Virsaladze S.B., (1908/09-1989), stage designer

Categories / Art/Fine Arts/Personalia
Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
VIRSALADZE Simon Bagratovich (1908-1989), stage designer, full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1975), people's artist of the USSR (1976). He studied in Tbilisi in 1926, Moscow in 1927, and Leningrad's Academy of Arts in 1928-31. Lived in Leningrad from 1937, he was a designer for the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre (today, Mariinsky Teatre) and its chief designer from 1945 to1962. He painted scenery of such ballets as A. K. Glazunov's Raymonda in 1948, Peter Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in 1950 and Sleeping Beauty in 1952, etc. He collaborated with choreographer Y. N. Grigorovich from 1957. A reformer of ballet scenography, he interpreted music as the key component of atistic presentation, as implemented in Sergey Prokofiev's Stone Flower in 1957 and A. D. Melikov's Legend of Love in 1961. He lived in Tbilisi from the mid-1960s. He worked for Moscow's Bolshoy Theatre, designing scenery of Aram Khachaturyan's Spartacus in 1968 that was awarded a Lenin Prize in 1970, as well as other Soviet and foreign theatres. He designed costumes for Hamlet and King Lear, G. M. Kozintsev's films shot in 1964 and 1971, respectively. He was awarded Stalin Prizes in 1949 and 1951 and a State Prize of the USSR in 1977.

Reference: Ванслов В. В. Симон Вирсаладзе. М., 1969.

O. L. Leikind, D. Y. Severyukhin. Glazunov Alexander Konstantinovich
Grigorovich Yury Nikolaevich
Khachaturyan Aram Ilyich
Kirov (real name Kostrikov) Sergey Mironovich
Kozintsev Grigory Mikhailovich
Melikov Arif Dzhangirovich
Prokofiev Sergey Sergeevich
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich
Virsaladze Simon Bagratovich
Ванслов В. В. Симон Вирсаладзе. М., 1969 Academy of Arts
Academy of Arts
Mariinsky Theatre