St Petersburg A Century Of Russian Ballet

Ballet.

Agrippina Vaganova (1879-1951) is revered as the visionary who first codified the Russian system of classical ballet training. The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, founded on impeccable technique and centuries of tradition, has a reputation for elite standards, and its graduates include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, and Diana Vishneva. Yet the Vaganova method has come under criticism in recent years. In this absorbing volume, Catherine Pawlick traces Vaganova's story from her early years as a ballet student in tsarist Russia to her career as a dancer with the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet to her work as a pedagogue and choreographer. Pawlick then goes beyond biography to address Vaganova's legacy today, offering the first-ever English translations of primary source materials and intriguing interviews with pedagogues and dancers from the Academy and the Mariinsky Ballet, including some who studied with Vaganova herself.

Although the techniques of classical ballets were invented by French and Italian masters two hundred years ago, the Russian Ballet refined these techniques, thus enhancing its already superb performances. This book uncovers the Great History of Russian Ballet, its art and choreography.

"The first distinctly Russian choreography was performed by Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich, and thus began the Tsar's passion for ballet. In 1738, the first professional school of dance opened in St. Petersburg. During the 18th century, the Russian Ballet became known for its tragic and comic ballets. The Russian ballet reached its apogee during the 19th century with the arrival of new masters, such as [Ivan] Valberg, [Charles] Didelot and [Adam] Glushkovsky, who choreographed works by Pushkin and Jokovsky. The second half of the century was marked by the collaboration of [Marius] Petipa, the French choreographer, with the Russian composer Tchaikovsky. In the early 20th century, Diaghilev delighted audiences in the West by presenting the Ballet Russe with supremely talented choreographers, dancers, conmposers and set designers."--Jacket.

In this “incredibly rich” (New York Times) definitive history of the Bolshoi Ballet, visionary performances onstage compete with political machinations backstage. A critical triumph, Simon Morrison’s “sweeping and authoritative” (Guardian) work, Bolshoi Confidential, details the Bolshoi Ballet’s magnificent history from its earliest tumults to recent scandals. On January 17, 2013, a hooded assailant hurled acid into the face of the artistic director, making international headlines. A lead soloist, enraged by institutional power struggles, later confessed to masterminding the crime. Morrison gives the shocking violence context, describing the ballet as a crucible of art and politics beginning with the disreputable inception of the theater in 1776, through the era of imperial rule, the chaos of revolution, the oppressive Soviet years, and the Bolshoi’s recent $680 million renovation. With vibrant detail including “sex scandals, double-suicide pacts, bribery, arson, executions, prostitution rings, embezzlement, starving orphans, [and] dead cats in lieu of flowers” (New Republic), Morrison makes clear that the history of the Bolshoi Ballet mirrors that of Russia itself.

There have been wonderful books about dancing, and superbly evocative ones about old Russia: but here the two themes are fascinatingly wedded. For these are the memoirs of the prima ballerina assoluta of the imperial Russian ballet, Mathilde Kschessinska (the Princess Romanovsky-Krassinsky), with whom, at her first appearance, the Tsarevitch Nicholas fell in love. As a dancer she had few rivals: apart from her marvellous technique she had a star personality, and was adored by the public. At the height of her fame she appeared in London with Diaghilev's company and danced with Nijinsky: she preferred, however, to dance in Russia, and for twenty years she was the adored darling of the great world of Petersburg. After the Revolution, when she was living as an emigre in the South of France, Diaghilev begged her to dance for him in his new Paris season, but to no avail. Kschessinska's memoirs fall roughly into three parts: the glittering fairy-story of her life as prima ballerina in Russia; her flight during the Revolution; and the era in which she established herself as a teacher of the highest rank. It is an extraordinary self-revelation of a great dancer and an utterly human person.

Mathilde Kschessinska, Prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre in pre-Revolutionary Russia, tells her life story in these moving and dramatic memoirs.