Behind the airy and light dance of the ballerina is a colossal daily work from classes and rehearsals. It was not for nothing that only the dancer who managed to reach the pinnacle of choreographic mastery and was honored to perform the leading roles in classical performances was called a ballerina. “Beauty does not tolerate amateurism. To serve her means to devote oneself to her entirely, without a trace,” said the great Anna Pavlova. And biographies of truly great dancers confirm her opinion. The Russian ballet school is still considered exemplary, so among the many eminent dancers, we chose only her pupils.
Avdotya Istomina
The legendary St. Petersburg ballerina was sung by Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin", and he was also going to dedicate a story to her. Avdotya Istomina discovered her talent at an early age and, while still a student at the St. Petersburg Ballet School, performed at the Imperial Theatre. At the age of 17, the dancer won the championship in the troupe after the debut of Acis and Galatea. Istomina's repertoire was varied, as the artist also had an outstanding dramatic talent. She also played in vaudeville, brilliantly coped with conversational roles. In addition to her stage gift, the ballerina also became famous for her ability to charm men - she was always surrounded by crowds of fans. It was she who became the reason for the famous quarter duel between Zavadovsky and Sheremetyev and their seconds Griboyedov and Yakubovich.
Tamara Karsavina
The daughter of a ballet dancer, Tamara Karsavina followed in her father's footsteps: after graduating from the Imperial Theater School, she joined the troupe of the Mariinsky Theater and quickly gained the status of prima. Karsavina successfully danced parts in classical performances - Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère - and also inspired choreographers to create performances "for themselves". Mikhail Fokin and Leonid Myasin staged for her, and Sergei Diaghilev, inviting her to his troupe, gave the best parts. By the way, Tamara Karsavina was a close friend and adviser to the creator of Russian Seasons. In 1918, the ballerina left Russia forever and settled in England, where she taught classical dance, acting and worked on productions.
Anna Pavlova
Little is known about the childhood of the ballerina - Pavlova hid her own origin all her life. Nevertheless, her career was so eventful, and her talent so bright, that the details of her early biography can be ignored without a twinge of conscience. A graduate of the Imperial Theater School, Anna Pavlova was a leading dancer with the Mariinsky Theater Company, where she performed roles in classical ballets. The ballerina gained world fame after participating in Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, however, after working with him for one season, she founded her own troupe. Nevertheless, the poster with the silhouette of Pavlova remained a symbol of the famous series of touring performances. The most famous image of a ballerina is a miniature swan, staged for her by Mikhail Fokin. Since 1914, Anna Pavlova lived in England and successfully toured Europe, America and even India. The great dancer died of pneumonia. It is said that her last words were: "Prepare me my swan costume!"
Ballerinas of Russia are the national treasure of the country, their names are real brands. Lopatkina, who is celebrating her birthday today, Vishneva, Zakharova, Osipova are real cultural beacons. InStyle has chosen the main dancers of modern Russia. They, like Kshesinskaya in their time, are real pop stars, they are more than ballerinas.
Uliana Lopatkina
Last summer, Lopatkina, the one who is called the style icon of Russian ballet, announced the end of her dancing career. The reason is the consequences of injuries. “Thanks to everyone who met me on the creative path! Everyone who became my mentor, friend, helper, who inspired, demanded, comforted and cared for, believed, thanked and supported! Everyone who worked alongside and with me! All my viewers, everyone who understood me and gave me applause from the audience in return!” - such a record appeared on the ballerina's website. Two months later, Lopatkina became a student at St. Petersburg State University and decided to study Environmental Design. And this spring, the Imperial Porcelain Factory released figurines of a star. Lopatkin, as well as Vishnev, are symbols of St. Petersburg, it's time to put up monuments.
Diana Vishneva
Perhaps the most famous ballerina in Russia is she. Vishneva. “They didn’t want to take me to the choreographic school. Almost no one believed that I could first become the best student, then win competitions, and then get into the Mariinsky Theater. I can’t say that since childhood it was clear that Diana Vishneva would become who she is now, ”says Vishneva, adding:“ I rather consider myself an artist. Prima of the Mariinsky Theater, world star, hostess of her own international festival CONTEXT, she declares that she is not a ballerina, but an artist. And that's right. Vishneva is already more than ballet.
Svetlana Zakharova
Modern Russian dancers, ballerinas are real citizens of the world. Prima ballerina of the Bolshoi and La Scala, Zakharova is also a true cosmopolitan. She lived in Germany, worked at the Mariinsky Theatre, then moved to Moscow, closely connected with Italy. This is not counting the constant movement from one point of the globe to another. The ballerina's November schedule is Beijing, Seoul, Sofia and Moscow. And Zakharova was in the State Duma, she is also a wife and mother, and loves her well-deserved popularity. The only pity is that Instagram rarely leads: the last post for today is dated August.
Ekaterina Kondaurova
Another prima of the Mariinsky Theater made an unexpected worldly pirouette. She was born in Moscow, moved to St. Petersburg and does not want to live in her native city.
“When I began to live alone, I discovered St. Petersburg, I had more friends, my visits to Moscow became even a burden for me. And now I generally try to avoid it. I don't like Moscow at all. I feel uncomfortable there, stuffy and everything is not right, ”Kondaurova admits.
In her interviews, the ballerina appears very rational, but in the dance... “She is more spontaneous on stage than most of her colleagues. And everything that often looks like improvisation is actually well rehearsed,” Alexey Ratmansky says about her.
Maria Alexandrova
The great ballerinas of Russia have always been distinguished by their characters. Here is Maria Alexandrova - in May last year, this prima of the Bolshoi resigned from the theater. Herself. The lengthy social media post Alexandrova posted didn't explain anything, but the decision was firm. “I stayed in the Bolshoi on a contract, and in general I remained on a contract everywhere. Now I exist as a freelance artist, dance and work where I am needed. And with the theater, I remained in a relationship outside the system, ”she recently said in an interview. Life goes on - Maria launches projects, dances, enjoys life.
Natalia Osipova
The list of "famous ballerinas of Russia" would be incomplete without this dancer. In her generation, Osipova is the number one star. And in general, she stays - deservedly so! - in the top list of world ballet names. Independent, searching, Natalia changes venues, theaters, countries and everywhere she shows herself in all her beauty and talent. Bolshoi, Mikhailovsky, American Ballet Theatre, London Royal Ballet. From London, she flies to Perm, from there to St. Petersburg and further - everywhere. But Britain for Osipova is a second home, just like Sergei Polunin is one of the main partners on the stage.
The dance style of this ballerina cannot be confused with anyone else. A clear, carefully honed gesture, measured movement around the stage, extreme laconism of costumes and movements - these are the features that immediately distinguish M. Plisetskaya.
After graduating from the Moscow Choreographic School, where Plisetskaya studied with teachers E. P. Gerdt and M. M. Leontieva, from 1943 she worked at the Bolshoi Theater. From the very beginning of her career, Plisetskaya's special artistic individuality manifested itself. Her work is distinguished by a rare combination of purity of line with imperious expression and rebellious dynamics of dance. And her excellent external data - a big step, a high, light jump, swift rotations, unusually flexible, expressive hands and the finest musicality - once again confirm that Plisetskaya not only became a ballerina, but was born one.
Anna Pavlovna Pavlova(February 12, 1881 – January 23, 1931), Russian ballerina
Pavlova's art is a unique phenomenon in the history of world ballet. For the first time, she turned academic dance into a mass art form, close and understandable even to the most unprepared public.
Legends envelop her entire life from birth to death. According to the documents, her father was a soldier of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. However, even during the life of the ballerina, newspapers wrote about her aristocratic origin.
Galina Sergeevna
Ulanova(January 8, 1910 – March 21, 1998), Russian ballerina
Ulanova's work constituted a whole epoch in the history of world ballet. She not only admired the filigree art of dance, but with every movement she conveyed the state of mind of her heroine, her mood and character.
The future ballerina was born into a family where dance was a profession. Her father was a famous dancer and choreographer, and her mother was a ballerina and teacher. Therefore, the admission of Ulanova to the Leningrad Choreographic School was completely natural. At first, she studied with her mother, and then the famous ballerina A. Ya. Vaganova became her teacher.
In 1928, Ulanova brilliantly graduated from college and was accepted into the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre. Soon she became the leading performer of parts of the classical repertoire - in P. Tchaikovsky's ballets "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker", A. Adam "Giselle" and others. In 1944 she became a soloist with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
Marius Ivanovich Petipa(March 11, 1818 - July 14, 1910), Russian artist, choreographer.
The name of Marius Petipa is known to everyone who is at least a little familiar with the history of ballet. Wherever today there are ballet theaters and schools, where films and TV shows dedicated to ballet are shown, books about this amazing art are published, this person is known and honored. Although he was born in France, he worked all his life in Russia and is one of the founders of modern ballet.
Petipa once admitted that from birth his whole life was connected with the stage. Indeed, his father and mother were famous ballet dancers and lived in the major port city of Marseille. But Marius's childhood did not pass in the south of France, but in Brussels, where the family moved immediately after his birth in connection with the new appointment of his father.
Marius' musical abilities were noticed very early, and he was immediately sent to the Great College and the Conservatory in the violin class. But his first teacher was his father, who led a ballet class at the theater. In Brussels, Petipa first appeared on stage as a dancer.
He was only twelve years old at the time. And already at sixteen he became a dancer and choreographer in Nantes. True, he worked there for only a year and then, together with his father, went on his first foreign tour to New York. But, despite the purely commercial success that accompanied them, they quickly left America, realizing that there was no one there to appreciate their art.
Returning to France, Petipa realized that he needed to get a deeper education, and became a student of the famous choreographer Vestris. Classes quickly yielded results: in just two months he became a dancer, and later a choreographer at the ballet theater in Bordeaux.
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev(March 31, 1872 - August 19, 1929), Russian theatrical figure, impresario, publisher.
Diaghilev did not know his mother, she died in childbirth. He was raised by his stepmother, who treated him the same as her own children. Therefore, for Diaghilev, the death of his half-brother in Soviet times became a real tragedy. Perhaps that is why he stopped striving for his homeland.
Diaghilev's father was a hereditary nobleman, a cavalry guard. But due to debts, he was forced to leave the army and settle in Perm, which at that time was considered a Russian outback. His house almost immediately becomes the center of the cultural life of the city. Parents often played music and sang at the evenings held in their house. Their son also took music lessons. Sergei received such a versatile education that when he ended up in St. Petersburg after graduating from the gymnasium, he was in no way inferior in his knowledge to his St. Petersburg peers and even sometimes surpassed them in the level of erudition and in the level of knowledge of history and Russian culture.
Diaghilev's appearance turned out to be deceptive: the big provincial, who seemed to be a lout, was quite well-read, fluent in several languages. He easily entered the university environment and became a student of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University.
At the same time, he plunged into the theatrical and musical life of the capital. The young man takes private piano lessons from the Italian A. Cotogni, attends a class at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, tries to compose music, and studies the history of artistic styles. During the holidays, Diaghilev makes the first trip to Europe. He seems to be looking for his vocation, turning to various fields of art. Among his friends are L. Bakst, E. Lansere, K. Somov - the future core of the "World of Art" association.
Vaclav Fomich Nijinsky(March 12, 1890 – April 8, 1950), Russian dancer and choreographer.
In the 1880s, a troupe of Polish dancers performed successfully in Russia. A husband and wife, Tomasz and Eleonora Nijinsky, served in it. They became the parents of the future great dancer. Theater and dance entered Vaclav's life from the first months of his life. As he later wrote, "the desire to dance was as natural to me as breathing."
In 1898 he entered the St. Petersburg Ballet School, graduated in 1907 and was admitted to the Mariinsky Theatre. The outstanding talent of a dancer and actor immediately brought Nijinsky to the position of prime minister. He performed many parts of the academic repertoire and was a partner of such brilliant ballerinas as, O. I. Preobrazhenskaya, A. P. Pavlova,.
Already at the age of 18, Nijinsky danced the main parts in almost all the new ballets staged at the Mariinsky Theater. In 1907 he danced the White Slave in the Pavilion of Armida, in 1908 he danced the Slave in Egyptian Nights and the Youth in Chopiniana staged by M. M. Fokine, and a year later he performed the role of the Hurricane in the ballet The Talisman by Drigo staged by N. G. Legat.
And yet, in 1911, Nijinsky was fired from the Mariinsky Theater because, while performing in the ballet Giselle, he arbitrarily put on a new costume designed by A. N. Benois. Entering the stage half-naked, the actor irritated the members of the royal family who were sitting in the boxes. Even the fact that by this time he was one of the most famous dancers of Russian ballet could not protect him from dismissal.
Ekaterina Sergeevna Maksimova(February 1, 1939 - April 28, 2009), Russian Soviet and Russian ballerina, choreographer, choreographer, teacher, People's Artist of the USSR.
This unique ballerina did not leave the stage for thirty-five years. However, Maksimova is still connected with ballet today, since she is a teacher-repetiteur of the Kremlin Ballet Theatre.
Ekaterina Maksimova received a special education at the Moscow Choreographic School, where her teacher was the famous E. P. Gerdt. While still a student, Maksimova received the first prize at the All-Union Ballet Competition in Moscow in 1957.
She began her service to the arts in 1958. After graduating from college, the young ballerina came to the Bolshoi Theater and worked there until 1988. Small in stature, perfectly built and surprisingly plastic, it seemed that nature itself was intended for classical roles. But it soon became obvious that her possibilities were truly limitless: she performed both classical and modern parts with equal brilliance.
The secret of Maximova's success lies in the fact that she continued to study all her life. The famous ballerina G. Ulanova shared her wealth of experience with her. It was from her that the young ballet actress adopted the art of dramatic dance. It is no coincidence that, unlike many ballet actors, she played a number of roles in ballet television performances. Maximova's unusually expressive face with large eyes displayed the most subtle nuances when performing comedic, lyrical and dramatic roles. In addition, she brilliantly succeeded not only in female, but also in male parts, as, for example, in the ballet performance "Chapliniana".
Sergei Mikhailovich Lifar(April 2 (15), 1905 - December 15, 1986), Russian and French dancer, choreographer, teacher, collector and artist.
Sergey Lifar was born in Kyiv in the family of a prominent official, his mother came from the family of the famous grain merchant Marchenko. He received his initial education in his native city, enrolling in 1914 to study at the Kyiv Imperial Lyceum, where he received the training necessary for a future officer.
At the same time, from 1913 to 1919, Lifar attended piano lessons at the Taras Shevchenko Conservatory. Deciding to devote his life to ballet, in 1921 he entered the State School of Arts (dance class) at the Kyiv Opera and received the basics of choreographic education in the studio of B. Nijinska.
In 1923, on the recommendation of the teacher, along with four other of his students, Lifar was invited to view the troupe "Russian Ballet" S.P. Diaghilev. Sergei managed to pass the competition and get into the famous team. Since that time, the difficult process of turning a novice amateur into a professional dancer began. Lifar was given lessons by the famous teacher E. Cecchetti.
At the same time, he learned a lot from professionals: after all, the best dancers of Russia traditionally came to the Diaghilev troupe. In addition, not having his own ideas, Diaghilev carefully collected the best that was in Russian choreography, supported the search for George Balanchine, Mikhail Fokine. Famous Russian artists were engaged in scenography and theatrical scenery. Therefore, the Russian Ballet gradually turned into one of the best teams in the world.
A few years after the death of Maris Liepa, it was decided to immortalize five of his drawings in the form of medallions. They are made under the direction of the Italian master D. Montebello in Russia and are sold at the evenings in memory of Liepa in Moscow and Paris. True, the first edition amounted to only one hundred - one hundred and fifty medallions.
After graduating from the Riga Choreographic School under V. Blinov, Maris Liepa came to Moscow to study at the Moscow Choreographic School under N. Tarasov. After graduating in 1955, he never returned to his historical homeland and worked in Moscow almost all his life. Here he received recognition from fans and his fame as an outstanding ballet dancer.
Immediately after graduating from college, Maris Liepa joined the troupe of the Stanislavsky Theater, where he danced the part of Lionel in the ballet Joan of Arc, Phoebe, Conrad. Already in these parts, the main features of his talent appeared - a combination of excellent technique with vivid expressiveness of each movement. The work of the young artist attracted the attention of leading ballet experts, and since 1960 Liepa has become a member of the Bolshoi Theater team.
Matilda Feliksovna Kshesinskaya(Maria-Matilda Adamovna-Feliksovna-Valerievna Kzhesinska) (August 19 (31), 1872 - December 6, 1971), Russian ballerina.
Matilda Kshesinskaya was tiny, only 1 meter 53 centimeters tall, and the future ballerina could boast of her forms, unlike her thin friends. But, despite neither the growth nor the somewhat extra weight for the ballet, the name of Kshesinskaya for many decades did not leave the pages of the gossip column, where she was presented among the heroines of scandals and "fatal women". This ballerina was the mistress of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II (when he was still heir to the throne), as well as the wife of Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich. She was talked about as a fantastic beauty, but meanwhile she differed only in an unusually beautiful figure. At one time, Kshesinskaya was a famous ballerina. And although in terms of talent she was much inferior to, say, such a contemporary as Anna Pavlova, she nevertheless took her place in Russian ballet art.
Kshesinskaya was born into a hereditary artistic environment that has been associated with ballet for several generations. Matilda's father was a famous dancer, was the leading artist of the imperial theaters.
The father became the first teacher of his youngest daughter. Following her older sister and brother, Matilda was accepted into the choreographic school, after which she began her long service in the imperial theaters.
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How beautiful is the flight of the ballerina in the dance, how light and airy it is, and how hard is her work on the way to this seeming lightness. Thousands of girls start this journey in ballet schools, but only a few become great ballerinas. April 23 is a significant date in the world of ballet - the 210th anniversary of the birth of Maria Taglioni, the first ballerina to step on pointe shoes and the first ballet tutu to appear in an airy cloud. But these are not the main pages in the history of ballet, written by the great ballerina - her dance, airy, mystical, which was compared with the Paganini violin, became the most famous ballet legend.
Maria Taglioni (1804-1884)
Maria's father was a choreographer and choreographer, so he saw in his daughter something that others did not see. How else? After all, she was supposed to become a ballerina in the third generation! And she looked like an ugly hunched duck among his other students, from whom she suffered a lot of ridicule in her address. The father was inexorable and strict, sometimes the lesson ended with a faint of exhausted Mary, but it was hard labor that turned her into a ballet nymph. And ahead of her was a triumph - in 1827, the Venice Carnival in Paris, after which she danced at the Grand Opera and world fame at 28 in her father's production of La Sylphide. The role of the Sylph became the main one in her life - for a quarter of a century she was the best performer of this part. She was followed by other parts in the productions of Philippe Taglioni, a long contract with the Grand Opera and ... tours in Russia. And St. Petersburg literally "fell ill with ballet" - she performed at the price every other day, invariably causing delight and admiration, the attention of the imperial family and the adoration of the public. The last performance of the ballerina in St. Petersburg took place on March 1, 1842. They called her eighteen times - her, the Sylph, flying over the stage on the tips of pointe shoes in a gas cloud of a ballet tutu ....
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931)
The future star of Russian ballet dreamed of a white rehearsal room with a portrait of Maria Taglioni on the wall. The daughter of a railway contractor and a laundress had excellent natural ballet abilities and great perseverance, thanks to which she was able to become a student of the theater school, because she was not accepted right away! Only the second attempt was successful, thanks to Marius Petipa, who saw in the little girl "a feather in the wind." After graduating from college, Anna entered the Mariinsky Theater, of which she became the prima ball after 6 years, the field of the first appearance on the stage. "La Bayadère", "Giselle", "The Nutcracker" in her brilliant performance delighted the theatrical audience and captious "ballet lovers". Real fame came to her in 1907 after performing the miniature "The Dying Swan" to the music of Saint-Saens, which Mikhail Fokin staged for her literally overnight to perform at a charity concert. The miniature has forever become a symbol of Russian ballet of the 20th century. Since 1910, a series of tours of the "Russian Swan" and the history of its world fame began. "Russian Seasons" in Paris became one of the "golden pages" in the history of Russian and world ballet. Anna Pavlova creates her own troupe, her own ballet family, with which she opens the classical ballet of Tchaikovsky and Glazunov to the world. In 1913 she moved to London and never returned to Russia. America, Europe, India, Cuba, Australia applauded Pavlova, who has become a living legend. Anna Pavlova died during a tour in The Hague on January 23, 1931 from pneumonia.
Olga Spesivtseva (1895- 1991)
What broke the soul of the ballerina the most - the upheavals of the revolution, the accusations of "espionage" that haunted her emigration, a spiritual drama or complete immersion in the image of Giselle, for the sake of which she visited mental hospitals and with whom she shared her madness? She could no longer go on stage and, broken, moved to the USA in 1931, where she soon ended up in a hospital in a state of complete memory loss, where she stayed until 1963. A miracle happened, her memory returned to her, and until her death, Olga Spesivtseva lived in a boarding house of the Leo Tolstoy Foundation, having managed to star in a documentary film ....
Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951)
She did not become a great ballerina at a price, but her name is known to the whole world, as the name of a great ballet teacher, which is the name of the Dance Academy….
On the stage, only third-rate roles were prepared for her - she was not attractive in appearance and the first parties bypassed her, and critics did not see her as an "airy beauty". Hard work, talent, excellent performance technique turned out to be more important than a beautiful outer shell. Agrippina Vaganova "sculpted" herself, first achieving supporting roles, the images of which she rediscovered for the public. Creating more and more new variations of already seemingly worn out images, she received the title of "Queen of Variations" from critics. She did not become a famous ballerina, she was sent "retired" at the age of 36, but, devoting herself to choreography, she became the most famous teacher, writing her name in golden letters in the history of ballet. She devoted herself to choreography in those years when the question of ... the elimination of ballet as an alien art form was seriously discussed. Vaganova school rightfully became one of the best in the world, releasing ballerinas whose names rightfully deserved the prefix "great": Marina Semenova, Galina Ulanova, Natalya Dudinskaya. Agrippina Vaganova directed the Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in 1931-1937, performing productions of "Swan Lake" and "Esmeralda" in a new edition, in her own special manner, which received the name "Vaganovskaya". Her pedagogical experience has become a world heritage largely due to the book she wrote "Fundamentals of Classical Dance", translated into almost all languages of the world and withstood 7 reprints.
Alicia Alonso (1920)
The creator of the National Ballet of Cuba, Alicia Martinez del Hoyo, at the age of 9, entered the only ballet school in Cuba at that time, the Russian choreographer Nikolai Yavorsky. And from the very first day, ballet became the meaning of her whole life. Step by step, Alicia went to her goals one after another: to become a professional ballerina, and then to create a national ballet school in Cuba. When politics interfered with her plans, and the very existence of a ballet troupe in Cuba became impossible, she made it her goal to support the most talented dancers until better times. After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, she selects the most gifted students and sets a new goal - to raise Cuban ballet to world level. But in her life there were not only large-scale plans, in her life there was Ballet, the "laborer" of which Alicia called herself .. Paris, Milan, Vienna, Naples, Moscow, Prague applauded her, but she was never satisfied with herself. At the age of 19, she had her first eye surgery, her eyesight was deteriorating every year, but she was dancing. "Dancing in the dark" - so they said about the great Cuban ballerina. Especially for her, the center of the stage was illuminated with the brightest spotlight - she did not see the wings, scenery, she danced with her soul .... Many productions, images - she danced, danced, danced always, not giving herself any concessions, no discounts for age and loss of vision. The last performance of Alicia Alonso in the ballet "Butterfly" staged by her took place in 1995, when the ballerina turned 75 years old! She dances to this day, sitting in a wheelchair, completely losing her sight - she still dances with her hands and heart. Alicia Alonso - Prima ballerina assoluta.
