Olga Spessivtseva

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Olga Spessivtseva
Ольга Алекса́ндровна Спеси́вцева
Olga Spessivtseva in Sydney, 1934
Born
Olga Alexandrovna Spessivtseva

18 July 1895 (1895-07-18)
Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire
DiedSeptember 16, 1991(1991-09-16) (aged 96)
Valley Cottage, New York, United States
Occupation(s)ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet teacher

Olga Alexandrovna Spessivtseva

ballerina
whose stage career spanned from 1913 to 1939.

She was one of the finest prima ballerinas of the twentieth century. She had the excellent classical technique, immaculate style and scenic spirituality which are considered the embodiment of the romantic ballerina.[2]

Biography

Spessivtseva in costume for Swan Lake

Olga Spessivtseva was born in

Imperial Ballet Academy in 1906, where she was a student of Klavdia Kulichevskaya and later of Yevgenia Sokolova and Agrippina Vaganova
.

After graduating in 1913, she joined the Mariinsky Theatre company, where she was promoted to soloist in 1916. An exquisite romantic dancer with perfect technique, ideally suited for roles such as Giselle and Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, she quickly became one of the most admired dancers in the company.[2]

In 1916,

Le Spectre de la Rose, Les Sylphides and the "Bluebird pas de deux" from The Sleeping Beauty. In 1918 she returned to the Mariinsky, renamed the Petrograd Opera and Ballet Theater after the Russian Revolution of 1917
. She was promoted to the rank of ballerina. At this time she was almost unknown in the West.

She continued to perform with the Ballets Russes abroad, dancing "Aurora" in Diaghilev's renowned The Sleeping Princess in

Royal Ballet. From 1932 to 1937, she toured with a number of companies throughout the world, performing roles from both the classical repertoire and contemporary ballets by choreographers such as Michel Fokine and Bronislava Nijinska. When dancing abroad, she was frequently inaccurately billed as Olga Spessiva.[3]

Spessivtseva had experienced periods of

clinical depression as early as 1934, when she showed signs of mental illness in Sydney and needed hospitalisation. In 1937 she left the stage due to a nervous breakdown. She did some teaching, then briefly returned to performing, making her farewell appearance at the Teatro Colón in 1939. That same year, she moved to the United States, where she taught and served as an advisor to the Ballet Theatre Foundation in New York City. She suffered another nervous breakdown in 1943, for which she was hospitalized.[4]

The BBC produced a short programme about her life in 1964, and two years later Anton Dolin wrote a book about her. Both works are titled The Sleeping Ballerina. Expert dance writers have described her as "the greatest of Russian ballerine at this period",[5] and "The supreme classical ballerina of the century".[6]

In 1998, Russian choreographer Boris Eifman made her the heroine of his ballet, Red Giselle.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ Surname also transcribed in English as Spesivtseva or Spessivtzeva
  2. ^ a b c Ольга Спесивцева в Мегаэнциклопедии Кирилла и Мефодия
  3. ^ "Olga Spessivtseva; Ballerina Called One of Century's Greatest 'Giselles'". Los Angeles Times. 19 September 1991.
  4. ^ "The Tragic Downfall of Olga Spessivtseva: From Great Ballerina to Electric Shock Therapy – We Heart Vintage blog". Weheartvintage.co. 10 February 2015. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  5. ^ Beaumont, Cyril 1940. The Diaghilev Ballet in London. Written of her engagement for the premiere of the Sleeping Princess in 1921. p. 193
  6. ^ Clarke, Mary and Clement Crisp. (1981), The History of the Dance. Orbit, London, UK. p. 174
  7. ^ Kisselgoff, Anna. "A Doomed Russian Ballerina Swept Up by the Revolution." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 January 1999.

Sources

External links

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