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Video: 5 great Russian ballerinas who were not prevented by a dramatic fate from conquering the world
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
It is not for nothing that Russian ballet is considered a separate art form. Borrowed from Italy, in France he received a second life as a court ballet. But it was in Russia that he reached his true heyday. The whole world applauded Russian ballerinas, they conquered with their grace, grace and incredible skill, and the audience did not even know how dramatic their fates were.
Anna Pavlova
She was called a pioneer and reformer, she improvised on stage, and her Dying Swan became a symbol of Russian ballet for many years. Anna Pavlova had many admirers, and in her youth she gave her heart to the French aristocrat Victor Dandre. When the windy lover was caught taking a bribe during the construction of the Okhtinsky Bridge, the ballerina was on tour in Paris. She collected all of her royalties from performing in Europe and found a way to send the money to Russia so that it could be deposited as collateral for Dandre.
The French aristocrat appreciated the act of the ballerina and even came to her in London when she emigrated there. However, the joint life of Anna Pavlova and Victor Dandre did not work out. They were desperately jealous of each other, reproached for all sins and found consolation on the side. The life of the "Dying Swan" was cut short by pleurisy, which she received after a train accident and a long wait for rescuers in the cold.
Olga Spesivtseva
This brilliant ballerina became famous at the beginning of the 20th century. A tragic role in her fate was played by the party of Giselle, preparing for which she visited a psychiatric clinic, and then suffered from the fact that she was getting too used to the role. She even thought that she shouldn't dance in Giselle. Left after the revolution in Russia, Olga Spesivtseva developed tuberculosis from the cold and malnutrition and was able to survive thanks to the Chekist Boris Kaplun, who sent her to Italy for treatment.
After she emigrated to France, there she was received very cautiously. She then fled to England, where she met the American businessman Leonard Brown, with whom she moved to America. When the ballerina's beloved suddenly died of a heart attack, Olga Spesivtseva's psyche could not stand it. And for many years she turned out to be an unnamed patient of a psychiatric clinic in New York. She died in a boarding house for emigrants.
Lydia Ivanova
She was called the rising star of Russian ballet and was seen as a rival to Olga Spesivtseva. Lydia Ivanova, at the age of 20, danced at the Mariinsky Theater, was going to marry a loved one and was preparing for a tour in Germany. However, in June 1924, she died under very strange circumstances during a boat trip through the canals of St. Petersburg. First, the boat's engine stalled, but while it was being repaired, the tiny ship was carried into the fairway of the Sea Canal, where large ships sailed. A boat collided with one of them, where Lydia Ivanova was with her friends.
According to official figures, Lydia's body was never found. Rumors circulating at that time in St. Petersburg claimed that the body of the ballerina was found, and even with a bullet in the head. Allegedly, Boris Kaplun, the lover of Olga Spesivtseva, eliminated the prima rival in this way. Friends of Lida Ivanova were sure that the GPU was involved in her death, the leadership of which did not want to let the talented ballerina out of the country. However, none of the assumptions can be verified.
Olga Lepeshinskaya
She was incredibly talented and driven. Already while studying at the choreographic school, she conquered everyone around her with her talent. No one even suspected that at night, when her fellow practitioners slept sweetly in their beds, Olga spun fouetté over and over again in the rehearsal room to achieve perfection. When the Great Patriotic War began, Olga Lepeshinskaya danced at the Bolshoi Theater, but went to the district committee to volunteer for the front and was refused. She did not give up and enrolled in the front brigade in order to raise the morale of the soldiers with her dances. And she danced right on the ground, bleeding her legs, which were screwed into the ground during the performance of the fouetté.
She had to endure the arrest and death of her first husband, death from a heart attack of the second, and at the end of her life fall into the hands of a swindler who secretly took out all the valuables from the apartment of a famous ballerina, took all the money from her accounts and persuaded Olga Lepeshinskaya to write a will in his favor.
Maya Plisetskaya
She was called "Fiery Carmen", her talent was admired, she was worshiped, almost like an icon. And no one knew that a terrible tragedy preceded her path to success. The father of the great ballerina was shot in 1937, her mother and younger brother ended up in a camp for the wives of traitors to their homeland, and Maya Plisetskaya herself was to go to an orphanage. Only the intervention of Sulamith Messerere saved the girl from an unenviable fate. Maya Plisetskaya is one of the most famous ballerinas in the world, many parts in her performance have become the standard for ballerinas around the world.
The talent and grace of Maya Plisetskaya conquered the whole world, she was applauded in different countries and cities, and therefore it is even difficult to imagine that there was a period in the life of a ballerina when The KGB did not leave her behind. She was categorically not allowed on foreign tours, with the exception of the countries of the socialist camp, and even at performances at the Bolshoi Theater, for some reason, they feared provocations from Maya Plisetskaya.
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