Olga Lepeshinskaya
Encyclopedia
Olga Vasiliyevna Lepeshinskaya was a Soviet ballerina
. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR
in 1951.
, Russian Empire
(now the capital of Ukraine
). Her grandfather, Vasily Pavlovich Lepeshinsky, was arrested as a member of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. Her father, Vasily Vasilievich Lepeshinsky, was a railway engineer, one of the builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway
.
From the early years Lepeshinsky showed her talents in dancing and in the 1925 she was admitted to the Bolshoi Choreographic School
. She appeared for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre
at the age of ten as one of the little birds in the ballet The Daughter of the Snows
. In 1932 she played the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker
ballet.
(Тщетная предосторожность) performed by the second stage of the theater. In 1935 she performed the main role in the Three fatmen ballet by Yury Olesha
fairytale. The ballet became very popular and the 18-year old ballerina became famous.
Lepeshinskaya performed in private concerts at the Moscow Kremlin
from the age of 17. Lepeshinskaya was very close to Polina Zhemchuzhina
, wife of Vyacheslav Molotov
. It was a great shock for her when Zhemchuzhina was imprisoned in a Gulag
. Lepeshinskaya was known as "the favourite ballerina of Joseph Stalin
" and even rumoured to be his mistress.
Lepeshinskaya married a Soviet intelligence MGB general Leonid Raykhman (known as the curator of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov
). He was arrested on 19 October 1951 as an alleged participant in the fabricated Zionist Plot in MGB. Lepeshinskaya claimed that her appeals to Stalin saved the life of her husband. In March 1953, after Stalin death, Leonid Raykhman was freed, rehabilitated and appointed the head of MVD Control Commission. In August 1953 he was arrested again that time for his own fabrications of criminal cases, tortures of prison inmates and other violations of the "Socialist Law". He was sentenced to five years in prison in August 1956 but amnestied in November 1956. Since then he was doing a research work in astronomy
.
In February 1940, the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad
first performed their Don Quixote
ballet with Lepeshinskaya as Kitry. The ballet was a great success. In 1941, when the Stalin Prize was established, Olga Lepeshinskaya was among the first laureates of the prize for her performance in Don Quixote. All together Lepesinskaya received four Stalin Prizes.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War
Lepeshinskaya became a member of the Front brigade of the Bolshoi Theater. The brigade performed near the front lines, in hospitals, in Moscow and in Saratov
where the Bolshoi was evacuated. Lepeshinskaya was a member of the brigade until the end of World War II
. Her performances near the battlefields were filmed in the 1941 Soviet Documentary Kontsert - Frontu (Concerto to the Front).
In 1942, Soviet youth anti-fascist committee was organized. Lepeshinskaya was its Deputy chairperson.
In 1943, she starred as Assol in the Bolshoi première Scarlet Sails
. On May 9 she was with her Bolshoi brigade with Soviet troops in Warsaw
. The next day she received her invitation to perform in the Bolshoi's production of Cinderella
. The ballet, first performed on 21 November 1945, was the first post-war show at the Bolshoi. Lepeshinskaya won her second Stalin prize for her performance. She received her third Stalin prize for her performance in the Flames of Paris
and the fourth prize for the Tao-Hoa role in The Red Poppy
. In 1951 she received the People's Artist of the USSR
title along with Galina Ulanova
.
in 1956. In 1962 her husband died. The nervous shock was so strong that she became temporarily blind. When her vision returned, after a year of treatment, she found herself unneeded by the Bolshoi Theater or the Bolshoi School. Fortunately, she found a place at the Komische Oper Berlin
where she worked as a ballet mistress
for ten years.
After this she worked as a trainer in many different companies throughout the world. For thirty years she served as the Chairperson of Ballet competitions in Moscow. She was the president of the Russian Choreographic Association (since 1992) and was the Chairperson for the Choreography Entrance Exams at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (for her last fifty years).
She helped painter Ilya Glazunov
during his early career (she was reprimanded for organizing his first exhibition), so he declared Lepeshinskaya to be his godmother in the art.
Lepeshinskaya died of a heart attack
on December 20, 2008 in Moscow
at the age of 92.
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Nomenclature and significance :...
in 1951.
Childhood
Lepeshinskaya was born to an old Polish noble family in KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now the capital of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). Her grandfather, Vasily Pavlovich Lepeshinsky, was arrested as a member of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. Her father, Vasily Vasilievich Lepeshinsky, was a railway engineer, one of the builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway
Chinese Eastern Railway
The Chinese Eastern Railway or was a railway in northeastern China . It connected Chita and the Russian Far East. English-speakers have sometimes referred to this line as the Manchurian Railway...
.
From the early years Lepeshinsky showed her talents in dancing and in the 1925 she was admitted to the Bolshoi Choreographic School
Moscow State Academy of Choreography
The Moscow State Academy of Choreography , commonly known as The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious schools of ballet in the world, located in Moscow, Russia. It is the affiliate school of the Bolshoi Ballet....
. She appeared for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
at the age of ten as one of the little birds in the ballet The Daughter of the Snows
The Daughter of the Snows
The Daughter of the Snows or "La Fille des Neiges" is a "fantastic ballet" in 3 acts/5 scenes, with choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Ludwig Minkus. Libretto by Marius Petipa, derived from the Russian fairy-tale Snegurochka by Alexander Ostrovsky, which the writer based on a Norwegian...
. In 1932 she played the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
ballet.
Prima ballerina
Lepeshinskaya graduated from Bolshoi Choreographic School and started working the Bolshoi Theatre. She started as Rosina in a ballet of The Barber of SevilleThe Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
(Тщетная предосторожность) performed by the second stage of the theater. In 1935 she performed the main role in the Three fatmen ballet by Yury Olesha
Yury Olesha
Yury Karlovich Olesha was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered to have been one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th-century, one of the few to have succeeded in writing works of lasting artistic value despite the stifling censorship of the era...
fairytale. The ballet became very popular and the 18-year old ballerina became famous.
Lepeshinskaya performed in private concerts at the Moscow Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
from the age of 17. Lepeshinskaya was very close to Polina Zhemchuzhina
Polina Zhemchuzhina
Polina Semyonovna Zhemchuzhina was a Soviet stateswoman and the wife of the Soviet premier Vyacheslav Molotov.Born Perl Karpovskaya to the family of a Jewish tailor in the village of Pologi, in the Aleksandrov uyezd of Yekaterinoslav Governorate , she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour...
, wife of Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
. It was a great shock for her when Zhemchuzhina was imprisoned in a Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. Lepeshinskaya was known as "the favourite ballerina of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
" and even rumoured to be his mistress.
Lepeshinskaya married a Soviet intelligence MGB general Leonid Raykhman (known as the curator of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov
Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov
Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was a Soviet intelligence agent and partisan who operated in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II. He used several pseudonyms during his intelligence operations: e.g...
). He was arrested on 19 October 1951 as an alleged participant in the fabricated Zionist Plot in MGB. Lepeshinskaya claimed that her appeals to Stalin saved the life of her husband. In March 1953, after Stalin death, Leonid Raykhman was freed, rehabilitated and appointed the head of MVD Control Commission. In August 1953 he was arrested again that time for his own fabrications of criminal cases, tortures of prison inmates and other violations of the "Socialist Law". He was sentenced to five years in prison in August 1956 but amnestied in November 1956. Since then he was doing a research work in astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
.
In February 1940, the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
first performed their Don Quixote
Don Quixote (ballet)
Don Quixote is a ballet originally staged in four acts and eight scenes, based on an episode taken from the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus and was first presented by the Ballet of the...
ballet with Lepeshinskaya as Kitry. The ballet was a great success. In 1941, when the Stalin Prize was established, Olga Lepeshinskaya was among the first laureates of the prize for her performance in Don Quixote. All together Lepesinskaya received four Stalin Prizes.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
Lepeshinskaya became a member of the Front brigade of the Bolshoi Theater. The brigade performed near the front lines, in hospitals, in Moscow and in Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
where the Bolshoi was evacuated. Lepeshinskaya was a member of the brigade until the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Her performances near the battlefields were filmed in the 1941 Soviet Documentary Kontsert - Frontu (Concerto to the Front).
In 1942, Soviet youth anti-fascist committee was organized. Lepeshinskaya was its Deputy chairperson.
In 1943, she starred as Assol in the Bolshoi première Scarlet Sails
Scarlet Sails
Scarlet Sails may refer to:* A 1923 adventure novel by Alexander Grin *Scarlet Sails , a Soviet film starring Vasily Lanovoy and Anastasiya Vertinskaya...
. On May 9 she was with her Bolshoi brigade with Soviet troops in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. The next day she received her invitation to perform in the Bolshoi's production of Cinderella
Cinderella (Prokofiev)
Cinderella is a ballet, Op. 87, composed by Sergei Prokofiev to a scenario by Nikolai Volkov. It is one of his most popular and melodious compositions, and has inspired a great many choreographers since its inception. The piece was composed between 1940 and 1944. Part way through writing it he...
. The ballet, first performed on 21 November 1945, was the first post-war show at the Bolshoi. Lepeshinskaya won her second Stalin prize for her performance. She received her third Stalin prize for her performance in the Flames of Paris
Flames of Paris
Flames of Paris is a classical ballet with music by musicologist and composer Boris Asafiev based on songs of the French Revolution, and originally choreographed by Vasily Vainonen, with design by Vladimir Dmitriev. The four-act ballet is based on a book by Felix Gras...
and the fourth prize for the Tao-Hoa role in The Red Poppy
The Red Poppy
The Red Poppy or sometimes The Red Flower is a ballet in three acts and an apotheosis; score written by Reinhold Glière and a scenario by Mikhail Kurilko. This ballet was created in 1927 as the first Soviet ballet with a modern revolutionary theme....
. In 1951 she received the People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR
People's Artist of the USSR, also sometimes translated as National Artist of the USSR, was an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Nomenclature and significance :...
title along with Galina Ulanova
Galina Ulanova
Galina Sergeyevna Ulánova is frequently cited as being one of the greatest 20th Century ballerinas. Her flat in Moscow is designated a national museum, and there are monuments to her in Saint Petersburg and Stockholm....
.
Teacher
She married Soviet General Aleksei AntonovAleksei Antonov
Aleksei Innokentievich Antonov was a General of the Soviet Army, awarded the Order of Victory for his efforts in World War II.-Career:...
in 1956. In 1962 her husband died. The nervous shock was so strong that she became temporarily blind. When her vision returned, after a year of treatment, she found herself unneeded by the Bolshoi Theater or the Bolshoi School. Fortunately, she found a place at the Komische Oper Berlin
Komische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is an opera company in Berlin, Germany, which specializes in German language productions of opera, operetta and musicals....
where she worked as a ballet mistress
Ballet Master
Ballet Master is the term used for an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company...
for ten years.
After this she worked as a trainer in many different companies throughout the world. For thirty years she served as the Chairperson of Ballet competitions in Moscow. She was the president of the Russian Choreographic Association (since 1992) and was the Chairperson for the Choreography Entrance Exams at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (for her last fifty years).
She helped painter Ilya Glazunov
Ilya Glazunov
Ilya Glazunov , contemporary Russian artist from Saint Petersburg, born in 1930. He holds the title of People's Artist of Russia, and serves as a rector at the Fine Arts Academy in Moscow...
during his early career (she was reprimanded for organizing his first exhibition), so he declared Lepeshinskaya to be his godmother in the art.
Lepeshinskaya died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
on December 20, 2008 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
at the age of 92.