Media - E. Pudovkina. «A Heavenly Host, an Ethereal Host». St. Petersburg News No. 40 (312). October 7 to 13, 2003.

A Heavenly Host, an Ethereal Host

Avdotia Istomina, Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev… — whatever name you take, it turns out that nearly all of the world renowned ballet dancers flied out of one nest – the choreographic school, and currently the Academy of Russian Ballet, named after A. Vaganova.

Evolvement of the Russian classical ballet

“Her Majesty’s Dance School” was the name of the first in Russia ballet dance school opened in 1738 in the old Winter Palace. The school was opened after the ballet master and teacher Jean-Baptiste Landé had proposed to teach “twelve young Russians, six boys and six girls, for producing twelve-dancer theatrical, solemn and comic ballets”.

The daily training under a three-year programme yielded amazing results that astonished the public so much that soon all Landé’s graduates started receiving salaries from the state as ballet dancers.

Among teachers of the Russian dancers were the best ballet masters of that time. Giuseppe Canziani, who became Head of the school in 1784, trained more than a hundred dancers, among them was Ivan Walberg, the first Russian ballet master and teacher. In the reminiscences that have survived to our days, his student, Yevgeniya Kolosova, who held the stage for 30 years, was described as follows: “Each of her facial movements, each of her gestures was so natural and explicit that positively spoke to the audience louder than words”.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the famous French dancer Charles Didelot took over the direction of the school. Over 20 years, he actually created the classical dance system that still exists today. As his contemporary Alexander Pushkin said, in Didelot’s ballets there is more poetry than in the whole French literature. By the way, Avdotia Istomina berhymed in “Eugene Onegin” was one of Didelot’s pupils who graduated in 1816.

Renown and suffering

“What are these lovely phantoms, these lightsome lucid creatures?”, wrote Gavrila Derzhavin to the ballet “Zephyr et Flore”. The astonishing ease of ballerinas that captivated poets so much was the result of many years of daily training and a most stringent daily routine in the school of future stars. “I soon got used to the new environment and to the school life, which was arranged as follows: we got up at 7 o’clock in the morning, had a glass of sbiten… from 8 to 10 we had academic classes, from 10 to 1 o’clock p.m. we had art classes, such as singing, dancing, music, drama acting, fencing, and the like; at 2 o’clock we had a meal, and from 3 to 5 we continued with academic classes… Almost every evening we went to theatres as pupils took part in performances, too”, remembered T. Stukolkin, a member of the Saint Petersburg ballet company of that time.

The school has been in the building in Teatralnaya Street (now Architect Rossi Street) since 1836. This is where the school celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1888, and the main achievement of its sesquicentennial activity was recognized to be the creation of the school of the Russian ballet.

The second half of the 19th century is sometimes referred to in the theatrical community as the epoch of Marius Petipa, but besides the famous ballet master there were also other outstanding teachers who brought up future generations of ballet dancers. “Johannson’s genius as a teacher was equal to Marius Petipa’s excellence as a ballet master and a director… One was a god of the dance class, the other ruled the stage, and everything that each of them did in each of these domains was unquestionable”, wrote their pupil Nikolai Legat, who afterwards became the leading teacher of the ballet school. The names of the graduates of the Saint Petersburg choreographic school, who were the stars at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, are still familiar to everyone: Olga Preobrajenska, Matilda Kschessinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Agrippina Vaganova.

We are ahead of the curve…

Over the years of the civil war, the ballet company size reduced to half. Kschessinskaya performed very little; Karsavina, Fokine and Legat left the country and went abroad; many prima ballerinas, including Vaganova, retired. At those times, solos were quite often performed by fresh graduates of the school. In 1921, Agrippina Vaganova started teaching children. The renowned Russian school of classical ballet has survived until now thanks, to a great extent, to her efforts. “The Vaganova system is an algebra that calibrates the harmony of classical ballet”, says the anniversary album marking the 250th anniversary of the school. Vaganova’s book “Fundamentals of the Classic Dance” has been translated into many languages of the world. Vaganova’s last class graduated in 1951; 6 years later, the school was named after the great ballerina and teacher. A newspaper page is not enough to list all famous pupils of Vaganova. It would suffice to mention Marina Semyonova, Galina Ulanova, and Tatyana Vecheslova to see that, notwithstanding anything else, in ballet Russia is really in the vanguard.

A nest of little swans

As early as in 1961, the Leningrad choreographic school received the title of “academic”, and in 1991 it became an academy. Today, there are two departments in the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet: one of them, the school of education, provides training under higher education programmes. “The other one, the performance department, is still considered to be a kind of a secondary educational institution, or college, and it is, in fact, the basic department”, says Academic Vice Rector Aleksey Fomkin. “By 18 years old, our graduates are already professional ballet dancers who perform on the stages of the leading theatres. There is no opportunity to continue studies in the field, and despite all their titles, until they retire they remain by status half-educated in some way. We hope that from the next year we will be able to offer our graduates at least a bachelor’s degree”. Yet, regardless of the diploma quality, the Saint Petersburg ballet school is reputed by the names of its graduates, and they are known worldwide: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, Rudolf Nureyev… Equally famous are ballet starts belonging to the generation that followed: Ulyana Lopatkina and Anastasia Volochkova.

The performance department admits children from 10 years old. As before, prettiness is one of the main criteria for admission. Meticulous committee members test young applicants for flexibility, leg extension, expressiveness, musicality and performability, and check that the children have well-proportioned bodies, are not prone to put on weight, and have a high foot arch. Now, it is a quiet time in the Academy: June applications are already over, the period of August applications, mainly for non-residents, is still ahead. All in all, around 200 students are mastering the art of ballet in Rossi Street; another 180 students are studying in the school of education. Already at the end of the first year of studies, young dancers start participating in theatrical performances, playing parts that are fit for them: for example, children at a New Year’s party, toy soldiers in “The Nutcracker”. All of 70 teachers are ballet dancers, who are still performing or performed in the past. Education in the Vaganova Ballet Academy is not fee-based. “We managed to avoid many temptations”, says Aleksey Fomkin – “and to maintain a high level of teaching our school was known for back in the Soviet period. The traditions established in the 18th century, even the living principles, have remained unbreakable up to the present day”. Among them are stories about a phantom that’s been here for something like 200 years: all generations of little ballerinas know a tall woman in white, who likes to open the doors to the girls’ dormitory. For the phantom not to go off the rails, in 1998 they restored the school chapel consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity. Already the Charter of 1829 prescribed to “bring up and educate pupils by inspiring faith, without which it would be impossible to be useful for the society or to be happy”. The history of relationships between performing artists and religion” is presented in detail in Aleksey Fomkin’s book “Two centuries of theatrical church”, which is being prepared for publication. The vice rector is not only a dancer at the Mariinsky Theatre, he is also the Director of the Academy’s museum, and the warden of the local chapel.

Elena PUDOVKINA

CULTURE CAPITAL

St. Petersburg. Academy of Russian Ballet. 2003. Vice Rector Aleksey Fomkin and future stars… This is the last photo of the Vice Rector’s “nest”. On the night of September 29, a short circuit caused a fire in the room. People were not hurt, but a lot of valuable items were lost, including a portrait of Putin. And here you can still see it.