The brightest stars of the Soviet ballet

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In pre-revolutionary Russia, ballet was very popular. Despite the fact that after the revolution, many dancers of the imperial theater left the country and began to perform on the stages of foreign theaters, there were many artists left in Russia who were able to revive ballet art in the country and found the Soviet ballet. And in this they were helped by the first people's commissar for education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, who made a lot of efforts to preserve and develop this type of art in a dilapidated state. In the 30s of the 20th century, the first stars of the Soviet ballet began to appear. Many of them received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR and the USSR:

• Ekaterina Geltser;
• Agrippina Vaganova;
• Galina Ulanovna;
• Olga Lepeshinskaya;
• Marina Semenova;
• Vasily Tikhomirov;
• Mikhail Gabovich;
• Alexey Ermolaev;
• Rostislav Zakharov;
• Asaf Messerer;
• Konstantin Sergeyev and others

40s - 50s

During these years, the Imperial Theater of St. Petersburg was renamed the Ballet. Kirov (now the Mariinsky Theatre), and the honored ballerina Agrippina Vaganova, a student ofPetipa and Ceccheti. She was forced to transform storylines, subordinating them to Soviet ideological principles. So, for example, the ending of the ballet "Swan Lake" was changed from tragic to sublime. And the Imperial Ballet School became known as the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute. Future stars of the Soviet ballet studied here. After the death of an outstanding ballerina in 1957, this educational institution was renamed the Agrippina Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. That is how it is called to this day. The most popular ballet theaters in the country were the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Theater. Kirov (Mariinsky Theatre) in Leningrad. The repertoire of the theaters included works by both foreign and Russian and Soviet composers. The works of Prokofiev were especially popular: the ballets Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet, etc. The ballet did not stop acting during the years of the Patriotic War. However, it reached its heyday in the middle of the century. Hungry for cultural events during the war years, the Soviet people flooded the theater halls, and each new performance was sold out. Ballet figures were very popular. During these years, new stars of the Soviet ballet appeared: Tatyana Zimina, Maya Plisetskaya, Yuri Grigorovich, Maris Liepa, Makhmud Esambaev, Raisa Struchkova, Boris Bregvadze, Vera Dubrovina, Inna Zubkovskaya, Askold Makarov, Tamara Seifert, Nadezhda Nadezhdina, Vera Orlova, Violetta Bovt etc.

60s-70s

Following years, the Soviet ballet became a visitingUSSR card. The troupes of the Bolshoi and Kirov theaters successfully toured all over the world, even went beyond the Iron Curtain. Some stars of the Soviet ballet, having found themselves "over the hill" and having weighed all the pros and cons, decided to stay there and asked for political asylum. They were considered traitors in their homeland, and the media wrote about the famous "defectors". Alexander Godunov, Natalya Markova, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Valery Panov, Rudolf Nureyev - all of them had great success and were in demand on the ballet stages of the most prestigious theaters in the world. However, the Soviet ballet dancer Great Rudolf Nureyev won the greatest popularity in the world. He became a legend in the history of world culture. Since 1961, he did not return from a Paris tour and became the premiere in Covent Garden, and since the 1980s he became the head of the Grand Opera in Paris.

Conclusion

Today, Russian ballet does not lose its popularity, and young artists nurtured by Soviet choreographers are in demand all over the world. Russian figures of ballet art in the 21st century are free in their actions. They can freely enter into contracts and perform on the stages of foreign theaters and, with their brilliant performances, prove to everyone and everything that Russian ballet is the best in the whole world.