Anna Pavlovna Pavlova (born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova; – 23 January 1931) was a Russian prima ballerina. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, but is most recognized for creating the role of The Dying Swan and, with her own company, being the first ballerina to tour the world, including South America, India, Mexico and Australia.Anna Pavlova's tours of Australia 1926 and 1929, Nla.gov.au
Early life Anna Matveyevna Pavlova was born in the Preobrazhensky Regiment hospital in 1881, Saint Petersburg where her father, Matvey Pavlovich Pavlov, served.Vera Krasovskaya (1972). Russian Ballet Theatre at the Beginning of the XX Century. Dancers // A. P. Pavlova, birth certificate. – Leningrad: Iskusstvo, p. 229 Some sources say that her parents married just before her birth; others say it was years later. Her mother, Lyubov Feodorovna Pavlova, came from peasants and worked as a laundress at the house of a Russian-Jewish banker, Lazar Polyakov, for some time. When Anna rose to fame, Polyakov's son Vladimir claimed that she was an illegitimate daughter of his father; others speculated Matvey came from Crimean Karaites (there is a monument in one of Yevpatoria's kenesas dedicated to Pavlova), yet both legends find no historical proof.Oleg Kerensky quotes Vladmir Polyakov—the son of Lazar Polyakov who claims that Anna was an illegitimate daughter of his father (Oleg Kerensky. Anna Pavlova. N-Y., Dutton Publ., 1973. )Victor Dandré (2016). My Wife – Anna Pavlova. – Moscow: Algorithm, pp. 5, 36 . Anna Matveyevna changed her patronymic to Pavlovna when she started performing on stage.Michel Fokine (1981). Against the Current. Memoirs of Ballet Master. – Leningrad: Iskusstvo, pp. 384–385
Pavlova was a premature child, regularly felt ill and was soon sent to the Ligovo village where her grandmother looked after her. Pavlova's passion for the art of ballet took off when her mother took her to a performance of Marius Petipa's original production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Imperial Maryinsky Theatre in 1890. The lavish spectacle made an impression on Pavlova. When she was nine, her mother took her to audition for the Imperial Ballet School. Because of her youth and sickly appearance, she was rejected, but, at age 10, in 1891, she was accepted. She appeared for the first time on stage in Petipa's Un conte de fées (A Fairy Tale), which the ballet master staged for the students of the school.
Imperial Ballet School Young Pavlova's years of classical ballet training were difficult. Her severely arched feet, thin ankles and long limbs clashed with the small, compact body favoured for the ballerina of the time. Her fellow students taunted her with such nicknames as The broom and La petite sauvage. Undeterred, she trained to improve her technique. She practised repeatedly after learning a step. She said: "No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent, work transforms talent into genius." She took extra lessons from the noted teachers of the day—Christian Johansson, Pavel Gerdt, Nikolai Legat—and from Enrico Cecchetti, considered the greatest ballet virtuoso of the time and founder of the Cecchetti method, a very influential ballet technique used to this day. In 1898, she entered the classe de perfection of Ekaterina Vazem, former Prima ballerina of the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatres.
During her final year at the Imperial Ballet School, Pavlova performed many roles with the principal company. She graduated in 1899 at age 18, chosen to enter the Imperial Ballet a rank ahead of corps de ballet as a coryphée. She made her official début at the Mariinsky Theatre in Pavel Gerdt's Les Dryades prétendues (The False Dryads). Her performance drew praise from the critics, particularly Nikolai Bezobrazov.
Career St. Petersburg Marius Petipa At the height of Petipa's strict academicism, the public was taken aback by Pavlova's style, a combination of a gift that paid little heed to academic rules: she frequently performed with bent knees, bad turnout, misplaced port de bras and incorrectly placed tours. Such a style, in many ways, harkened back to the time of the romantic ballet and the great ballerinas of old.
Pavlova performed in various classical variations, pas de deux and pas de trois in such ballets as La Camargo, Le Roi Candaule, Marcobomba and The Sleeping Beauty. Her enthusiasm often led her astray: once during a performance as the River Thames in Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter her energetic double pique turns led her to lose her balance and fall into the prompter's box. Her weak ankles led to difficulty while performing as the fairy Candide in Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty, leading the ballerina to revise the fairy's jumps en pointe, much to the surprise of the Ballet Master. She tried desperately to imitate the renowned Pierina Legnani, Prima ballerina assoluta of the Imperial Theatres. Once, during class, she attempted Legnani's famous fouettés, causing her teacher, Pavel Gerdt, to fly into a rage. He told her,
Pavlova rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a favourite of the old maestro Petipa. From him she learned the title role in Paquita, Princess Aspicia in The Pharaoh's Daughter, Queen Nisia in Le Roi Candaule and Giselle. She was named danseuse in 1902, première danseuse in 1905 and prima ballerina in 1906 after a resounding performance in Giselle. Petipa revised many grand pas for her, as well as many supplemental variations. She was much celebrated by the fanatical balletomanes of Tsarist Saint Petersburg, her legions of fans calling themselves the Pavlovatzi.
When the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska was pregnant in 1901, she coached Pavlova in the role of Nikiya in La Bayadère. Kschessinska, not wanting to be upstaged, was certain Pavlova would fail in the role, as she was considered technically inferior because of her small ankles and lithe legs. Instead, audiences became enchanted with Pavlova and her frail, ethereal look, which fit the role perfectly, particularly in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades.
Michel Fokine
Pavlova is perhaps most renowned for creating the role of The Dying Swan, a solo choreographed for her by Michel Fokine. The ballet, created in 1905, is danced to Le cygne from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. She also choreographed several solos herself, one of which is The Dragonfly, a short ballet set to music by Fritz Kreisler. While performing it, she wore a gossamer gown with large dragonfly wings fixed to the back.
Pavlova had a rivalry with Tamara Karsavina. According to the film A Portrait of Giselle, Karsavina recalls a wardrobe malfunction during a performance; her shoulder straps fell, exposing her breasts and Pavlova helped embarrass her to tears.
Ballets Russes In the first years of the Ballets Russes, Pavlova worked briefly for Sergei Diaghilev. Originally, she was to dance the lead in Mikhail Fokine's The Firebird, but refused the part, as she could not come to terms with Igor Stravinsky's avant-garde score, and the role was given to Tamara Karsavina. All her life, she preferred the melodious "musique dansante" of the old maestros such as Cesare Pugni and Ludwig Minkus, caring little for anything else which strayed from the salon-style ballet music of the 19th century.
Pavlova's ballet company Touring the world
After the first Paris season of Ballets Russes, Pavlova left it to form her own company. It performed throughout the world, with a repertory primarily of abridgements of Petipa's works and pieces choreographed specially for her. Going independent was
"a very enterprising and daring act. She toured on her own... for twenty years until her death. She traveled everywhere in the world that travel was possible, and introduced the ballet to millions who had never seen any form of Western dancing."Agnes de Mille, The Book of the Dance (1963), p.149 (quote).
Pavlova also performed many 'ethnic' dances, some of which she learned from local teachers during her travels. In addition to the dances of her native Russia, she performed Mexican, Japanese and East Indian dances. Supported by her interest, Uday Shankar, her dance partner in "Krishna Radha" (1923), went on to revive the long-neglected art of the dance in his native India. She also toured China.
In 1916, she produced a 50-minute adaptation of The Sleeping Beauty in New York City. Members of her company were largely English girls with Russianized names. In 1918–1919, her company toured throughout South America, during which time Pavlova exerted an influence on the young American ballerina Ruth Page.Ruth Page's Obituary in The New York Times 9 April 1991. p. D19.
In 1915, she appeared in the film The Dumb Girl of Portici, in which she played a mute girl betrayed by an aristocrat.
England After leaving Russia, Pavlova moved to London, England, settling, in 1912, at the Ivy House on North End Road, Golders Green, north of Hampstead Heath, where she lived for the rest of her life. The house had an ornamental lake where she fed her pet swans, and where now stands a statue of her by the Scots sculptor George Henry Paulin. The house was featured in the film Anna Pavlova. It used to be the London Jewish Cultural Centre, but a blue plaque marks it as a site of significant historical interest being Pavlova's home. While in London, Pavlova was influential in the development of British ballet, most notably inspiring the career of Alicia Markova. The Gate public house (https://thegatearkley.co.uk) located on the border of Arkley and Totteridge (London Borough of Barnet), has a story, framed on its walls, describing a visit by Pavlova and her dance company.
There are at least five memorials to Pavlova in London, England: a contemporary sculpture by Tom Merrifield of Pavlova as the Dragonfly in the grounds of Ivy House, a sculpture by Scot George Henry Paulin in the middle of the Ivy House pond, a blue plaque on the front of Ivy House, a statuette sitting with the urn that holds her ashes in Golders Green Crematorium and the gilded statue atop the Victoria Palace Theatre."Ballerinas & Meringues: Pavlova 2012 @ Ivy House", Londonist.com, 15 June 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2019. When the Victoria Palace Theatre in London, England, opened in 1911, a gilded statue of Pavlova had been installed above the cupola of the theatre. This was taken down for its safety during World War II and was lost. In 2006, a replica of the original statue was restored in its place.City-of-London.com Retrieved 27 March 2011.
In 1928, Anna Pavlova engaged St. Petersburg conductor Efrem Kurtz to accompany her dancing, which he did until her death in 1931. During the last five years of her life, one of her soloists, Cleo Nordi, another St Petersburg ballerina, became her dedicated assistant, having left the Paris Opera Ballet in 1926 to join her company and accompanied her on her second Australian tour to Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney in 1929. On the way back on board ship, Nordi married Pavlova's British musical director, Walford Hyden. Nordi kept Pavlova's flame burning in London, well into the 1970s, where she tutored hundreds of pupils including many ballet stars.
United States Between 1912 and 1926, Pavlova made almost annual tours of the United States, traveling from coast to coast.
"A generation of dancers turned to the art because of her. She roused America as no one had done since Elssler. ... America became Pavlova-conscious and therefore ballet-conscious. Dance and passion, dance and drama were fused."de Mille, The Book of the Dance (1963), p.151 (quote).
Boston Pavlova was introduced to audiences in the United States by Max Rabinoff during his time as managing director of the Boston Grand Opera Company from 1914 to 1917 and was featured there with her Russian Ballet Company during that period.
St. Louis