A fragile girl who was initially denied admission to the Russian Imperial Choreographic School due to her fragility, Anna Pavlova became one of the most famous classical choreographers in history and was a mystery both during her lifetime and after her death.
Childhood and youth
Her very birth was the first in a long line of myths associated with Anna Pavlova and her personality. Little Anna was born two months ahead of schedule and as a newborn she was wrapped in soft wool instead of napkins. If so, it would be very symbolic for the ballerina, whose author's work later became the role of a dying swan in Swan Lake.
It is known that Anna's mother, Lyubov Pavlova, was a laundress, while the identity of her father remains unclear. It is being discussed whether it was Matvey's husband, a soldier of the Russian army, or Lazar Polyakov, a banker in whose house she served before Anna was born.
At the age of eight, Anechka enters the St. Petersburg Imperial Mariinsky Theater for Tchaikovsky's ballet Sleeping Beauty. It was there that she fell in love with ballet once and for all. From that moment on, Anna raved about dancing and persuaded her mother to take her to audition for a ballet school, but she was refused admission because of her young age and fragility.
The future ballet star was a slender girl with an "airy" physique, while a strong physique was considered necessary for a dancer to perform complex movements and figures.
But fortunately on her way she met the great choreographer Marius Petipa, who discerned her talent, and Anna was finally accepted as a student in 1891. It was very difficult to study at the Imperial Ballet School with its iron discipline. Students had to get up early in the morning, take a cold shower, eat breakfast, and then begin classes that lasted until late in the evening, interrupted only by dinner, performances and short walks in the fresh air.
Free time was rare, and Anna Pavlova usually devoted it to reading and drawing.
For a very long time, Anna believed that her technical prowess was limited by her physical abilities, until one of her teachers, Pavel Gerdt, told her: “let others do acrobatic tricks. that makes you stand out from the thousands.
Career
Anna graduated from college in 1899 at the age of 18, and her graduation performance, which was directed by Pavel Gerdt, was so successful that she was immediately accepted into the Imperial Ballet Company. Anna For the next few years, she performed in such ballets as The Pharaoh's Daughter, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere (Temple Dancer) and Giselle. The audience, once accustomed to academic ballet performances, was shocked by Pavlova's style, who paid little attention to strict academic rules. She could dance with bent knees, misplaced port de bras, and misplaced arms, but her amazing organic and spirituality in the characters she created delighted audiences and impressed critics.
Her talent was based on sudden and instant inspiration. Most often, she improvised, and could not repeat the image of her dances, despite the requests of her masters and partners. Later, when Anna Pavlova began teaching, this gift seemed like a big obstacle, since her students could not copy those movements that she herself did not remember.
In 1907, Pavlova took the next step towards her worldwide fame - she began touring abroad. Her first tour was to Europe. The ballerina later recalled that the tour included performances in Riga, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Prague and Berlin, and everywhere her dancing was met with enthusiastic reception.
A resounding success came when Pavlova joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets The Russians in 1909. Among her partners was another world-famous Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.
In 1910 Anna Pavlova left the Mariinsky Theater and created her own ballet troupe with Russian choreographers and mainly Russian dancers.
Despite her “airy” appearance, Anna had a strong and sometimes obnoxious character, which regularly brought to the “white heat” even the person whom she devotedly loved - Victor Dandre.
The son of a French immigrant, he was a successful businessman. It was quite popular for high society men to become fans of famous ballerinas, but Dandre felt a genuine passion for Pavlova. He bought and equipped a ballet studio for her and gave her many expensive gifts.
After a while, accusations were made that he embezzled state money and that he was in danger of a debt hole. And then Anna Pavlova suddenly signed a completely unprofitable contract with an agency in London and paid off the debt to Dandra, after which he became her impresario for life, and, as he admitted after her death, her husband. However, documents confirming his words were never presented.
In 1914, Anna Pavlova visited Russia for the last time in her life. Has performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Mariinsky Theater was ready to renew the contract with her, but the deal was complicated by the fact that they would have to return a significant amount that the ballerina had paid when she broke her previous contract with them.
Pavlova's collective has toured triumphantly in many countries of Europe, Asia and the Americas, including the USA, Mexico, India, Egypt, China, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba and the Philippines.
Their schedule was very busy. They performed almost every day, with very few exceptions. For 22 years of such a touring life, Pavlova covered a distance of more than half a million kilometers and gave about 9 thousand performances.
There was a period when a ballet-toed shoe manufacturer made about 2,000 pairs of slippers for her every year, and there were barely enough of them.
During the tour, Anna Pavlova often had to perform without rehearsals on a completely unprepared stage, in unsuitable conditions and even in the rain, but she would always perform regardless of the conditions, even with a fever, with sprains and a broken leg.
While touring the Netherlands, 49-year-old Pavlova died of pneumonia in The Hague on January 23, 1931, leaving behind a legend with a unique, inimitable style that only ballerina Anna Pavlova could embody.
