While the hall itself is not lav­ish — quite ster­ile, real­ly — a good option for see­ing Russ­ian and reper­to­ry operas cheap­ly, per­formed by fac­ul­ty and stu­dents of the con­ser­va­to­ry where Tchaikovsky (and many oth­er famous fig­ures from the Russ­ian music world) stud­ied.