The Evolution of the School

From Leningrad's Ballet.
The Story of the World's Greatest Ballet School
by John Gregory

      Russian ballet began with twelve little girls. How small was that beginning! It happened because the Empress Anna was fond of dancing and pageantry. Under Peter the Great the dance had developed socially, but Anna took things a step further. Not content with having amateurs and foreign artists performing, she instituted a ballet school on the attic floor of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1738. Young girls were chosen from among the palace menials, and a nanny was assigned to them. The French ballet master Jean Baptiste Lande was brought from Paris to give instruction. Very soon classes in classical ballet were introduced into the naval cadet school so that the girls would have dancing partners.    
      A few years later the ballet master pronounced his pupils fit to appear on the stage. It was the first corps de ballet to be seen in Russia, the first body of dancers to perform before an audience - the prototype of modern ballet.     
      The Empress Elizabeth, a Junoesque beauty who ascended to the throne in 1741, was passionately fond of dancing, and during her reign French and Italian ballet masters presented ballet and opera in the Court festivities. The Italian master Antonio Fusano introduced the Commedia dell'Arte as well as subjects from Greek and Roman mythology.
      The Russians took to dance with a joyous intensity; they endowed it with gusto and flair. A great ballerina once said, with, more than a grain of truth, 'Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.' At any rate they showed a natural aptitude that surpassed normal talent. Their physique and temperament were highly charged, and they were able to infuse the classical style with their own rich layers of folk dance. Their spontane­ous and instinctive feeling for carriage and epaulement, their agility and style, emanated from this source.
      From its earliest beginnings Russian ballet has always been subject to outside influences. It was reared and nourished from European culture. During the 1760s Franz Hilferding came from Vienna with a troupe of dancers which enjoyed remarkable success and opened the eyes of the Russians to improvements in style and taste. Hilferding produced ballets using both his own troupe and Russian dancers. By this means the French-trained Russians were able to assimilate a broader conception of the new art of ballet and to make continuous progress.
      Under Catherine the Great the development of ballet went forward with more importations of ballet masters: Charles Le Picq from France, and Gasparo Angiolini from Italy. By the end of the century when Paul the First was on the throne, the Imperial Theatres had been established as a State system under a directorate set up by Catherine's decree. From, now on the professionalism of ballet under Court sponsorship was secure.
      The first Russian ballet master to make a name was Ivan Valberg, a man of artistic discretion as well as a fine teacher. His family name was Liesogorov, but possibly because of the prestige of imported ballet masters, he chose to be known by the foreign-sounding name of Valberg. He produced many notable ballets, including some patriotic pieces during the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
      With the dawn of the nineteenth century Charles Louis Didelot (1767-1837), a Swedish-born dancer and choreogra­pher of international fame, came to St. Petersburg. He had received most of his training from Dauberval and Vestris in Paris and brought with him many choreographic refinements. Said to be a man of fiery and unpredictable temperament, he nevertheless spent two long periods in Russia (from 1801 to 1811 and 1816 to 1837), creating spectacular ballets of excep­tional charm. One of his ballerinas, Avdotia Istomina, a fey, ethereal creature, is immortalised in Pushkin's verses from Eugene Onegin;

. . . The rustling curtain has gone up! And there, resplendent, in the middle, Sways to the music of the fiddle, Istomina, her bevy there Surround that creature, half of air. First with one foot the floor she brushes, And on the other slowly twirls, Then swiftly leaps, and swiftly whirls Like down by Eolus puff'd, and rushes, And coils, uncoils again - how quick Her little feet together click!

      Didelot was aided by the French virtuoso Duport, who also contributed to the choreography. The young ballerina Marie Danilova fell in love with the sensational Duport, and it is said that when he left Russia she died of a broken heart. Didelot departed to enjoy successful seasons in London and Paris, but later returned to St. Petersburg to further enrich the ballet.
It is recorded that towards the end of his life Didelot received harsh treatment at the hands of Prince Gagarin, director of the Imperial Theatres. In spite of this he left his property to the State to found a scholarship fund for talented young dancers in the school.
      Another important factor in the evolution of Russian ballet was the publication of the letters of George Jean Noverre, the French ballet master whose dictums revolutionized ballet technique, and who introduced the Pas d'Action. He was the first ballet master to bring awareness that technique was only the means; that without artistry technique was but an empty vessel.
      This was further demonstrated by the great Marie Taglioni. Making her debut in St. Petersburg in 1837 with La Sylphide, she continued to visit Russia annually during the next six years, enjoying phenomenal success in her father's ballets which were tawdry vehicles thrown together to exploit her inspirational charm. Undoubtedly she influenced the ballerinas of the day with her ethereal qualities; it was said that 'she danced as nightingales sang'. Thus then, as now, the develop­ment of dance was influenced more by personalities and in­dividual artists than by the system of schooling, which had not yet matured.
      After the reign of Didelot came Jules Perrot and the blossoming of the great Romantic era which was to last right into our own century. Perrot was born in Lyons in 1800 and was a pupil of Vestris, the acclaimed “God of the Dance”. He came to St. Petersburg in 1848 and in 1851 re­ceived the official title of ballet master. The creator of Giselle and Esmeralda, he was a man who worked from Inspiration; consequently there were periods of total inactivity and frust­ration, and by ail accounts whole days would sometimes go by at rehearsals without a single step being created. Never­theless his ballets became classics, and he was much loved and respected by Russian dancers and public alike. His favourite ballerina was Anna Prikhunova, the wife of Prince Gagarin.
      During the ensuing period ballerinas of such international repute as Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Elssler and Lucille Grahn were guest artists at the Maryinsky (the system of guest stars was similar to that operating in the West today), but at the same time home-bred ballerinas such as Yelina Andreyanova, Anna Prikhunova and Tatiana Schmirnova were making their mark. When Theophile Gautier, the French poet and librettist of Giselle, visited St. Petersburg in 1858, he praised the Russian Ballet. “There was no talk”, he wrote, “no giggling or amorous glances at spectators or orchestra. This corps de ballet is carefully chosen from the Conservatoire. There are plenty of beauties, perfectly built, who know their profession -or their art, if you will - to perfection.”
      The French Influence persisted throughout the century and contributed greatly to the gracious style of the Russian dancers. Arthur St. Leon, who began his career as a violinist in the orchestra of the Paris Opera and then fell in love with ballet, mastered the classical technique and brought his gifts to St. Petersburg. He spent many years at the Maryinsky and among other ballets he produced The Hump-Backed Horse, the most Russian of Russian ballets. It is evident that the French masters, while contributing to the evolution of Russian classical dance, were able to integrate themselves into the Russian way of life and assimilate its indigenous music and its themes.
      Finally yet another French ballet master, Marius Petipa, came to St. Petersburg In 1847 and remained there for the rest of his life, producing more than fifty ballets. He was the architect who guided the company to its greatest period, and with Lev Ivanov (one of the few Russian ballet masters during this period) he conceived the original Swan Lake. Yet more French influence and schooling came from the Swedish Christian Johanason, pupil of the pioneer of Danish ballet, August Bournonville, who came to the Imperial Theatre as a dancer and stayed to become the most revered ballet master in its entire history. But Johannson's French style was tem­pered with the Danish brilliance and elan of the Bournonville School, a fluent style with individual characteristics. It was he who refined and codified the classical style in all its purity and lyricism.
      Not only did St. Petersburg possess the greatest repertoire of classical ballets and the finest company of dancers, but it was nourished by the leading native composers - Glinka, Glazounov, Balakirev, Arensky, the Russianized Viennese Ludwig Minkus, the Italian Roberto Drigo, and the greatest of all ballet composers, Tchaikovsky.
      During the 1880s a remarkable personality shed her luster upon St. Petersburg: Virginia Zucchi. Her sheer physical charm was a revelation that stimulated the Imperial Ballet anew. Zucchi brought the Italian merits of strong pointes, a bravura strength and impeccable balance. A dynamic per­former with histrionic magnetism and a potent sexuality, she also had the gift of being unaffectedly natural. It was Zucchi who introduced the short tutu.
      Her feminine allure endeared her to Russian audiences, and although there was great opposition to her entry into the Maryinsky, her supporters carried the day for a limited period. Zucchi was however criticized for her lack of style. She had not the easy-flowing grace of the French-Russian school, nor the finesse. Her influence did not assist the Russians in per­fecting their school, but rather brought an emotional intensity and a sensuality of movement hitherto unknown in the academic realm of prim and studied classicism. She brought a glow, a radiation.
      It might be said that Zucchi enlarged the frontiers of ballet by her sensuality and dramatic power, which attracted a new and bigger audience, and it is certain that her exotic brilliance influenced the dancers and inspired them to greater expressive­ness. Even the illustrious actor-manager Konstantine Stanis­lavsky was captivated by her. Zucchi loved to dance with the handsome Paul Gerdt, and she praised the Russian ballet of her day, but eventually even her great popularity with audiences could not prevent her dismissal from the Imperial stage through rival intrigues.
The splendour of this period was unparalleled, yet all was not blissful; there were shocks, there were undercurrents of artistic dissatisfaction and dissention. During the last years of the century the appearance of Enrico Cecchetti and the Italian ballerinas Carlotta Brianza and Pierina Legnani opened up a new phase that shook the old school to its foundations. Whereas the accent had been on face, charm, artistry and personality, these visiting exponents of the Italian school brought strength, multiple pirouettes, flashing beats and speed. Their pyrotechnics made St. Petersburg audiences gasp with wonder.
      Cecchetti was engaged by the Imperial Theatres as ballet master. For a while there were two separate schools operating within the Maryinsky - the Italian School of Cecchetti and the Franco-Danish-Russian School of Johannson. This division brought about a certain confusion and mixture of styles that has prevailed in Russian ballet ever since.
      The ballet master Nicolai Legat was a devoted disciple of Christian Johannson. But he also appreciated the spectacular elects of the Italian technique, and was intrigued by Cecchetti and his methods. He learned and adopted some of its devices, and without forsaking the science and the exquisite style of Johannson, he grafted the technical expertise for turning pirouettes and beating entrechats onto the fluid grace of the Russian school. Before very long the Maryinsky ballerinas were as adept as the Italians.
      Out of this era came the mightiest constellation of dancers the world has ever known. These brilliant stars of the Im­perial Ballet included Anna Pavlova, Mathilde Kschesinskaya, -Tamara Karsavina, Vera Trefilova, Lydia Kyasht, Olga Preobrajenska, Olga Spesivtzova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mikhail Fokine, Adolf Bohm, Laurent Novikov and Anatole Oboukhov, all of whom have contributed in large measure to the history of ballet.
      Dancers have always been ahead of choreographers, but there were those who sought to rectify the lack of creators. Mikhail Fokine was one dancer turned choreographer who tried to break new ground. The visit to St. Petersburg of the American dancer Isadora Duncan in 1905 inspired him afresh, but the conservatism of the Court was hard to circumvent. At the head of the traditionalists was Nicolai Legat, aided and abetted by no less than the favourite dancer of the Tzar, Mathilde Kschesinska. The young Fokine fought to establish a wider expressive range, to allow the dancer to enter new fields. During this time of change ballet stood at the cross­roads.
Fokine found an ally in Serge Diaghilev, the inscrutable connoisseur who first made a name by publishing Mir Isskustvo, a revolutionary magazine of the arts. Diaghilev failed to gain a footing in the Imperial Theatres, but stayed on the fringe, and saw a future in exporting Russian art to the West. Once nicknamed “the silver beaver” because of a white streak of hair on his forehead, he was the supreme opportunist.
      During the first decade of the twentieth century, the ballet of St. Petersburg blossomed into a renaissance with the glory of its dancers. When Diaghilev brought the Imperial Ballet to Paris in 1909, and the following year to London, the impact was sensational: every strata of artistic life was stunned and stimulated by the exoticism and the grandeur of those con­summate artists. Indeed, the repercussions have continued right up to the present time, and there are still a few privileged ones who live to tell of the wonder.
      At the height of this golden epoch of ballet came the war of 1914, and afterwards the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. St. Petersburg became Petrograd, a city in travail, and for a time the very existence of the ballet was threatened. During the period of the troubles many dancers fled abroad to try to pursue their art. Others stayed and grappled with the fearsome problems of survival. Diaghilev remained abroad and became the repository of émigré Russian talent; but though he was a skilled manipulator and impresario, he was more knowledge­able about painting and music than about the dance itself. During the twenty-odd years of his Ballet Russe's existence in the West, the flow of talent from St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad dried up; the first impact withered, the originals faded away, and to fill the gap the arch-sorcerer exploited novelty, innovation, shock and finally absurdity, to take the place of the sensuous and magical essence of glorious dance that had been the substance of the original enchantment.     
      With his blend of snobbery, ultra-sophistication and deca­dence, Diaghilev was the key figure who sign-posted the way of art in the West, and indicated the path of fashion in almost every walk of life. While in Russia the purity, spirituality and sincerity of the art continued, and despite many hazards, set­backs and calamities the school progressed within the same pattern, Diaghilev during his nomadic wanderings failed to establish a sound, all-embracing school, and the quality of dance became dissipated and secondary to the trappings and eccentricities of the new balletic image.    
      Meanwhile in Petrograd some revolutionaries wanted to close down the Imperial Theatres, which they considered to be the extravagant and frivolous luxuries of the Court and aristocracy, but in his wisdom Lenin and his first commissar of the arts, Anatoliy Lunacharsky, saved the day for ballet and the arts in Soviet Russia by establishing the Imperial Theatres as Academic Theatres, endowing them and their attendant schools, thus ensuring that these national institutions con­tinued to function in the same tradition for the cultural needs and the social benefit of the people.     
      Thus the tradition of the Maryinsky continued without a break through those turbulent times. The theatre was renamed Kirov after one of the heroes of the Revolution, Sergey Mironovitch Kirov, a member of the Politburo and First Secretary of the Leningrad District Council, who was later to be assassinated in Smolny on 1st December, 1934. The school became the Leningrad Choreographic Academy, later to be renamed after Agrippina Vaganova, under whose guidance the school of Petipa, Johannson, Gerdt, Sokolova and Legat was carried on. Her fellow teachers included Romanov, Vecheslova-Snetkova, Shiraev, Ponomarev, Lopukov and Bochorov.
      The twenties saw the building up of Leningrad's school of dance, bringing an abundance of qualities - ecstatic lyricism, heroic virility, plastic sensuousness of powerful dimensions. From Vaganova's enthusiasm and inspired leadership came a new flowering of ballerinas with exceptional gifts: Marina Semenova, Olga Jordan, Tamara Vecheslova, Natalia Dudinskaya, Galina Kirilova and Alia Shelest. Equally remarkable was the new line of male dancers whose dominating power and stature generated a magnetism and a mystique that lifted the dance to new heights. Such phenomenal artists as Alexei Yermoleyev, Yahktung Chabukiani, Konstantine Sergeyev, and many others brought to fruition the noble style of the Soviet Ballet.
       About this time the theatre of drama was particularly active in throwing off the shackles of convention and in reflecting new moods and images. With powerful emphasis it brought new trends and techniques of play production. In the conflict of ideas many theories were tried out: realism, symbolism, futurism, constructivism were just some of the slogans that heralded a movement towards more expressive theatre. The creators of ballet saw these experiments and took note. They too felt the necessity to break new ground, to explore.     
      The surge of innovation and choreographic development which had begun before the revolution was now taken up by such giants as Rostislav Zakharov, Vasily Vainonen, Fedor Lopukov, Vakhtang Chabukiani and Leonid Lavrovsky. These men enlarged the histrionic as well as the choreographic range of the ballet spectacle; they welcomed new devices and made use of the advancing technical skills, speed, momentum, acrobatics, geometric and irregular patterns, spatial lifts, and everything that contributed to a fuller expression of dance.     
      Thus the art of choreography developed from the romantic, the abstract, from fairy tales to human and down-to-earth realities. Dance embraced social and political themes. The formal epic ballet appeared, inspired by the new Soviet realism. Many of these ballets - for instance, The Rad Poppy, The Bronze Horseman, Jeanne d'Arc  - are seldom performed. They were of their time; and time brings alterations in con­ditions and changes in taste and fashions.    
      The new creators and artists gave to the Leningrad Ballet the essence of the Russian character and the Russian soul. The old-fashioned traditional mime gestures gave way to a more expressive dance and more realistic acting. The innate lyricism remained, but was stretched to a more florid and sweeping movement. The heroic ballet broke upon the scene, introducing a symphonic style. The male dancer was elevated to equal status with the ballerina; great aerial movements and acrobatic lifts brought new dimensions; and all this new brilliance, this vital surge of exuberance grew logically out of the old foundations of this long continuing school.     
      Such composers as Asafiev, Kachaturian, Gliere, Krein, Prokofiev and Shostakovich composed the new music, and the choreographers went to work with a consuming passion. Rostislav Zakharov with his production of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Leonid Lavrovsky with his masterly interpreta­tion of Giselle and his monumental Romeo and Juliet, Vasily Vainonen with his stirring Flames of Paris and his charmingly gentle Nutcracker, and Fedor Lopukov with, his new acro­batic innovations in Ice Maiden and Dame Symphony, ensured an era of exciting development.     
During this auspicious period there came from the school and from the hand of Vaganova a young dancer of genius who was destined to rise to great heights, a deeply sensitive artist with a perceptive mentality, a kind of inborn wisdom, and a poet's heart. Galina Ulanova's soul shone through everything she did. The master-choreographers Zakharov and Lavrovsky were inspired by her ability to live her roles and project infinite shades of human feeling. Audiences were hypnotized by the poignancy and truth of her portrayals. Her total absorption in every aspect of a role made them feel that they were in a sacred presence. Such a rare and consummate artist had never been seen before, and indeed may never be seen again.
       Further mention must be made here of the choreographic genius and brilliant stagecraft of Leonid Lavrovsky. Before attempting to stage such a dramatic work as Romeo and Juliet, Lavrovsky sought advice and help from the eminent theatre director and producer of Shakespeare, Sergei Radlov. With the help of leading producers from the drama theatre, Lavrovsky succeeded in expanding the histrionic content of ballet. His Romeo and Juliet broke new ground, giving proof that the dance can express the poetry and the narrative of Shakespeare's play as eloquently as the spoken word. This ballet took years to produce and has become the prototype for many imitators; but none, despite much plagiarism, succeeded in producing anything comparable in immensity, grandeur, poignancy or style.     
      During the Second World War the arts were again in peril. The long siege of Leningrad necessitated the Kirov Ballet's evacuation to Perm, but it never stopped producing and performing ballet for the troops and the workers. In Perm it continued to cultivate its school and prepare young dancers for the future. Again the long unbroken tradition survived and the beauty of its dance was undiminished. After the war the Kirov Ballet returned to Leningrad and renewed itself in the beautiful city which, despite its sufferings, remains the most serene of northern cities.     
The war inspired yet another era of such heroic and tragic ballets as the Leningrad Symphony and revivals of Spartacus. After the war, the phase of choreographic development con­tinued with vital and adventurous works from Leonid Jacobson, Igor Belsky, Yuri Grigorovitch and Konstantine Sergeyev, who found mellifluous accompaniment and rich thematic textures in the symphonic works of Russia’s leading composers, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch and Katchaturian.     
      In 80s these choreographers developed and matured, bringing forth a steady stream of notable ballets. Outstanding perhaps was Konstantine Sergeyev's Hamlet, a skilful adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece. With astrin­gent economy of means and a cogent style of dance mime - and despite drastic cuts and omissions - he succeeded in sketching a taut drama in a genre that brings the histrionic power of classical dance closer to articulate eloquence. With the modern dissonances of Tchervinsky's tension-laden music, Sergeyev carried the narrative dance drama a step farther.
      One never-to-be-forgotten occasion occurred at Covent Garden during the 1961 London season of the Kirov Ballet when Taras Bulba was given with an all-male cast. The men of the Kirov excelled themselves, performing Fenster's vigorous choreography with fantastic aplomb. Like wild Cossack horsemen they leapt and whirled, defying the laws of gravity, and reached such a frenzy yet with such controlled panache, that their accelerations and explosions of energy sent the audience into a state of hysteria. When the curtain came down the applause was wild and deafening. One feared for the walls of the ancient Opera House. The applause continued long after the orchestra had gone home and the lights were lowered. Again and again the curtain was raised, and still the applause went on undiminished. Only the lowering of the iron safety curtain finally brought the evening to a close.     
      This was a unique event when the male dancers of the Kirov momentarily eclipsed the matchless excellence of its ballerinas, but perhaps only because the ballerinas were absent from the scene. These wonderful dancers delight audiences and evoke tumultuous applause by the brilliance and ease of their physical exploits in the classical genre and in their own folk idiom, whenever and wherever they appear. Nevertheless, these appearances outside their own frontiers have led to some dis­turbing repercussions.    
      In St. Petersburg days the Court Theatres guarded their dancers jealously; only the very privileged stars such as Pav­lova, Kschesinska, Trefilova, Karsavina and their male partners were permitted to undertake commercial engagements abroad, and then only for short periods. In Soviet epoch, in changed circum­stances, the situation had some similarities. The Soviet government also guarded its dancers most jealously, and al­though the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets made regular tours abroad, their dancers were not permitted to accept long-term or permanent engagements in foreign countries. Inevitably the Kirov’s tours abroad sometimes opened the eyes of dancers to the horizons that lie beyond the boundaries of their motherland, and some artists tempted to break away from the country and the system that nurtured them.     
      Certainly the phenomenon of the Kirov dancers has extended a remark­able influence over the growth and style of ballet in every part of the world. It has awakened and stimulated the love of ballet in people in every walk of life, but even more than this it has influenced and uplifted the quality of dance.

Date of publication : 13-02-2005 (Viewings of article : 1731)
Published : Leo Murzenko - Development director