My husband and I are stopping in St. Petersburg, Russia via a cruise ship next Summer. Through several reviews, we thought seeing a ballet would be an obvious highlight of our trip. I attempted to purchase tickets online to see Romeo & Juliet at the Mikhailovsky Theater multiple times with both of our credit cards. Every time I would get an error message (i.e. “Purchase failed”). After my e-mails to the theater were not responded to, I had one of my Russian speaking colleagues call the ticket office. The first call was greeted with a hang-up. The second call was finally answered. They told us they do not accept orders over the phone. Very odd, but ok. Approximately five days after my initial e-mail, the theater responded with "For some reasons our partner bank declines foreign cards sometimes. Please try to make an order again and pay with another Visa or Mastercard credit card." I didn't respond since I had already attempted with both types of credit cards. Our last ditch effort was to purchase a ballet excursion through our cruise. However, they do not provide specifics on what ballet you are seeing. The cruise line informed me that the likelihood of seeing Swan Lake is higher than seeing Romeo & Juliet. I’ve already seen Swan Lake at the legendary Bolshoi Theater.
The point of this post is to let anyone else who tried to purchase tickets at the Mikhailovsky Theater that they are not alone. There is another forum/ post on TripAdvisor on this topic. I gave up after finally realizing that my pursuit to finding tickets became excessive. There is so much to see in St. Petersburg. I doubt we will be disappointed.