Imperial Russian ballet (Petipa's grand style)
The Imperial Russian ballet was shaped above all by Marius Petipa, born in Marseille in 1818, who came to St Petersburg in 1847 and served as first ballet master of the Imperial Theatres from 1871 to 1903. He created dozens of full-length ballets, among them Don Quixote (1869), La Bayadère (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Raymonda (1898), and revived Giselle, Coppélia and Le Corsaire.
Petipa's work with Tchaikovsky and Glazunov raised the standing of ballet music, and with Lev Ivanov he staged the 1895 Swan Lake at the Mariinsky Theatre. Teachers including Enrico Cecchetti trained Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky. This heritage lives on in the Mariinsky Ballet and the Vaganova Academy, whose imperial school dates from 1738.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Marius Petipa
- Vaganova Ballet Academy: History (official site)
- Wikipedia: Mariinsky Ballet
- Mariinsky Theatre (official site)
Organisations connected with this dance
- Mariinsky Theatre (Mariinsky Ballet)
- Vaganova Ballet Academy
- St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music
Listed as references; being listed is not an endorsement by or of the organisation.