The roots of Russian ballet, like any kind of art, lie in dance folklore. Most likely, these were cult (all kinds of round dances) and playing (“Dance”, “Kuma, where was”, etc.) dances. Russian ballet not only preserved all the aesthetic canons, but also became a legislator in the world of ballet.
The origins
At the turn of the 8th-9th centuries, the first dancers began to appear in Kievan Rus, the pros - buffoons ... After a while, when Moscow became the capital, buffoons were no longer necessarily men.
In the XV-XVI centuries, funny spectacles of mummers with faces hidden by masks, the so-called "Mashkars", amazed and surprised foreign visitors.
In the 17th century, the history of Russian ballet was marked by the opening of the Kremlin Theater in the Fun Palace . According to the established tradition, each production in this theater always ended with inter-events (special ballet outlets). These so-called entrée were performed by men dressed in pompous clothes. Actors showed several elements of ballroom dance.
Royal fun
The first full-scale ballet performance in Russia is considered to be a performance staged on February 8, 1673. This significant event took place at the court of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and it was called "Ballet about Orpheus and Eurydice." The history of the emergence of Russian ballet describes it as a change in ceremonial poses, slow dances, bows and transitions. Between them, the actors uttered memorized words or sang. All this was a little like a real theatrical performance. It was just royal fun, enticing with its obscurity.
Meanwhile, I. Gregory, the organizer of the theater, invites Nicola Lim to organize training courses in theater skills for the tsar’s theater. At first, 10 children of the noble bourgeoisie, then 20, successfully completed training and showed the Tsar’s ballet performance “French” in court.
Task set
Only after a quarter of a century did Peter I, having set out to reform the cultural life of Russia, bring music and dance to the life of Russian society. He decides to instill art in the elite strata of the inhabitants of Petersburg. For this, Peter I closes the Moscow theater of Alexei Mikhailovich and issues a revolutionary decree. This decree on assemblies obliged all state institutions to teach ballroom dancing without fail. These reforms made the dance master's position unattainably high. It is to these assembly directors that ballet owes its appearance in ballet dance movements that have come from abroad, innovations in the form of elements from national Slavic dances.
The author V. Krasovskaya (“The History of Russian Ballet” - L. Art, 1978) believes that due to the energy and peremptory of Peter I, performances of ballet troupes, musicians and opera artists invited from abroad began to take place in the palace halls.
At the beginning of 1738, a ballet school was organized in the country, which became, in fact, the first. The history of Russian ballet briefly talks about this period. Graduates of the school worked in the ballet groups of foreign theaters with the so-called defendants (actors of the corps de ballet). And only much later they were admitted to the main parties.
First vocational training
The cradle of modern ballet, historians consider the land gentry corps. The famous Jean Baptiste Lange worked in it, who staged three court ballet performances with his students. As the history of Russian ballet shows, they became almost the first ballet performances that comply with all the laws and regulations of the Royal Dance Academy in the capital of France.
The cadets of the gentry corps took part in the academic, lyrical semi-characteristic and at the same time comic ballet performance of the Fessano troupe from Italy.
Elizabeth I, in order not to lose her trained ballet dancers, opens Her Majesty's own dance school, the first set of which were 12 common children.
And by the end of 1742, the Empress signed a decree commanding the establishment of a ballet troupe of Russian dancers. It was in her that the first Russian stars lit up - professional ballet dancers: Aksinya Baskakova and Afanasy Toporkov.
Breaking the deadlock
The death of Batista Lande brings confusion to the choreographic business in the country. The performances led by Fessano become the same and boring burlesque. The audience is not attracted to such productions.
The history of Russian ballet briefly describes that period. At this time and in Europe there is a question about the reform of the choreographic business. Rousseau and Saint-Mar demand ballet dancers to get rid of lush clothes and masks with wigs. Didro strongly recommends changing the storylines of ballet performances. Meanwhile, John Weaver, without waiting for general change, puts on a dance performance with a well-thought-out plot, and Georges Nover writes the legendary Letters on Dance.
Russian ballet is not far behind. The appearance of Hilferding is proof of this. This German specialist consolidated the plot choreographic performances in St. Petersburg. In Paris, story ballet performances appeared only 15 years later. Hilferding was assisted by Leopold Paradiso. By the 50s of the 18th century, they were creating independent ballet plays.
The beginning of dramatic productions
The first drama in Russian ballet belongs to A.P. Sumarokov. He promoted laudatory dance performances, composed the literary basis for the ballet performances “The Refuge of Virtue” and “New Laurels”.
Gasparo Anzhiolini, invited by the tsar to the choreographer, enhancing the brightness of folk Slavic songs, staged the ballet action "Fun about Christmas time." Catherine II greatly praised the performance. In 1779, the Legislative Commission in its entirety approved the ballet, the music of which was written on the basis of Slavic folklore.
After such a tremendous success, Anjilini switched to entertaining theatrical productions that ridiculed the hot topic. These were the eulogies of panegyrics: Triumphant Russia (the defeat of the Turkish army at Cahul and Larg was touted), The New Argonauts (a glorious ode to the fleet of the Russian Empire) and Victory Reasoning (the question was raised of the need to vaccinate against raging smallpox).
A little earlier, the first heroic ballet performance of Semira was staged. From that moment on, the choreographers began to pay great attention to the expressiveness of ballet dance. For dancers can be simultaneously engaged in amusing opera performances of private theaters and in pseudo-Russian opera shows, the libretto of which was composed by the empress herself.
By the new year 1778 in St. Petersburg (as the history of Russian ballet shows, books vividly describe this unique event) two theaters are waiting for the audience: the commercial "Free Theater" and the court.
The first serf collectives
In the second half of the XVIII century, the mastery of dance art is in fashion. And already at the beginning of 1773, under the tutelage of Leopold Paradise, the first training center was opened in the capital on the basis of the Educational House, which later became the first public theater. In the first set there were 60 children. Yu. Bakhrushin speaks about the first choreographic performances staged by the famous Cosimo Meddox.
The history of Russian ballet, studied and described in great detail, fully reveals this period of dance art. Medox with a team of young dancers who studied in Russia staged comic operas, choreographic performances dedicated to real events (for example, The Capture of Ochakov), and divertissements.
Against this background, the serf theater began to develop rapidly. In the last decade of the 18th century, large groups of serf actors were already well known. Such groups were held by Zorich, Golovkina, Apraksin, Sheremetyev, Potemkin and other landowners.
The same period was marked by the development and staging of the technique of female dance and the decoration of the stage for presentation. There is a new tradition of concretizing the scene on the stage, writing the scenery in a realistic style, using the game of partial shade and light.
The triumph of Russian ballet
The history of Russian ballet of the 19-20 centuries is rich and diverse. By the beginning of the XIX century, the art of ballet reached that maturity, which is appreciated by the viewer. Russian ballerinas bring airiness, nobility and expressiveness to the choreography. A.S. Pushkin very accurately observes this, describing the beauty of the dance movements of his contemporary, the star of the ballet scene, Istomina: “the soul is full of flight” (the phrase has become synonymous with ballet). Her facial expressions and the refinement of dance movements aroused admiration. Most of the audience went to Avdotya Istomin.
No less beautiful were Likhutina Anastasia, Ekaterina Teleshova, Danilova Maria.
Ballet performances are gaining popularity. Ballet dance, as an art, becomes privileged, and state subsidies are allocated to it.
By the 60s of the last century, the cultural elite was embraced by the new-fangled current of "realism." A crisis comes to the Russian theater. Regarding choreographic productions, he expressed himself in the primitivism of the storyline, which was adapted to a particular dance. Perfected dancers are encouraged to dance in realistic productions.
The history of the creation of Russian ballet is entering a new round. The revival began with Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who was the first to write music for a choreographic production. In the history of ballet, for the first time, music has become as important as dance. And even ended up on the same level with opera music and symphonic compositions. Before Tchaikovsky, music was written to dance elements, but now the ballet actor sought to convey musical mood and emotion with plasticity, movement and grace, which helped the viewer to unravel the plot, shifted to music by the composer. The world still admires the famous Swan Lake.
Choreographer A. Gorsky brought elements of modern directing into the productions, began to pay great attention to the artistic setting of the stage, believing that the viewer should be completely immersed in what is happening on the stage. He forbade the use of pantomime elements. Radically turned the tide M. Fokin. He revived romantic ballet and made body language in dance understandable and speaking. According to Fokin, each production on stage must be unique. That is, the musical accompaniment, style and dance pattern should be inherent only to a specific performance. In the early years of the 20th century, full houses shot his productions of Egyptian Nights, The Dying Swan, Midsummer Night's Dream, Acis and Galatea, and others.
In 1908, S. Diaghilev invited Fokine to become the main director of the Parisian Russian Seasons. Thanks to this invitation, Fokine becomes world famous. And Russian ballet dancers began to perform in triumph every year in the French capital. The history of Russian ballet glorifies the dancers of the Russian troupe, whose names the whole world knows: Adolf Bolm, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Vaclav Nizhinsky and others. And this is during the decline of the European ballet!
Diaghilev took a chance and won. He gathered a troupe of young and talented ballet actors and provided them with freedom of action. Allowed to act outside the well-known framework, which put the famous, but already quite elderly Petipa.
Freedom of action has enabled dancers to reveal and express themselves. In addition to these revolutionary innovations, Diaghilev attracted artists (J. Cocteau, A. Derain, P. Picasso) and composers (K. Debissi, M. Ravel, I. Stravinsky) to the decoration of their most famous contemporaries. Now every ballet production has become a masterpiece.
After the October Revolution, many dancers and choreographers left rebellious Russia. But the backbone remained. Gradually closer to the people becomes Russian ballet. Pages of history during the formation period saw a lot ...
After the middle of the 20th century, dancers and choreographers of a new generation returned to the stage forgotten dance miniatures, a symphony and one-act ballet. The number of studios and theaters has steadily increased.
"Triumphant", ballerina, ballet critic
The famous Russian dancer Vera Mikhailovna Krasovskaya was born in the Russian Empire on September 11, 1915. After high school, she entered and in 1933 successfully graduated from the Leningrad Choreographic School. She studied with the famous Vaganova Agrippina. From this time until 1941, Krasovsky served in the Theater. Kirov. She is busy in the ballets of the academic repertoire.
In 1951, Vera Mikhailovna graduated in Leningrad from graduate school at the Theater Institute. A. Ostrovsky, after basic training at the Faculty of Theater Studies.
The school of professionalism received by Krasovskaya first in the class of Agrippina Vaganova, then in the ballet performances of the Mariinsky Theater, together with a wealth of knowledge of an encyclopedic scale, aristocracy, cultural traditions and amazing language skills (French and English), allowed her to become a brilliant and definitely the largest ballet critic.
In 1998, the good news spread throughout the theater world. The "Triumph" award was received by Vera Mikhailovna Krasovskaya. The history of Russian ballet, which she told about in books (some of them translated into foreign languages) and articles (over 300) as an art critic and critic, made Vera Mikhailovna the laureate of the free Russian Triumph Prize. This award is awarded for excellence in art and literature.
In 1999, Krasovskaya Vera Mikhailovna died.
Epilogue
The history of Russian ballet gratefully stores the names of the masters of dance art, who made a tremendous contribution to the formation of Russian choreography. These are the notorious Sh. Didlo, M. Petipa, A. Saint-Leon, S. Diaghilev, M. Fomin and many others. And the talent of Russian artists attracted and today attracts a huge number of spectators in different countries of the world.
To this day, Russian ballet troupes are considered the best in the world.