Galina Ulanova's move to the Bolshoi

[Elizaveta]

To quote wikipedia: "In 1944, when her [ulanova's] fame reached Stalin, he had her transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre, where she would be the prima ballerina assoluta for 16 years" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galina_Ulanova).

Of course, there is no source listed. I've been unable to verify that Ulanova's move from the Kirov to the Bolshoi was Stalin's doing, as most of my sources are official and Soviet. Is there a known, documented reason for her transfer?

Thanks in advance!

[leonid17]

To quote wikipedia: "In 1944, when her [ulanova's] fame reached Stalin, he had her transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre, where she would be the prima ballerina assoluta for 16 years" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galina_Ulanova).

Of course, there is no source listed. I've been unable to verify that Ulanova's move from the Kirov to the Bolshoi was Stalin's doing, as most of my sources are official and Soviet. Is there a known, documented reason for her transfer?

Thanks in advance!

Not one that has been published! I have heard and read of several versions for her transfer but none so far, can be verified.

[innopac]

Solomon Volkov wrote the following in his book St Petersburg: A Cultural History (page 502).

Stalin closely watched the triumphs of the Kirov troupe; many of its brightest figures, including leading choreographers, were transferred to the Bolshoi.

Valery Panov wrote this in his book To Dance (page 215).

As the birthplace of classical ballet and protector of its highest standards the present Kirov was still considered the final arbiter of taste. But when the capital was shifted after the Revolution, Moscow got the ministries, the foreign visitors, and the need for display for both. Since ballet was still the showpiece of Russian's rulers, the Kirov could no longer compete in prestige, whatever its excellence. The Bolshoi was where Stalin -- and therefore the money -- went.

From subsidies to actual life and death, bureaucrats decided everything. Personal contact was crucial in winning tiny mercies, and there was a hope if they had just seen you in a performance. Starting with Ulanova, some of the finest Kirov performers and balletmasters transferred to Moscow in the 1930s and 1940s.

"Was transferred" and "transferred" have different meanings -- an interesting question. Was Ulanova sent or attracted to the Bolshoi. Did she have a choice?

[Natalia]

I've heard all sorts of undocumented, wild reasons for the switch, from a pregnancy and a lover in Moscow to Dudinskaya's jealousy to the simple, most likely, reason: in the USSR, the Bolshoi was #1 and she was the biggest Soviet star, so voila!

Stalin's big favorites were Marina Semionova in the 30s, then Olga Lepeshinskaya in the 40s, I thought.

[Sacto1654]

One of the interesting "what ifs" is what would have happened to Ulyana Lopatkina's career if the Soviet Union is still around in 2009. Would she have stayed at the Kirov out of deference to her teacher, Natalia Dudinskaya? Or would her natural talent have gotten the notice of the Bolshoi and she would have been dancing in soloist roles at the Bolshoi by the late 1990's? In reality, Lopatkina graduated from the Vaganova Academy just when the Soviet Union was breaking up, and as such her career ended up being tied to the fortunes of what is now the Mariinsky Theatre.

During the Soviet era, the Bolshoi was THE prominent ballet troupe in Russia, and as such the best ballet dancers all would have aspired to dance for this troupe. That's why Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova are such legendary names--they danced at the Bolshoi when it was THE "showcase" for the Soviet Union, and as such became household names for any serious ballet fan on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Still, Nureyev's biography talks about how he felt quite the opposite, and having graduated and even offered a position at the Bolshoi, his dream was that of dancing at the Kirov, which materialized when Dudinskaya asked him to be her partenaire. I remember something of his words of deference and praising on the Kirov troupe and style compared to the not so polished Bolshoi.

[Elizaveta]

Thank you all for these insights and especially for the sources

Having done a lot of research in "Thaw"-era Soviet ballet, it seems -- at least from the official sources I have access to -- that the Bolshoi was incredibly dominant for the reasons already listed; but I suspect that the Mariinsky-Kirov retained its pride as being the original, oldest Russian ballet school/company and retainer of "pure" Vaganova technique.

It is also very interesting that most (if not all?) of the ballet defectors came from the Kirov.

[rg]

Aleksandr Godunov, Leonid Kozlov and Valentina Kozlov all hailed from Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet.

[Elizaveta]

Ah, I clearly have much to learn! Thanks for pointing this out. My research doesn't extend to the late 1970s, so therein lies my ignorance!

[FauxPas]

Violetta Prokhorova (later better known as the Sadler's Wells ballerina Violetta Elvin) was not a defector but was allowed out of Russia to marry Harold Elvin. But she was a Bolshoi soloist.

Didn't Maya Plisetskaya have an affair with an English diplomat and try to defect unsuccessfully? She wasn't allowed to tour the West until the 1960's when she was almost 40.

The complete stories and private feelings may never be known because the dancers who stayed in Russia were forced to tow the government line. Ulanova was accused of extremely deferential behavior to the Soviet authorities and probably never shared her deepest feelings on a number of subjects publicly. She played the political game and well unlike others who had a tougher time. As an older woman she started to make some guardedly critical comments in interviews - she didn't express enthusiasm for Grigorovich's choreography for Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" which replaced the Lavrovsky that she created at the Kirov. In another Bolshoi documentary she said that if the ballet doesn't go forward, it will go backward. Clearly a swipe at the artistic conservatism of the late Grigorovich period where creativity stagnated at the Bolshoi along with the choreographic powers of its head.

The odd thing is that we associate Ulanova with the Bolshoi because when she finally toured to the West and was filmed, it was as a member of the Bolshoi. She also was active as a coach and teacher of important Bolshoi ballerinas like the late Ekaterina Maximova. But Ulanova's entire training and career until her thirties was as a member of the Kirov. Therefore artistically she is a pure product of the Maryinsky/Kirov-St. Petersburg/Leningrad tradition. But we still think of her as Bolshoi and that was a fairly late career development.

[Sacto1654]

The odd thing is that we associate Ulanova with the Bolshoi because when she finally toured to the West and was filmed, it was as a member of the Bolshoi. She also was active as a coach and teacher of important Bolshoi ballerinas like the late Ekaterina Maximova. But Ulanova's entire training and career until her thirties was as a member of the Kirov. Therefore artistically she is a pure product of the Maryinsky/Kirov-St. Petersburg/Leningrad tradition. But we still think of her as Bolshoi and that was a fairly late career development.

I think a major reason why Ulanova's career ended with the Bolshoi was the fact she was known for her excellent acting skills on-stage, and in fact Konstantin Stanislavki, a legendary theater director and one of the founders of the legendary Moscow Art Theatre, actually wanted Ulanova to become a full-time actor at MAT because he was so impressed by her acting skills. As such, when her fame became known to Stalin, Ulanova was transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre (which was pretty much THE showcase for ballet during the Soviet era), where she became prima ballerina assoluta and was extraoridinarily beloved right up to the time she retired from active dancing in 1960. (I have to ask this: for the really old-time balletomanes in Russia today, who was more beloved, Ulanova or Maya Plisetskaya? I'd almost think Ulanova because unlike Plisetskaya, Ulanova didn't have a known record of political clashes with Soviet officials, which affected Plisetskaya's career for many years.)

[Simon G]

In another Bolshoi documentary she said that if the ballet doesn't go forward, it will go backward. Clearly a swipe at the artistic conservatism of the late Grigorovich period where creativity stagnated at the Bolshoi along with the choreographic powers of its head.

Hi Fauxpas

That wasn't Ulanova who said that it was Plisetskaya in the 1987 documentary the BBC made about the Bolshoi to accompany their London season.

Also what she actually and said in relation to choreography at the Bolshoi and her ow attempts to choreograph Anna Karenina to break free of the Soviet mould, "we are standing still and that which stands still goes backwards."

I was ten when I saw that documentary and it stuck with me. I'm cursed with a photographic memory if my mind makes a point of something I never forget it.

[leonid17]

I think a major reason why Ulanova's career ended with the Bolshoi was the fact she was known for her excellent acting skills on-stage, and in fact Konstantin Stanislavki, a legendary theater director and one of the founders of the legendary Moscow Art Theatre, actually wanted Ulanova to become a full-time actor at MAT because he was so impressed by her acting skills. As such, when her fame became known to Stalin, Ulanova was transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre (which was pretty much THE showcase for ballet during the Soviet era), where she became prima ballerina assoluta and was extraoridinarily beloved right up to the time she retired from active dancing in 1960. (I have to ask this: for the really old-time balletomanes in Russia today, who was more beloved, Ulanova or Maya Plisetskaya? I'd almost think Ulanova because unlike Plisetskaya, Ulanova didn't have a known record of political clashes with Soviet officials, which affected Plisetskaya's career for many years.)

Regarding Galina Ulanova, it reads to me that you have indulged in hypothetical reasoning, to form an opinion as to why she was transferred to the Bolshoi which cannot as far as I can see, be substantiated by facts.

Then you say, “I'd almost think Ulanova because unlike Plisetskaya, Ulanova didn't have a known record of political clashes with Soviet officials, which affected Plisetskaya's career for many years.” If anything, Plisetskaya was a victim of her family history in an oppressively anti-semitic regime.

To get things right about ballet history, we all have to go beyond readily available sources. I would also say in the case of the two artists in question, many of the complications of their life history is not readily available and still needs extensive research. Given Plisetskaya’s absolutely unique physicality, dramatic temperament and her approach to roles, she was able to fully obtain a status second only to Ulanova in with the Bolshoi and was of course much younger. Try to get hold of her autobiography and you will see why she might have been deemed possibly unreliable on the basis of her family background. Before she travelled abroad, her status in Russia was that of an extraordinarily celebrated dancer who had been made. People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1951 and People's Artist of the USSR, 1959 when Ulanova was still dancing.

Ulanova was loved and admired not just by politicos but by audiences whenever and wherever she danced. When Dame Margot Fonteyn saw Ulanova in 1956 she said, "I cannot even begin to talk about Ulanova’s dancing, it is so marvellous, I am left speechless. It is magic. Now we know what we lack."

You say, "Bolshoi Theatre (which was pretty much THE showcase for ballet during the Soviet era)" The Bolshoi Ballet's aesthetic in the Sovet era was different to that of the Kirov Ballet as it tended to generate more communistic themes in its productions and manner of performance than the Kirov. It was based in the city where the government of the country was situate, which always assists any ballet company and more so in their case as it was used as a political doorway into the communist ideals for the audience. IMO the Kirov in general produced more of an artistic approach to their performanes and had less brutalised attacks on Petipa's choreography than the Bolshoi did in the era being discussed.

PS Regarding Elizaveta's original question, I have never read in any authoritative source that it was Stalin who ordered Ulanova to the Bolshoi.

[Cygnet]

Didn't Maya Plisetskaya have an affair with an English diplomat and try to defect unsuccessfully? She wasn't allowed to tour the West until the 1960's when she was almost 40.

In Gennady Smakov's "The Greatest Russian Dancers" (Knopf, 1984), he learned from Plisetskaya herself that it was simply political mischief mixed with a very nasty dose of anti-Semitism that effected her early career. In his essay, she told him the following: "The only weapon I had was my dancing. With that I fought like a general without an army. If I could have saved all the energy I wasted on my struggle it would have sufficed me to cover a dozen ballets." (Smakov, 1984).

Smakov further noted that at her performances, the KGB was scattered throughout the theatre, intimidating her fans from applauding. They actively tried to find defamatory (or) fabricated information about her to circulate. The authorities deemed her a high flight risk, precisely because she was extremely popular with the Moscow public. Primarily, they took into account the fact that she was the daughter of an engineer who was "disappeared" during the purges, and her mother, a film actress was a labor camp inmate. This made her politically unreliable and left unchecked a liability to the regime. The Bolshoi stars Sulamith and Asaf Messerer were her Aunt and Uncle, but that didn't matter in her case; it was she who was isolated for persecution. Her name was on everyone's lips, but under Stalin, she wasn't granted the privileges that were 'due' a Bolshoi prima at that time. For example, she had to share a communal apartment with one bathroom and seven families. This type of living arrangement might have been the norm for many Soviet citizens, but for an established Bolshoi prima and distinguished and titled member of the cultural elite? No. The authorities felt that her passionate dancing, outspoken non-submission to the system, and charisma were too much to handle. She had the tendancy to 'rage against the machine,' and therefore, since they felt she was unpredictable, they thought it best to keep a lid on her. When Khurshchev had settled into power, the "thaw" began, and she was finally allowed to come to the West.

The complete stories and private feelings may never be known because the dancers who stayed in Russia were forced to tow the government line. Ulanova was accused of extremely deferential behavior to the Soviet authorities and probably never shared her deepest feelings on a number of subjects publicly. She played the political game and well unlike others who had a tougher time. As an older woman she started to make some guardedly critical comments in interviews - she didn't express enthusiasm for Grigorovich's choreography for Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" which replaced the Lavrovsky that she created at the Kirov. In another Bolshoi documentary she said that if the ballet doesn't go forward, it will go backward. Clearly a swipe at the artistic conservatism of the late Grigorovich period where creativity stagnated at the Bolshoi along with the choreographic powers of its head.

Ulanova didn't care for Grigorovich's "Ivan The Terrible" either. In a rare, candid moment on the "Prokofiev 100th Anniversary Gala" dvd (Kultur 1991), she was cornered by this question during intermission backstage: "What do you think of Grigorovich's "Ivan?" To which she rolled her eyes and replied a very dismissive: "Well . . . hah, I guess every ballet has something interesting in it." After that comment the interviewer quickly changed the subject to her pupils in the company. By that time Grigorovich's "Ivan" and "R & J" had both become staples in the Bolshoi rep.