Thanks so much for your kind words Sunny

I would highly recommend this concerts to anyone visiting the city. In fact, they are more the kind of russian folckloric show than a classic concert. The group at the landing stage with the fancy dresses welcome you dancing a lovely minuet while you ascend the staircase. During the "entre´acte" the doors are open to show the adjoining reception room, where the hors deuvres are served and you can help yourself and take glass after glass of champagne.
Everything is perhaps "too turistic", but i enjoyed it all the same and we attended no less than three times each time we were in Petersburg. At the end we could recognize the dancers from the preceding years!
The same could be said about Ella´s palace. The dancers are mostly the same that used to be in 1999, and even one of them, fancifully dressed with a 18th c. livery greeted us. The concerts at Ella´s palace, as well as those in the Nikolay N. palace are the only possible way for tourist to see their interiors.