Hermitage Theatre Hermitage Theatre The Hermitage Theatre () in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of five Hermitage buildings lining the Palace Embankment of the Neva River. The Hermitage Theatre was the second theatre of the Winter Palace. It replaced the Russian Imperial Theater, which operated from 1764 until 1783. The Hermitage Theatre was built between 1783 and 1787 at the behest of Catherine the Great to a Palladian design by Giacomo Quarenghi. The crumbling Third Winter Palace of Peter the Great was demolished to make room for the new structure, although its old foundations are still visible in the ground floor. Quarenghi's
Hermitage Museum reopened. In 1948, 316 works of Impressionist, post-Impressionist, and modern art from the collection of the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow, originating mostly from the nationalized collections of Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov and disestablished before the war, were transferred to the Hermitage, including works by Matisse and Picasso. Beginning in 1967, a number of works by Matisse were donated to the museum by his muse Lydia Delectorskaya. In 1981, the restored Menshikov Palace became a new branch of the Hermitage museum, displaying Russian culture of the early 18th century. On 15 June 1985, a man later judged