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Notice of death of Olga Lepeshinskaya


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Link to New York Times Obituary

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/20...kaya&st=cse

Washington Post Obituary

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8122001769.html

I find it extraordinary that so many American news papers are carrying obituaries so quickly and no English papers so far.

Lepeshinskaya was a high profile Bolshoi dancer with strong political links. There are some film clips available which exhibit her fearless technical attack and athletic style.

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Lepeshinskaya was not only Stalin's favorite dancer at the Bolshoi, she was a flat-out superb dancer that was probably the best female ballet dancer the Bolshoi had from the 1930's to 1950's outside of Galina Ulanova (who tranferred from the Kirov troupe to the Bolshoi troupe at Stalin's insistence in 1944). I saw an online video of an RTR Planeta report celebrating Lepeshinskaya's 90th birthday two years ago and wow, she really had superb dancing skills. :thumbsup:

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Lepeshinskaya was not only Stalin's favorite dancer at the Bolshoi, she was a flat-out superb dancer that was probably the best female ballet dancer the Bolshoi had from the 1930's to 1950's outside of Galina Ulanova (who tranferred from the Kirov troupe to the Bolshoi troupe at Stalin's insistence in 1944). I saw an online video of an RTR Planeta report celebrating Lepeshinskaya's 90th birthday two years ago and wow, she really had superb dancing skills. :thumbsup:

I do not know how you arrive at your evaluation of Lepeshinskaya as a dancer and it is my opinion that you are way off mark in your appreciation of her talents and more importantly her artistic and aesthetic status.

The only dancer of the period in you mention to be compared with Galina Ulanova in status and artistry was Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova who recently celebrated her 100th birthday.

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I would have also added Maya Plisetskaya to the list of Top Ballerinas of the Bolshoi in the 1950s.

Perhaps Sacto1654 left-out Semionova because, after the 1930s, her dancing star was waning (but her coaching career was rising!). Semionova suffered horrendously during the Stalin Purges and was never quite the dancer that she was before 1935. Semionova's great decade as a dancer was the 1930s...not into the 40s and 50s, like Ulanova. Thank goodness that Semionova turned her attention to becoming Coach Assolutta Par Excellence. THAT is her great legacy, IMO.

Lepeshinskaya was a very petite dynamo, known best for soubrette roles -- Kitri & Masha, most notably. From the bits of film around, I can tell that she was an extraordinary dancer in allegro. May she rest in peace.

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Lepeshinskaya was not only Stalin's favorite dancer at the Bolshoi, she was a flat-out superb dancer that was probably the best female ballet dancer the Bolshoi had from the 1930's to 1950's outside of Galina Ulanova (who tranferred from the Kirov troupe to the Bolshoi troupe at Stalin's insistence in 1944). I saw an online video of an RTR Planeta report celebrating Lepeshinskaya's 90th birthday two years ago and wow, she really had superb dancing skills. :thumbsup:

I do not know how you arrive at your evaluation of Lepeshinskaya as a dancer and it is my opinion that you are way off mark in your appreciation of her talents and more importantly her artistic and aesthetic status.

The only dancer of the period in you mention to be compared with Galina Ulanova in status and artistry was Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova who recently celebrated her 100th birthday.

And what about Struchkova?

Why make that comparison anyway? As if somebody would be argueing that Lopatkina is a better dancer than Vishneva, or Osipova better than Zakharova?

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Lepeshinskaya was not only Stalin's favorite dancer at the Bolshoi, she was a flat-out superb dancer that was probably the best female ballet dancer the Bolshoi had from the 1930's to 1950's outside of Galina Ulanova (who tranferred from the Kirov troupe to the Bolshoi troupe at Stalin's insistence in 1944). I saw an online video of an RTR Planeta report celebrating Lepeshinskaya's 90th birthday two years ago and wow, she really had superb dancing skills. :thumbsup:

I do not know how you arrive at your evaluation of Lepeshinskaya as a dancer and it is my opinion that you are way off mark in your appreciation of her talents and more importantly her artistic and aesthetic status.

The only dancer of the period in you mention to be compared with Galina Ulanova in status and artistry was Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova who recently celebrated her 100th birthday.

And what about Struchkova?

Why make that comparison anyway? As if somebody would be argueing that Lopatkina is a better dancer than Vishneva, or Osipova better than Zakharova?

Your are quite right to mention Raisa Struchkhova who I saw dance and admired very much. I did not mention her when I responded to sacto1654 post as she was not quite of the same generation as the other dancers mentioned. You are quite right that comparisons are of no value and that dancers all exist on their own terms and should not be compared to others. It is only fans that compare and as I know that ballettalk is on a different plain to "fan talk", I should have not let myself enter into the comparison.

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Why make that comparison anyway? As if somebody would be argueing that Lopatkina is a better dancer than Vishneva, or Osipova better than Zakharova?

How well known an artist from another generation was or is currently is often a matter of other factors besides talent. We know of some dancers only by word-of-mouth, because they didn't get the recordings or the first performances, and their dancing/singing was not reviewed, but their performances are revered. They might have been quite famous in their time and extensively cast because another famous or powerful person liked them (or was married to them) or because another one had a reason to keep them close to home. They may never have toured, but were instrumental in bringing their art to a new place (middle America, for example), and may be virtually unknown outside their own place. They might have been quite famous, important, and influential in their home theater (in the pre-Internet days), but never toured, and didn't achieve world-wide fame. In addition, some talents transcend their period and training, while others seem period-bound.

Comparisons aren't always about talent -- who was better - but about how to understand the context of that person in his/her own time. How was Lepeshkina considered in her own time? Was she the most famous ballerina in the Soviet Union apart from Ulanova then? She's not as famous in the West as Plisetskaya, but that doesn't tell us how she was considered when she danced.

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Comparisons aren't always about talent -- who was better - but about how to understand the context of that person in his/her own time. How was Lepeshkina considered in her own time? Was she the most famous ballerina in the Soviet Union apart from Ulanova then? She's not as famous in the West as Plisetskaya, but that doesn't tell us how she was considered when she danced.

Oh, definitely! Look at the current thread of Somova. I doubt that by now there's any BT'r left without recognizing that the girl is getting a lot of publicity, and yes, she's famous, even if not for how good she is. At this very moment there are many others way better than her who will never be as well known outside their home companies or home countries...

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Was Lepeshinskaya any kin of noted Original Bolshevik biologist Olga Lepeshinskaya? I remember that her father was a railway engineer.

Comrade Professor Olga Borisovna Lepeshinskaya born in Perm, Russia (1871=1963). She reached the heights of Soviet academia winning awards from Stalin for scientific studies. She was in fact a pseudo-scientist whose soviet communist status kept her safely in a position she should not have otherwise achieved. In this you can find a relationship with Lepeshinskaya the demi-caractere dancer who achieved a leading ballet status while not possessing either turn-out, stretched feet or beautiful epaulement but she found very close favour with Stalin and was married twice to high ranking communists.

I have not so far, been able to trace any family links with Olga Borisovna and Olga Vasilieva the dancer who was born in the Ukraine and apparently descended from a noble Polish family.

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was it O. V. Lepshinskaya who was arrested in Italy for shoplifting on one tour outside Soviet Russia?

i seem to recall this being told to me with the suggestion that perhaps O.V.L. was trying to get arrested so she could 'stay' in Italy.

all this very fuzzy and if there has been an ref. to such an incident in the obits i missed it.

i wonder if anyone else has heard of antyhing related to this.

i could be misremembering the whole incident and connecting it wrongly to O.V.L.

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Was Lepeshinskaya any kin of noted Original Bolshevik biologist Olga Lepeshinskaya? I remember that her father was a railway engineer.

Comrade Professor Olga Borisovna Lepeshinskaya born in Perm, Russia (1871=1963). She reached the heights of Soviet academia winning awards from Stalin for scientific studies. She was in fact a pseudo-scientist whose soviet communist status kept her safely in a position she should not have otherwise achieved. In this you can find a relationship with Lepeshinskaya the demi-caractere dancer who achieved a leading ballet status while not possessing either turn-out, stretched feet or beautiful epaulement but she found very close favour with Stalin and was married twice to high ranking communists.

I have not so far, been able to trace any family links with Olga Borisovna and Olga Vasilieva the dancer who was born in the Ukraine and apparently descended from a noble Polish family.

Right, Leonid, and thanks for that. I found the Professor during my period of Nureyev enthusiasm, long ago. I was looking then for connections between dancers and trains, as RHN had been born on one!

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was it O. V. Lepshinskaya who was arrested in Italy for shoplifting on one tour outside Soviet Russia?

i seem to recall this being told to me with the suggestion that perhaps O.V.L. was trying to get arrested so she could 'stay' in Italy.

all this very fuzzy and if there has been an ref. to such an incident in the obits i missed it.

i wonder if anyone else has heard of antyhing related to this.

i could be misremembering the whole incident and connecting it wrongly to O.V.L.

I am not sure what country it was but took place in the summer of 1958. She denied the accusation and said it was ridiculous to suggest that she would steal.

It is is very interesting to think that she may have wanted to defect.

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No, but in that she followed Political Wisdom 101: Never deny what hasn't been asked.

My favorite example of a violation of the principle was the Rockefeller family's announcement of the death of former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. They gave a time and place of death, and then, quite unbidden, added, "There were no young women present." The press immediately perked up its ears. "WHAT young women weren't present? What were their names? Ages? Why should any young women have been present at his death?" It appeared that Nelson had gone out with a bang!

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was it O. V. Lepshinskaya who was arrested in Italy for shoplifting on one tour outside Soviet Russia?

i seem to recall this being told to me with the suggestion that perhaps O.V.L. was trying to get arrested so she could 'stay' in Italy.

all this very fuzzy and if there has been an ref. to such an incident in the obits i missed it.

i wonder if anyone else has heard of antyhing related to this.

i could be misremembering the whole incident and connecting it wrongly to O.V.L.

She was arrested for shoplifting in Brussels, when the Bolshoi first came to Belgium in 1958. (Don't know it also happened in Italy?) Can't imagine she would have wanted to stay in Belgium. She surely just needed an umbrella or a pair of gloves.

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was it O. V. Lepshinskaya who was arrested in Italy for shoplifting on one tour outside Soviet Russia?

i seem to recall this being told to me with the suggestion that perhaps O.V.L. was trying to get arrested so she could 'stay' in Italy.

all this very fuzzy and if there has been an ref. to such an incident in the obits i missed it.

i wonder if anyone else has heard of antyhing related to this.

i could be misremembering the whole incident and connecting it wrongly to O.V.L.

She was arrested for shoplifting in Brussels, when the Bolshoi first came to Belgium in 1958. (Don't know it also happened in Italy?) Can't imagine she would have wanted to stay in Belgium. She surely just needed an umbrella or a pair of gloves.

Thank you Marc for confirming this fact.

Please find herewith a link to an obituary which I found very interesting. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries...eshinskaya.html

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Wow...a truly soviet girl.

RIP

Definitely wow!

As regards a real soviet girl, she certainly was.

It was extremely difficult to become a member of the party and in many cases took years to become a member starting from Young Pioneers to becoming a member of the Komsomol at 14 years of age.

In Lepeshinskaya’s era, when she graduated from the Bolshoi School there were some 3,500,000 formal party members in Russia. Purges in the 1930’s, reputedly reduced membership to 1.900,000 by 1939. During the purges, Maya Plisetskaya’s father was executed in 1938 and her actress mother was arrested and sent to a gulag in Kazakhstan for three years. There are rumours of the murder of a dancer and dancers forced into marriage to senior party officials.

Lepeshinskaya however, as a party member survived in some style as information in the obituary clearly explains.

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'very interesting' indeed, Leonid, this obiturary you just posted.

i've long been told that UK obits are essentially different from those run in US newspapers, esp. the NYTimes where the writing tends to be more 'formal' or at least used to be.

does this Telegraph obit have a by-line?

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'very interesting' indeed, Leonid, this obiturary you just posted.

i've long been told that UK obits are essentially different from those run in US newspapers, esp. the NYTimes where the writing tends to be more 'formal' or at least used to be.

does this Telegraph obit have a by-line?

Regrettably formality in English public life has deteriorated and I regret to inform you so has the content of our newspapers.

It is generally the tradition in English Papers not to have a by line. This detachment, gave the obituary a formality of the importance of the subject as being worthy of note. In many cases, the obituary writers were quite notable persons in their own right. After the initial publication, there might follow a formal tribute by a distinguished person(s) confirming a personal view, often established through personal acquaintance with the deceased. In the case of a seriously important personage, an obituary giving formal details of the 'life; in question would be given and supported nearby or on the front page, a personal appraisal by various people of some standing.

In the case of ballet obituaries, a very few critics would get a by line, a notable exception being Mary Clarke in the Guardian.

What is curious about The Telegraph obituary of Lepeshinskaya is the depth of personal detail. Unlike a review, no by line was displayed.

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