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Anna Pavlova
(1881 -
1931)
Anna Pavlova
was born in a military hospital in St Petersburg, Russia. Pavlova's
early childhood was spent with her grandmother in the tiny village
of Ligovo, outside St Petersburg, where she attended the local
school. In
1890, around the time of her ninth birthday, her mother took her
to one of the first performances of 'The Sleeping Beauty' at the
Maryinsky Theatre, and from then onward her only desire was to
become a dancer.
In 1891,
Pavlova was admitted to the Imperial Theatre School, where her
early dancing teachers included Ekaterina Vazem, Pavel Gerdt and
Christian Johansson. In
1895, Vazem evaluated the delicate fourteen-year-old girl as "proficient,
but lacking strength" and placed her under the tutelage of Petipa,
who took to her immediately, as did she to him. Their friendship
lasted until his death in 1910.
For her graduation
performance on 11 April 1899, Pavlova performed in two ballets,
Aleksandr Gorsky's Clorinda and Pavel Gerd's Imaginary Dryads.
In February
1900, Pavlova danced the first role created especially for her:
Hoarfrost in The Seasons, choreographed by Petipa to a score by
Aleksandr Glazunov. Later that year she also appeared with notable
success in several secondary parts, such as Zulme in Giselle,
the Fairy Candide in The Sleeping Beauty, a friend of Fleur de
Lys in Esmeralda, and Aurora in The Awakening of Flora.
In 1902,
Pavlova's poetic and powerful performance as Nikia in La Bayadere,
one of Petipa's greatest creations, firmly established her reputation
with both the critics and the public. In
1903, she gave her first performance in the title role of Giselle,
in which her outstanding aerial quality and lightness appeared
to full advantage. Giselle was to become one of her most celebrated
interpretations.
Pavlova's
physique as well as the qualities of her dancing made her particularly
well suited to such roles as Nikia and Giselle. In appearance
she was the prototype of the ballerina. Her white, oval face,
framed by smooth black hair, was illuminated by magnificent dark
eyes, which were her most outstanding feature. Her
small head was delicately poised on a slender neck, and her beautiful
shoulders topped a long torso: she had a body perfectly proportioned
for dance. Her legs too were beautiful and slender, without the
slightest trace of muscular development, and her small, strong
feet were highly arched.
In 1903,
Pavlova was granted a leave of absence from the Imperial Theatre
to study under the celebrated teacher Caterina Beretta in Milan,
Italy. She returned to St Petersburg with a considerably improved
technique, and in 1904 she triumphed in the demanding ballerina
roles in Petipa's productions of Paquita and Le Corsaire.
In 1906,
Pavlova was officially appointed ballerina. Her progress through
the hierarchy of female dancers at the Maryinsky had been meteoric.
Also by this time, after several changes of living quarters, Pavlova
had settled in an elegant apartment in a fashionable district
of St Petersburg. There,
in a magnificently appointed studio, she received private lessons
from Enrico Cecchetti. By this time, too, she had formed an alliance
with Victor Dandre, a wealthy aristocrat who had become the chief
supporter of her way of life.
Dandre was
forwarding his social ambitions by taking an active part in charitable
work. He found the perfect slot when he became chairman of the
Dance Committee of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children, for this charity's regular method of raising funds was
the organisation and presentation of ballet galas. Thus it was
at Dandres invitation that Michel Fokine devised two ballets for
one such event and that Pavlova danced in both.
The year
1907 proved to be an eventful one for both Pavlova and Fokine.
In the summer, leading a small group of dancers from the Maryinsky,
they visited Moscow and gave a number of performances.
The following
November, at the Maryinsky premiere of the full-length work, Pavlova
assumed the leading role of Armida in Le Pavillon d'Armide. Partnered
by the eighteen-year-old Vaslav Nijinsky and cast in a relatively
static role, she was somewhat overshadowed by the virtuosity of
the youthful prodigy. The very next month, however, she made a
sensational appearance at another charity performance at the Maryinsky
when she danced Fokine's composition to a short piece by Camille
Saint-Saens entitled The Swan. Later known as The Dying Swan,
it was to become her most famous solo.
On 6 January
1908, Pavlova achieved her childhood ambition when she appeared
at the Maryinsky Theatre as the Princess Aurora in The Sleeping
Beauty for the first time.
On 2 June
1909, Pavlova appeared with the Diaghilev company in two quite
different ballets, both choreographed by Fokine: Les Sylphides,
formerly known as Chopiniana, and Cleopatre, formerly known as
Une Nuit d'Egypte. Partnered by Nijinsky in the former and by
Fokine himself in the latter, she scored a great success, and
Diaghilev thereupon announced that she would appear at every subsequent
performance of the company.
Pavlova went
on to London and on 19 July danced at the house of Lord and Lady
Londesborough before the King and Queen of England. Her partner
on this occasion, who also arranged the Russian dance in which
they appeared, was Mikhail Mordkin. A good-looking man with a
robust, imposing physique. Mordkin was to play an important part
in her later professional life.
The ability
to choose her own roles, freedom from the authority of the directorate
of the Imperial Theatre, and the adulation accorded to a visiting
artist must have had a profound effect on Pavlova. Upon
her return to St Petersburg in the fall of 1909, she negotiated
a new three-year contract that not only provided her with a handsome
salary but that also permitted her to group performances at the
Maryinsky and allowed her freedom to travel.
On her first
visit to the United States, Pavlova made a triumphant debut at
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on 28 February 1910.
She danced Swanilda in Coppelia, once again partnered by the handsome
but volatile Mikhail Mordkin.
On 18 April
1910, Pavlova opened her first season at the Palace, a London
music hall, still partnered by Mordkin and supported by twelve
soloists from the Imperial Theatre. This season, which lasted
for more than three months, would establish her as a favourite
with London audiences but would prevent her from participating
in Diaghilev's Saison Russe in Paris the following summer.
Among the
most popular of Pavlova's solos were Night, arranged by Legat
to Rubinstein's music; La Rose Mourante (The Dying Rose), her
own choreography to music by Riccardo Drigo; Le Papillon (The
Butterfly), arranged by Legat to music by Leon Minkus; and, of
course, The Swan. For
the rest of her career, more than one delighted critic would remark
on her unusual ability to characterise flowers and birds and insects
in lively and interesting ways.
Upon her
return to St Petersburg in August 1910, Pavlova requested a two-year
leave of absence to tour abroad. Following appearances in the
principal cities of the United States and Canada, the troupe returned
to London in April 1911 to start another long engagement at the
Palace.
By this time, Pavlova had been joined in London by Victor Dandre.
She gave
several performances at the Maryinsky in September 1911 and then
returned to London to take part in Diaghilev's Fall season at
Covent Garden. Partnered by Nijinsky, she danced in Giselle, Le
Pavillon d'Armide, Cleopatre, Le Carnaval, and a pas de deux billed
as L'Oiseau d'Or, which was in fact none other than Petipa's famous
Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty. This extraordinary
partnership was, however, short-lived, for Pavlova would never
again dance with Nijinsky or appear with the Diaghilev company.
Immediately after this London season, she undertook her first
tour of her English provinces, partnered by Novikoff and supported
by a small group of Soloists from the Imperial Ballet.
The year
1912 saw Pavlova setting up a life based in London. Returning
from a provincial tour in March, she and Dandre moved into Ivy
House, a large estate in Golders Green, London, which she would
eventually purchase in 1914.
After another
long season at the Palace in the spring of 1912, Pavlova made
a second tour of the English provinces and then in December undertook
a tour of Germany. From Germany, Pavlova went to Russia, giving
performances in St Petersburg and Moscow. On 24 February 1913,
she danced for the last time at the Maryinsky Theatre, appearing
as Nikia in La Bayadere.
Returning
to London, Pavlova began her fourth and last season at the Palace,
which ran from April to September 1913. This was also the last
time her company was billed as 'Dancers from the Imperial Ballet'.
Now forty members strong, it was reorganised on a permanent basis
as the Pavlova Ballet. She now had her own ballet master, Enrico
Cecchetti, her own conductor, Theodore Stier, her own costumier,
Manya Charchevnikova, and her own small orchestra. Her partners
were Petr Zajlich and Laurent Novikoff, and her companion, the
apparently imperturbable, Victor Dandre, was the mastermind of
the entire enterprise.
In the fall
of 1913, the Pavlova Ballet set sail for the United States, where
it visited 146 cities in six months, sometimes appearing in six
different cities in one week. In
the spring of 1914, the company travelled from the United States
to Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Pavlova then
went on to St Petersburg, where with a small group of soloists
she performed in Moscow, in Peterhof, and on 7 June, in Pavlovsk
- her last performance in Russia.
Pavlova's
appearance in The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916), a Hollywood film
directed by Lois Weber, was highly profitable. Her earnings as
a film star enabled her to offset some of her debts as a ballerina.
On 27 September
1919, in Rio de Janeiro, the company gave the first performance
of her own ballet, Autumn Leaves, set to the music of Chopin,
before returning to Europe. This was to be the only complete ballet
that Pavlova herself designed and arranged, although she choreographed
a number of her own solos and participated in the creation of
other works mounted for her company.
Aside from
questioning her musical taste and choice of repertory, some latter-day
pundits have gone so far as to dismiss Pavlova as a performing
artist, saying, "Pavlova had no technique". The truth is that
her technique was so perfect that it concealed technique. Her
arabesque and pas de bourree have rarely been equalled and, although
she lacked a natural turnout, her line was always impeccable.
It is true that she did not perform feats of acrobatic virtuosity,
choosing to leave such spectacular tricks to others, but it is
also true that as an interpretative artist Pavlova probably, even
today, remains unsurpassed. She was supreme in roles requiring
feminine coquetry and light comedy; she excelled in lyrical and
poetic roles, in which her fluid, expressive arms and hands were
remarkable; and she could be deeply moving in dramatic and tragic
roles such as Nikia and Giselle. What
made her performances unique, however, was not so much her technical
mastery, or even her talent at characterisation, it was the emotion
she poured into her performances, her incomparable stage presence
- in short, the power of her personality.
Throughout
the decade of the 1920's, Pavlova and her company were constantly
on tour.
In the autumn
of 1930, following summer holidays in the South of France and
at Ivy House, Pavlova made yet another tour of England, ending
with a week at the Golders Green Hippodrome. Her performance there
on 13 December 1930 - In Amarilla, Gavotte, The Swan, and the
Grand Pas Classique from Paquita - proved to be her last. She
again took a short holiday in the South of France and, en route
from Cannes to Paris, caught a chill, which she ignored. By the
time she reached Holland, the starting point of her next tour,
she had developed pneumonia. She died in the Hotel des Indes in
The Hague in the early hours of 23 January 1931.
A doctor, her maid, and Victor Dandre were at her bedside.
In 1917,
in Lima, Peru, a schoolboy named Frederick Ashton saw her perform,
and he never forgot the artistry of what he had seen. He later
wrote the following tribute:
"Of her
epoch she was undoubtedly the most famous name through the world.
Her name can never die, for such a living and passionate spirit
must continue to haunt the world to which she gave so much delight
and inspiration".
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