Kschessinska M.F., (1872-1971), ballet dancer

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
KSCHESSINSKA Mathilde (Maria) Felixovna (1872, Ligovo, near St. Petersburg - 1971), ballet dancer and teacher. A student of C. I. Ioganson, she graduated from the Theatre School in 1890 to be immediately admitted into the Mariinsky Theatre. She danced key parts in M. I. Petipa's Paquita, Pharaoh's Daugther, and Sleeping Beauty, J. Perrot's Esmeralda, Petipa and L. I. Ivanov's Swan Lake, A. A. Gorsky's Don Quixote, and M. M. Fokine's Eunice, Butterflies, and Eros. The premier dancer of the Imperial Company, Kschessinska was exceptionally artistic. She did not strive to play a wide variety of roles but put an emphasis on the ability of a strong personality to affect deeply and excite admiration. She was the first Russian ballerina too surpass foreign dancers in Russia. It was in the Grand Hall of the Conservatory that she danced for the last time in St. Petersburg in 1917. She emigrated to France in 1920. She rented a mansion at 18 Angliisky Avenue in the 1890s and had a palace built at 1 Kronverksky Avenue in 1907 (see Kschessinska's Mansion), which presently accommodates the Museum of Russian Political History.

Works: Reminiscences published in Moscow in 2003.

References: Светлов В. Я. Терпсихора: Ст., очерки, заметки. СПб., 1906; Красовская В. М. Русский балетный театр начала XX века: В 2 ч. Л., 1972. Ч. 2. С. 33-66.

G. N. Dobrovolskaya. Fokin Mikhail Mikhailovich
Gorsky Alexander Alexeevich
Ioganson Christian Petrovich
Ivanov Lev Ivanovich
Kschessinska Mathilde (Maria) Felixovna
Perrot Jules Joseph
Petipa Marius Ivanovich
Angliisky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 18
Kronverksky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 1
Воспоминания. М., 1992
Светлов В. Я. Терпсихора: Ст., очерки, заметки. СПб., 1906
Красовская В. М. Русский балетный театр начала XX века: В 2 ч. Л., 1972 Theatre College
Mariinsky Theatre
Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory
Museum of Russian Political History
1904