Bolshoi Ballet

Bolshoi Ballet, one of the oldest and most famous Russian ballet companies. The Bolshoi Ballet originated in classes given at a Moscow orphanage in 1773. Performances by the company began in 1776 and transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre from 1825, when Adam Gluszkowsky was ballet master. At this time the company was prominent in the nationalist movement in Russian theatre.

The Italian choreographer Carlo Blasis worked with the company from 1861 to 1864. In the years that followed, the Bolshoi Ballet gave the first performances of Don Quixote (1869) by Marius Petipa and Wenzel Reisinger’s unsuccessful Swan Lake (1877). Generally during the 19th century the Moscow company was considered inferior to the St Petersburg company.

In 1900 Aleksandr Gorsky was appointed director and he developed the style of the Bolshoi Ballet, forming a reputation for dramatic performances that it has held ever since. Gorsky, with the dancers Yekaterina Geltzer and Vassili Tikhomirov, led the company through the Russian Revolution, and the development during the 1920s and 1930s of ballets celebrating Soviet achievements, such as The Red Poppy (1927), was a continuation of his style. Ballerinas at this time included Marina Semeyonova and Olga Lepeshinskaya.

After World War II the company gave the first performance of Cinderella by Prokofiev, with choreography by Rostislav Zakharov (1945). Galina Ulanova and Leonid Lavrovsky were transferred from the St Petersburg company and the Bolshoi became the dominant company in the Soviet Union. In the 1950s Plisetiskaya, Struchkova, Timofeyeva, Farmayantz, Fadayachev, and Liepa were the leading dancers. In 1956 the company made a sensational debut in London that led to international recognition. In the mid-1960s Yuri Grigorovich was appointed director. He produced spectacular full-length ballets, most notably Spartacus (1968). These utilized mass movement, athletic male dancing, and acrobatic pas de deux for dramatic effect. Highly popular, these and revised versions of the classics have since formed the entire repertory. There was considerable opposition within the company to Grigorovich’s creative dominance until he was removed from his post by the Russian government. In 1995, Vladimir Vasiliev, an outstanding former principal dancer, became artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre, overseeing the ballet, opera, and orchestra companies in challenging financial circumstances until his dismissal in 2000. He choreographed, among numerous other pieces, Balda (music by Dmitri Shostakovich, 1999). In 1998 Aleksey Fadeyechev, another former principal dancer, was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, a post he retained for two years, during which he staged an internationally acclaimed revival of Gorsky's Don Quixote. The markedly altered trend towards shorter tenure of the position by successive artistic directors continued from the end of the 20th century into the 21st.