Shakespeare for 200: prices for "Hamlet" with Yura Borisov soared to record levels
The excitement around the play "Hamlet" at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater with Yura Borisov in the role of the Prince of Denmark has reached a new level. Two weeks before the premiere, speculators offer to buy a ticket to the stalls for 200 thousand rubles. While on March 16, the day of the start of sales, resellers set the bar at 165 thousand for a place in the stalls. The new price is an absolute record for a drama theater.
Duplicate sites, resales, and "authenticity guarantees"
While director Andrey Goncharov continues rehearsals for the most anticipated premiere of the season, William Shakespeare's Hamlet, at the Art Theater, resellers are setting new price records. Despite the fact that tickets for the May screenings were sold out on the very first day, both on the official website and at the Moscow Art Theater box office, speculators continue to sell them on third—party sites.
The price differs from the official one by three to four times. So a ticket to the balcony will cost 17 thousand, and to the orchestra seats — already 200 thousand rubles. Moreover, judging by the layout of the hall on one of these sites, on April 23, seats in the fourth row were available for the premiere for 200 thousand rubles, and by May 28 they had already been bought.
But it's not just the overpriced prices. A whole layer of dubious services has emerged around the play — twin sites that visually mimic verified theater pages. They appear in search results earlier than the official ones, and a user who is not used to regularly buying tickets can easily mistake them for genuine ones.
Such sites were created specifically for Hamlet and are accompanied by posters and photographs that even the Moscow Art Theater does not have. Chekhov. The images look plausible, but upon closer inspection it is clear that they are generated by artificial intelligence. At the same time, sellers themselves try to reduce the buyer's anxiety as much as possible. The pages contain detailed "authenticity guarantees" — texts styled to resemble official notices.
"Our website sells authentic event tickets provided by the organizers. The purchase process is completely safe and reliable, as payment is made on a secure, certified processing page.… A unique number and barcode serve as a guarantee of the authenticity of the tickets. They provide access to events.… The guarantee of authenticity applies only to tickets you purchased on our website," one of these sites says.
However, such formulations do not provide real protection: a unique number and barcode can easily be sold to several buyers at the same time. And the electronic receipt only confirms the fact of the money transfer, but not the right to enter the hall.
The audience themselves write about the risks — theater channels regularly feature stories about attempts to buy tickets to Hamlet through third-party websites. People complain about duplicate tickets, the inability to contact the seller and the mismatch of seats.
Audience earnings and official price increase
A separate market has developed on private ad platforms. Upon request, "Hamlet Borisov Moscow Art Theater" there you can find about 40 offers from ticket agencies and individuals. According to the rules of the Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov's one show of Hamlet sells no more than four tickets in one hand, two for different dates, and some buyers use this restriction as a way to earn money. They keep one place for themselves, and put the other up for resale at an inflated price.
The prices here, oddly enough, are more moderate than on intermediary sites. In personal correspondence with the seller, the Izvestia journalist was offered two tickets to the 13th row of the stalls in the central seats for 70 thousand rubles each. And the seats in the third row — 11th and 12th - have already been estimated at 125 thousand rubles for a ticket to the premiere. Sellers also claim that the tickets are "official" and "pass through the entrance without any problems."
Meanwhile, the pricing policy of the theater itself has changed. If on the day of the start of sales the range was from 1.5 to 30 thousand rubles, now on the official website it has grown to 3-50 thousand. This is still several times lower than the secondary market, but the fact of growth shows that the theater is also responding to demand, albeit cautiously. Izvestia asked the theater to comment on the situation, but at the time of publication they had not received a response.
The theater announced plans to stage a new version of Shakespeare's Hamlet in September 2025. Even then, the performance was called one of the most anticipated cultural events of the year. The main role was entrusted to Yura Borisov, one of the most notable actors of his generation, a nominee for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
The actor has not appeared on the stage of the theater for many years. In 2013-2014, he worked in the Satyricon troupe, where he played in two Shakespearean productions — Othello (Ludovico) and Romeo and Juliet (Balthazar). Anya Chipovskaya, Artyom Bystrov, Andrey Maksimov, Nikolai Romanov, Sofya Shidlovskaya and Kuzma Kotrelev are working with Borisov in Hamlet. The play was directed by Andrey Goncharov.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
