of €295-million (about US $452-million), all of which will be paid by the Russian government with a completion date of no later than December 2011, the Canadian firm, Diamond and Schmitt Architects,[3] prevailed over four other finalists, one of which came from Germany and three from Russia.

The winner was well-known French architect Dominique Perrault with «a gold cocoon» (an external cover of a building of the wrong form from glass and aluminium).

However, in June of that year the new general contractor, "Joint-Stock Company "NPO" Georeconstruction-fundamentproekt", in a short space of time removed all 286 obstacles shown on the working drawings of Perrault.

In particular, it was necessary to make changes – based on the Saint Petersburg climate – in order to strengthen load-bearing structures above which the gold cupola would be located.

In 2008 the foundation work for the building of the theatre continued, but by April, it was found that the consistency of the soil under the construction area was unpredictable.

In order to overcome these problems, the builders strengthened the consistency of the soil to a depth of 12 to 14 metres and, as a result, cost estimates had to be increased.