Fall 2010 Ballet Review Give Ballet Review as a gift and we’ll send the BR signature card – with a beautiful draw- ing by Edward Gorey – to the recipient in your name. Please be sure to include your own complete address when ordering. To send several gift subscriptions please list the names on a separate sheet of paper. And remember you may now fax Visa and MasterCard orders to us at: [212] 924-2176.

Individual Institutional Subscriptions Subscriptions Please enter a 1-year subscription Yes. Please begin my personal ! at the institutional rate of $48. ! subscription to Ballet Review for Please enter a 2-year subscription one year for $27. ! at the institutional rate of $79. I would like to subscribe to Ballet Enclosed is our check. ! Review for two years for only ! Please invoice us. $47 – a 12% savings. ! Check, payable to Ballet Review. Foreign Postage. Add $12 per year, ! ! or $20 per year for airmail; remit Visa MasterCard ! ! in dollars drawn on a U. S. bank. Credit Card Number Ballet Review Subscriptions 37 West 12 Street – # 7J Exp. Date Signature New York, NY 10011, USA Foreign Postage. Please add $12 per or fax Visa and MasterCard ! year (Two years: $24), payment in orders to: [212] 924-2176 dollars drawn on a U. S. bank. Overseas Airmail. Please add $20 My Name ! per year. (Two years: $40.) (Organization) I would like to send a personal ! gift subscription for 1 year or! Street Address 2 years to: ! ! City State Zip Code Gift Recipient’s Name (Country) Address

(Telephone) (Fax Number) "St. Petersburg – Regina Zarhina #San Francisco – Leigh Witchel $Boston – Jeffrey Gantz &&New York – Alice Helpern &'Paris – Peter Sparling &"Washington, D. C. – George Jackson &(New York – Marvin Hoshino &$ Hamburg – Horst Koegler '&Le!er – David Vaughan

David Vaughan ''A Conversation with 68 Alicia Markova Don Daniels )'Farrell’s Dulcinea: *e Wand and the Fount Tim Scholl )+ Tales of Two Cities Jay Rogoff ")City Ballet 50 Ballet Review 38.3 Joseph Houseal Fall 2010 "(Wang Ke-fen, China’s Editor and Designer: Dance Historian Marvin Hoshino Ellen *omas Managing Editor: Roberta Hellman #, Duo Concertant Senior Editor: Joel Lobenthal with Lisa Whitaker Don Daniels ##Tatiana Legat on Yuri Soloviev Associate Editor: Joel Lobenthal Joseph Houseal Associate Editor: 43 -$ Asian Genres Larry Kaplan Marina Harss Copy Editor: ("Auroras: Tiler Peck and Barbara Palfy Kathryn Morgan Photographers: Tom Brazil Sandra Genter Costas $, Trisha Brown Associates: Peter Anastos $( London Reporter – Clement Crisp Robert Greskovic +) Music on Disc – George Dorris George Jackson &,, Check It Out Elizabeth Kendall 74 Paul Parish Nancy Reynolds James Su!on David Vaughan Edward Willinger CoverphotobyTomBrazil:StephenPetronioinTrishaBrown’s Sarah C. Woodcock ManWalkingDowntheSideofaBuilding,WhitneyMuseum,2010. Tatiana Legat on have properly and correctly, and then come home and blow up. “How can he have us do Yuri Soloviev this? This is idiotic. It doesn’t make sense!” When Baryshnikov defected in Canada in Joel Lobenthal with 1974, they told Yura to replace him. He said, “I Lisa Whitaker don’t want to go.” It was a scandal; everyone was saying, “Are you a fool? Why don’t you I interviewed Tatiana Legat, Yuri Soloviev’s want to go?” He replied, “They didn’t take me widow, in 2000 for an article that appeared in in the beginning and I won’t go now.” He had these pages in Fall 2003. The following August, his pride and he was a man of his word. I interviewed her again at her home outside Alla Sizova was like Yura: she was easily Boston. With me was Lisa Whitaker, a friend wounded, very sensitive. They were together both of Legat and Soloviev, and the daughter from adolescence, and he loved her and she of the French Consul-General in Melbourne loved him. They were happy dancing togeth- when Soloviev, along with Kaleria Fedicheva er. and Alexander Godunov, appeared as guest BR: Is it true that they danced the Swan Lake artists during the Moiseyev Classical Dance Pas de Trois on the Kirov stage before gradu- Theater’s1969tourofAustralia.Whitakerwas ating? then a Russian studies student who worked TL: Yes, I think it was their last year. for impresario Michael Edgley as a translator BR: Diana Vishneva danced before gradu- and guide for visiting companies. At the end ating in the 1990s; was it normal then, in the of the Soviet era, Whitaker traveled to Russia 1950s? to learn more of Soloviev’s fate and to meet TL: It was extremely rare. I think Lubov his family. Voichnis was still in school, during the 1940s. Whitaker describes Soloviev as “an anim- Vaganova, who had influence, felt that she ist,”whopossessed“aWordsworthianconcept could do it. of deity,of infinity.”His family was tied to the Sizova would arrive and everybody would land, and he numbered among his ancestors fallinlove.Herlegscouldgosomestrangeway, the manager of a noble estate. In 1976 Soloviev or her head would stray on the turns, but she toldhisformer-classmateElenaShatrovathat was so charming and delightful that the gates he wanted to leave ballet and become a forest opened. But it was much harder to partner her ranger.Afewmonthslater,hewasfounddead, than, for example, Irina Kolpakova. Yura was an apparent suicide, in the country dacha he always afraid when he had to support Sizova loved. It is tragic to think that in a dark hour inpirouettesthatshewouldflyoffsomewhere. he was drawn back to his roots. –J.L. BR: She would spontaneously try to fit in * an extra turn? Tatiana Legat: At the Kirov, you did what you TL: She would throw herself into it, and try were told. If somebody decided that you were to do as many as possible. She’d spin around going to do this or you were not going to do like a sausage. You really had to watch it with that,youdidn’thaveanyrightevertosay“No.” Sizova. You had to keep your eye on her. Yura Yura was not the exception to the rule. The said, “You cannot control her.” But Kolpako- exceptions to the rule were people like Rudi va knew exactly how many to do and that was Nureyev,whohadincrediblestrengthofchar- that. acter, and lack of concern for what anybody I remember his Giselle in London with Sizo- else said. However,every once in a while, Yura va in 1970. They were able to respond to each would put his foot down and say, “I won’t do other on the same level, in the same unique it.” But it was only because of his position that way.They were in complete unison. It was the he was able to do that. Usually Yura would be- symbiosis of their two personalities which fit

©2010 Tatiana Legat, Lisa Whitaker, Joel Lobenthal 55 together so well. That was magical and was So he was familiar with back pain, and yet, felt in the entire audience. I saw people had knowing that, he had to dance with Fediche- tears in their eyes. That was the extraordi- va. She had strong, muscular legs. I cannot re- nary fit between the two of them. Maybe [Ki- memberatimewhenshewassvelte.Sheprob- rov Artistic Director] Konstantin Sergeyev ably tried, but she was a big girl, and it was didn’t see it, or he just didn’t want to do it, but hard. She was tall enough as it was, and when he could have made this wonderful partner- she was on pointe she was of course even big- ship between Sizova and Soloviev. ger. In fact, Fedicheva was so tall that they BR: Fortunately they were filmed in a num- used to put little heels on Yura. ber of things. She lost two years because of her BR: Nicolas Dromgoole wrote in his Tele- back injury. graph review of their Swan Lake on the open- TL: Yes. Yura never got to pick his partners. ing-night of the Kirov’s Covent Garden sea- He was never able to say, “Look, I would pre- son in September, 1966: “She was too large for ferjusttodancewithher.”Ofcourse,Sergeyev her partner Yuri Soloviev, who wore high- was the one who was supposed to pick. But heeled shoes to keep level and nipped into the PyotrRachinsky,[generaldirectoroftheKirov wings for ballet shoes before actually dancing opera house], would lean on Sergeyev and say, himself.” But it was also a tradition in the “Give him to Fedicheva.” theater to change from formal shoes to ballet Yura was frequently in pain when he slippersduringtheperformance–forinstance danced. Another dancer would jump flat foot- in act 3 of Beauty. ed and land flat footed, but he never got hurt, TL: Once Yura was supposed to dance a con- because he never straightened his knees and cert with Kalya [Fedicheva]. They got it all ankles; he couldn’t. Yura sprang like a cat. He ready; they went through the rehearsals. And would go up as if offa springboard, and he then his temperature spiked, and we called would also straighten his knees completely. the theater and said, “Yura can’t dance to- He had injured his back as an adolescent in night.”SotheyhadtofindsomebodyforKalya. school because the girls he had to lift were They asked, “Well, is he really sick?” So they pudgy, although later they would lose weight didn’t send the district doctor, they sent the to dance in the theater. doctor from the theater to come in an ambu- In the West they have great ballet shoes, but lance and take his temperature. “Oh, yes, Yuri we had terrible ones. He was always bruising Vladimovich, yes you do have a temperature. the pads of his feet, exactly the spot on his bal- Take it easy,lie down.” He was enraged. “They let slippers where a seam stood up. We used wouldn’t believe my word . . . Rachinsky had to open up his shoes, and use a razor to shave to send somebody to check if I was faking?” offthe inside seams in order to flatten them And Kolpakova was becoming prominent, as much as we could. and she wanted to dance with Yura. Without Lisa Whitaker: I think he also suffered from a doubt, he inspired her. It was a complicat- malnutrition. He was evacuated to Tashkent ed and delicate situation. There was this one with his mother. A woman who survived WW woman pulling on him, and this other woman II there told me, “We lived on spinach. Peo- pulling on him. ple’s skin turned green from it.” BR: Like Bayadère. TL: We talked some with his family about TL: Yes, just like that! Moiseyev’s troupe in- the war. I told stories of how we lived and his vited him and Fedicheva, people from various mother told me how she was evacuated by sled theaters, from the Bolshoi, to go to India, to during the first winter across the frozen Lake Australia. I don’t know how Kalya behaved in Ladoga. But Yura and I didn’t talk to each oth- these places, but Moiseyev said, “I am not tak- er about our experiences during the war. We ing Fedicheva anywhere anymore. I’ll take So- were just happy that we had survived. loviev but I’m not taking Fedicheva.” And Kal-

56 ./0012 314516 ya said, “If you don’t take me, there’ll be no would work very hard. She had enormous dis- more trips.” And Yura replied, “How can you cipline. She was the kind of person, when she do that? If you’re going to be like that – After went on a diet, she would drink coffee and you’ve done this to me . . . I’m not going to nothing else for three days. And she was sim- dance with you ever again.” And he wouldn’t, ilar to Yura in that they always showed re- and Kalya begged him, and they asked me to spect to the ballet master. If it was a good one, speak to him. But if somebody did something then you knew it came out of their hearts. If to him, they were finished. I went to him be- it wasn’t someone good, they still maintained cause they leaned on me. He said, “I won’t do proper courtesy. it. I just won’t do it.” Our theatrical upbringing demanded that BR: Eventually almost everyone was refus- level of courtesy and intelligence. Whereas a ing to partner her. ballet master might tell Fedicheva to do some- TL: And then she became very depressed, thing and she would say, “I’m not going to do andgainedweight.Sothatwaswhenshefound that. I’ll do this instead,” that wasn’t the se- an American to marry her, and she emigrat- vere discipline that Kolpakova and Yura had. ed. Whether it was hard, or whether they thought But you know, Fedicheva did help him. Be- it was good, unless the ballet master said that cause of her position in the theater, because they could change it, they didn’t. of her relationship with Rachinsky, she was BR: Did you and he dance together before abletopushYuraforward.AndKolpakovaalso you were dating? helped him. She was always able to organize TL: Yes. Probably that is what brought us that their rehearsals were right after class. together. At first I didn’t pay much attention They had the best hall, the best piano player. to Yura because Nureyev just took all the at- It was an optimal situation for him to work tention. Yura was very shy. He wouldn’t just and therefore it brought out a perfection in come out and say something. We danced the his work. Swan Lake pas de trois, the Giselle pas de deux, Yura was always so stressed before a per- Fokine’s Carnaval, the Laurencia pas de six. He formance. “What if I do this wrong? “What if begancourtingme.Ifellinlovewithhim.Yura I do that wrong?” But Kolpakova was such a wanted to marry me, but I said, “I’m twenty- masterofhercraft,thatalthough,yes,shewas five and you’re nineteen. Let’s wait for one nervous, she never showed it. So it was reas- year.” suring for him to dance with her. BR: Before you married, where were you Kolpakova was like an encyclopedia: she living? was very smart, very musical. In fact when I TL: I was living with a married couple, the would stage something, I would watch what Yefremovs. He was from the aristocracy, a Kolpakova did because I knew that she had very cultured family. He was an engineer. His studied it and knew exactly how it was. But father was a well-known mathematician. A she wasn’t a natural actress. Tatiana Vech- teacher at the school, Leonid Semyonov, had eslova would show her how you drink the po- been a student of Nikolai Legat, my grandfa- tion, and how you’re supposed to react, how ther. He knew the Yefremovs. They must have to show her love. She would learn it, but she met at the hunting society.Semyonov had bird didn’t feel it. It was studied, and so it didn’t dogs, and the Yefremovs kept a hunting dog. project, didn’t convince. She was lucky that So Semyonov probably told the Yefremovs she had Vecheslova, who pushed and pulled about me, that there was this little girl, a de- and pounded. If she hadn’t had her, she would scendent from Legat living in the boarding never have been able to do Romeo and Juliet. school part of the school, no parents– I never BR:DidKolpakovaherselfunderstandthat? saw my father after my parents divorced; my TL: Yes I believe she did. Therefore she mother died during the Leningrad Siege.

7/00 89:9 57 LW: They survived on one bowl of soup a tiful white porcelain fireplace, beautiful plas- day, made from carpenter’s glue. Tatiana’s terwork. In the middle there was a large table. younger brother Gherman was so weak he They had a big wardrobe, a divan. They had couldn’t walk at all. She would carry him on sold their dog Amur to the border patrol be- her back. cause it shed. There were too many people, too TL: Yes. My grandmother survived, and she much fur. They were very sad about it, but enrolled me in the ballet. But she was so poor with that money his parents bought a con- that she would come to the school for a meal. vertible sofa for us. His parents were in one Vaganova had also studied with my grandfa- corner in a large enamel and wrought iron ther, and she attended my mother’s christen- bed. Then on the diagonal halfway down the ing at the Vladimirovsky Church in St. Peters- room was our convertible sofa. And then a lit- burg. After the war, Vaganova called my tle folding bed that Yura’s brother Igor slept grandmother to the school, and they hugged on. and cried. She gave my grandmother a note Thecultofthepersonalityinthefamilywas for my birthday with a fifty ruble bill: “Your all about Yura. Everything was about him. grandmotherwillbuyyouapresentwiththis.” He would always say, “How wonderful it is It was a lot of money. that you have no relatives. That way Mama The Yefremovs fed me, they sewed clothes doesn’t have anybody to fight with.” At the for me because all I had to wear was the brown beginning, his father liked me but his moth- flannel school uniform. My grandmother sent er didn’t very much. She objected to the fact my brother to a trade school. Then he was sent that I was older. At first she would go after me to Ukhta, way out in the sticks, as a laborer, andpushmearoundmeabit.Hisfatherwould and he worked alongside ex-convicts who say, “Leave her alone, leave her alone,” and were in exile. He was doing very poorly, so to take me in the kitchen. save his life, my grandmother wrote to what- Aguestatourweddingcelebrationwashead ever office it was, not mentioning me, but say- of the local Komsomol, and I believe it was he ing “This boy is the only person I have left in who helped us get our first room alone to- my family, I’m dying, I need my grandson to gether. After Igor also moved out of their come back.” And so that way she was able to room,AnnaandVladimirweregivenanapart- bring him back to Leningrad. She knew that ment in a very bad area. People used to wait she was ill; she knew she wasn’t going to last years to change apartments, but Kolpakova much longer. She wanted my brother and me arranged for them to have a studio in a new to be together in the same town. He lived with area where the dry docks were. Vladimir was mygrandmotheruntilshedied,inalong,nar- eligible for it also because he was a veteran row room on the top floor, and I went to live and had been wounded in the war. with the Yefremovs. It was their dog that Yura The Kirov gave us our last apartment, on and I used to walk at night before he’d walk KlimovStreet,nearthetheater.Yurawassup- home to his family’s communal apartment on posedtobegivenaregulatedamountofsquare Fontanka Street. meters as a People’s Artist of the Soviet Union. I was never at the Soloviev’s place before I was allowed to have a certain number of we were married. The whole year that he was meters because I was an Honored Artist of the courting me I never went there. Only when Russian Federation. When they put those Yura turned twenty, that was when we decid- numbers together, the apartment was actual- ed that we would register at the marriage bu- ly three square meters larger than was legal reau on Nevsky Prospect. for us. Again Kolpakova went and said, “Give His family had a large room. The apartment them the apartment.” building had been built by the Elyseyevskys, Yura’s mother was instrumental in taking the merchant family,and so there was a beau- care of Alyona because we were traveling all

58 ./0012 314516 the time. When I was pregnant she said, “If you have big lips you should play the trum- you give birth to a boy I am not sitting with pet. You could be like Armstrong.” him. I am done with boys. I have had it up to BR: Did he know how to play? here with boys.” But a little girl, she was ab- TL: Well, he learned! But the trouble was solutely delighted at that. that Alyona had just been born and I said to Yura also wanted a daughter. In Russia the him, “Go on the balcony” of the apartment on family didn’t go to the hospital when you give Lanskaya street where we were now living. birth.Youweren’tallowed.Therewasnowait- But when he would practice out there, he was ing room. You stayed in your place and when threatenedbytheneighbors!Theguysworked the baby was born they’d let you know. And for a few months and then they realized that so they called Yura in a rehearsal and told him this wasn’t going anywhere, so it was dis- Alyona was born, and he cried for joy. banded. But they were just enamored with BR: Researching my article I was somehow jazz. surprised both by how much he had loved bal- Yura soaked everything up like a sponge; let at one time and by how many interests he he wanted to know and understand things had outside ballet. Of course we in the West about the world, about many things. We sub- knew he loved to fish; that’s part of what I’d scribedtotheliteraryjournals,andto“Around call the standard Soloviev mythology. the World,” which was like National Geograph- TL:Theloveforfishingdefinitelycamefrom ic. He loved to read about trips, travelers, na- his father because even when they were little ture.ThorHeyerdahl.Hereadandre-readJack boys he would take them fishing. And so, lat- London. I’d say, “But look you just read that.” er on, when Yura would come back, and he’d He said, “I like to read Jack London, so leave havealltheluresandthereelsandeverything, me alone.” then nothing else existed in the world. The LW: He loved the Russian classics and for- threeguyswouldbesittingtogethergoingover eign literature, Robinson Crusoe, for example, all the lures, sitting on the floor almost like also Hemingway and Dreiser. We talked about little kids. They would watch all the sports, Sister Carrie, and Somerset Maugham, whom I and if there were some match on TV,they’d sit loved. Yura had read “Miss Sadie Thompson.” cheering and clapping. If the women wanted It was anti-clerical, so it was translated. We to watch a movie, it was out of the question. discussed Rudyard Kipling; he had read Mow- LW: Yuri Vasil’kov,a premier danseur at the gli and I had lived in India. He had danced in Maly theater told me, “Yura was always very India, in Delhi, he told me. I remembered that kind, very generous.” Then he added, “But he the food was delicious. “Oh, no, too hot, just wassohappyinthecountry,therehewaseven like the weather,” he retorted. kinder and more generous as a host.” TL: It was difficult to buy good books, the TL: Our neighbors there would say, “If the classics, in Leningrad. Whenever we traveled Solovievs have gone by, there’ll be no mush- in Russia he would always look at the kiosks rooms left in the woods.” because you could find stuffthat the people in BR: He was so attuned to the forest. that particular town had no use for, but that TL: In those days, jazz was forbidden. It was you couldn’t keep on the shelves in Leningrad an evil, capitalistic thing. You couldn’t do it, because there was such an educated popula- butsomeguysinthecompany,AlexanderPav- tion. He’d come back carrying loads of books, lovsky, Vasili Ivanov, decided that they would and the books didn’t go on the shelf until he’d start up a jazz band. read them. Yura read so much that one eye BR:Ivanovwasknownthroughoutthecom- became near-sighted; the other one wasn’t. pany for his extensive knowledge of jazz. Once when we were in Japan, they did special TL: He played piano beautifully. Pavlovsky glasses for him. playedsaxophone.TheytoldYura,“Well,since He also bought records, and he had a very

7/00 89:9 59 large collection, all kinds of music, from jazz looked up, and rain was coming down onto the to classical to popular. He loved it. Of course, floor. you just couldn’t get things like that in Rus- BR: Holes in that old roof. sia. He would give them to people, or people TL: In America, there were a lot of the old would say, “Sell me this one!” BalletsRussesémigréswhowerestillalive.We LW: He was obviously educated by his trav- met them; it was incredible for us. We want- els, an autodidact, mainly. Soviet people were ed to walk around a bit, to be free. We took the not encouraged to discuss foreign ideas. But subway and got offat the wrong station. We as he traveled he picked up ideas that were wound up in Harlem, and we were terrified. different from anything he had been exposed So we got into a taxi, which was absolutely to at home. forbidden, and returned downtown. Thank TL: We were always happy to go abroad. For God nobody caught us. all these big tours, we were sent on our vaca- We’d never seen chewing gum before, so tion time. “If you don’t want to go, okay, too everybody was chewing, and backstage when bad,don’tgo.”Buttheycoulddowhateverthey they had to go onstage, they’d drop it. A cou- wanted with us. That’s why Yura would say, ple of people fell because they got stuck on the “Let us not say that we’re going on this trip gum. Sergeyev was furious, and he got all of because we’ll ruin it.” We were superstitious. us together and he banned chewing gum. We only talked about it when we were on the BR: In Chicago, where the Kirov toured af- plane leaving. ter the Met, Soloviev tore his Achilles tendon. We thought, ooh America! They said to me TL: Yes, his plié on the left leg was never in 1961, “You can go to Paris or you can go to entirely the same after that. The stage of the America.” I thought, forget Paris, I’d rather go theaterwasveryhard,butSergeyevsaid,“Our to America. But mainly it was because Yura Russians will dance.” It was in Leningrad Sym- was going to be away in America for three phony, when the battle starts, but I can’t re- months, and I didn’twant to be away from him member what the step was. I was in the wings. that long. I’d been to Yugoslavia, which for us It was horrible to see. I think the audience was a capitalist country, but America was must have noticed, but Ivanov performed mind blowing. Yura’s steps for him because Yura was in such First the Bolshoi theater went to New York pain that he couldn’t get up. He crawled off- and then the Kirov. It was wonderful. I was stage. They took him right to the emergency rooming with Gabriela Komleva, but none- room and repaired it there. A few hours later theless, it was almost like our honeymoon, be- he was back in the hotel. cause Yura and I were there the whole time Everybody came to see him. Kalabashkin together. We lived very well, and they gave us from the administration brought him five ap- a week in New York to get ready for the first ples.WewereexpectingthatSergeyevasartis- performance. tic director would make his presence known, BR: He danced the Swan Lake pas de trois on that he and Dudinskaya would at least make the opening night? an official visit. They didn’t and they never TL:Yes,NataliaMakarova,Sizova,Soloviev. said anything about it. A unique pas de trois. It was a sensation. It was very pleasant, however, that it was BR: Inna Zubkovskaya told me that when the Americans who put the cast on him be- she looked up to begin the White Swan pas de cause in America in the old days they would deux on that opening night, partnered by Vla- use a sort of a stocking, and then on top of dilen Semyonov,she saw the audience fanning the stocking, they would put the plaster. They themselves because it was so hot. It was Sep- didn’t do that in Russia. In Russia, when they tember but they had no air conditioning. would take offthe plaster, it would rip all the TL: At the Met they were dancing and they hair offyour leg.

60 ./0012 314516 Tatiana Legat and Yuri Soloviev in New York City, 1961. (Photo courtesy of Tatiana Legat) In Leningrad, the doctors went to take the TL:YurareceivedthegoldmedalattheParis cast off. The whole staffcame because nobody International Dance Competition [during the had seen an American plaster cast. They used Kirov’s season there in December 1965]. After to have a rubber heel that you put in at the he came back to Russia, all those who received bottom so that you could walk on your cast, awards were then invited to perform in a gala whereas in Russia you either jumped, hopped, in Paris. But the authorities, Sergeyev proba- or somebody carried you, or you went on bly,said, no he is busy,he is working, and they crutches. “I got on the table,” Yura told me, sent Maya Plisetskaya instead. “and I steeled myself to be ready,” and then BR: It could have been a higher hand. Ser- nothing happened; there was no pain. And his geyev and Dudinskaya had to be extra careful crutches, too, weren’t anything like Soviet because they were not Party members. crutches. He gave them to Nina Ponomareva, TL: I don’t exactly understand their rela- one of our repetiteurs. She wanted them, they tionship. But it does seem to me that Sergeyev were so interesting. “Take ’em! I never want saw Yura’s usefulness. Sergeyev was always to see ’em again.” good at choreographing variations for him- BR: He had a difficult relationship with self. He added a variation for Albrecht in the Sergeyev.Iguessthedancer/directorrelation- first act of Giselle, and Yura was the only oth- ship is never too smooth, except if the dancer er person who was allowed to dance it. He is a special favorite. would give Yura something but then he would

7/00 89:9 61 wound him. There was this complicated rela- sity and say, “Oh, I want to enroll in a foreign tionship between them that ended with Ser- languagecourse.”Insteaditwasarranged,and geyev’s Hamlet. someone came to the house. BR: Right before Makarova’s defection in TL: Yura would work with the teacher in 1970, which led to Sergeyev’s being replaced our apartment, or with me. I still have my asartisticdirectorandtransferredtoheadthe little notebook where I would write. Alyona school. Soloviev worked on Hamlet? always says, “You’ve been working on English, TL: Yes, but he pulled out of it. workingonthisnotebookforthirtyyears,and BR: What was the matter? it hasn’t gotten anywhere.” TL: I don’t know. Was it because of his re- LW:HecouldspeakEnglishsufficientlywell lationship to Sergeyev? Was it because of his to read a newspaper article, decipher a review choreography? But he got a lot from Sergeyev in the press. He understood enough grammar artistically; Yura was always very attentive to make sense of the sentences. He might not when he understood that somebody could know all the words, but he got the gist of it. teach him something. He was highly intuitive, in language and in LW: Sergeyev was a link to the old Imperi- most ways. He’d pick up a book in English or al traditions. French and chew on it. He did very well. BR: Yes, he’d only entered the school after BR: They all learned French in Rossi Street. the Revolution, but his teachers were all from For a time during the mid-1950s, English was the old world. Maybe Sergeyev helped Solo- being taught in the junior high schools in Len- viev’s acting, too, he was so invested in the ingrad. Stanislavsky method. Alla Osipenko said that LW: Nevertheless, if it had been found out when he rehearsed her for Lilac Fairy in his that he was studying English on his own ini- new Sleeping Beauty in 1952, he constructed a tiative,asanadult,hewouldhavebeenflagged matrix of subtextual relationships between as a defection risk. the fairies and the King and Queen. TL: Yura was always being pressed to join Soloviev had a major success creating the the Party. If the Kirov performed in Moscow role of the Cosmonaut in Sergeyev’s Distant they would have this big send-offat the air- Planet in 1963. port. There would be top brass from the Min- TL: That was so much work. Every time he’d istry of Culture. Alexandrov, who was the finish a variation, he’d collapse in the wings, deputy minister, came up to Yura, and said, and his nose would bleed from the exertion. “Look, Yura you’ve got such a high position. LW: Yura said that his relationship with You’reanembodimentofwhataRussianCom- Sergeyevwasruinedafterheattendedthegra- munist is. You need to join the Party.” “Yes,” duation performance of Sergeyev’s son Niko- he said, “it would be an enormous honor for lai in 1965. Yura was in the wings and could me, but I don’t feel that I’m sufficiently ma- not suppress a snort of laughter and surprise. ture to make a good Communist.” It was reported to Sergeyev, who never for- BR: With deadpan humor. gave him. I saw Nikolai dance; he was on the TL: Yes. He just blew him off, and he knew tour to Australia, too. He had started ballet he was blowing him off, and Alexandrov knew late, and he was awful, and quite short. he was being blown off, and it was extremely BR: What made Soloviev decide to take Eng- irritating to him. lish lessons? LW: Yura teased a good friend of his for suc- TL: He wanted to. We started going out to cumbing to pressure and joining the Party. As places abroad, and it was the right thing to do. his friend told me years later, he told Yura, YouneededtospeakEnglish.ButIwasnogood “It’s easy for you to resist, you are a People’s at it. Not at all. Artist of the Soviet Union. I had to join. I’ve LW: Of course he couldn’t go to the univer- been divorced three times, and it’s the only

62 ./0012 314516 way I can survive.” Given the official puritan- performance. To have the opportunity to see ism, he had no other choice. all that on stage was an incredible learning TL: A dancer who was secretary of the Par- experience for us. ty in the ballet would always go to me: “You At the beginning of his career, however, know, Tatiana, if you’ll join, then maybe Yura Yura was an inhibited boy. His face was inhi- will join too. You’ve got to do it.” bited. But the success that he had, going to But I never asked Yura to join. We would London in 1961, being thrown into StoneFlower laugh about it. Before each tour we were giv- and SwanLake, he developed and he developed, en certain papers to study on Marxism. We but it took time. would read them over and over again, but we Mikhail Mikhailov was from Balanchine’s didn’tunderstandanythingandwedidn’twant generation,andheusedtoplaykingsandBrah- to understand anything. mins in the Kirov. He was a very interesting And then the secretary was demoted. He actor. Yura said that Mikhailov came to him stayed on as a dancer. But he said to me, “I lost and praised his entrance in act 2 of Sleeping my job because you couldn’t get Yura to join Beauty,movingaroundwithhiswalkingstick, the Party.” He came to Yura and asked him to when he took his cape off, when he took his lend him some money, and Yura did. hat off. Mikhailov said to him, “You know,you BR: How did he enjoy being on the Art So- look as if you grew up in that atmosphere, that viet council at the theater? you’re from that background.” And Yura said TL: He was chosen to be on that Art Soviet to me, “It was so wonderful to hear Mikhailov because he was a very honest person. They say it to me.” For somebody on that level, to appreciated him telling the truth, but at the say that about him was very important. same time they didn’t really respect it too BR: Who had the grand manner himself. much,becausethedirectorsweredoingwhat- TL: Exactly. He developed his mastery to a ever they needed to do. The Art Soviet was just level where somebody like Mikhailov could like – actually say something like that to him. But it BR: Window dressing. took a while to get there. TL: He said, “They asked me if I liked it or In Beauty Yura heard the Lilac Fairy’s mu- not. I can say I don’tlike it, and they didn’tlike sic, and went to that fantastic dream world my answer.” But most of the time he just kept that was so much a part of him. That’s where quiet. For example they would ask members he went in Chopiniana, in act 2 of Giselle.At of the Art Soviet, “Did you like that opera? the beginning of the act, when he was look- How did you like it? Should we release it or ing for Giselle, there was this feeling of free- not?” And he said to me, “I was there, I was dom when he could unwrap himself and do listening to it, but is it good? Is it bad? What things that he was never able to do. There was do I know?” nothing that he specifically had to do there, so BR: There is of course mixed opinion con- he was, he told me, free to fantasize, “to bring cerning how good Soloviev’s acting was on the to life the fantasies that were inside me.” ballet stage. BR: Equally, what makes his Chopiniana so TL: Yura was a product of this extraordi- impressive on video is not only his jump, his nary, wonderful school. We had that drilled arabesque,hiscontinuity,butthespiritualin- into us and it stayed for life. We didn’t need to tensity. betaughtanygestures,wedidallthatinschool. TL: It was again a place where he could let And it was wonderful for Yura I believe, and his emotions break free. The administration for me, when we would perform in the chil- madehimdoCorsairepasdedeux,andhewould dren’s ensembles; we were supposed to leave do it very well, but he wanted lyrical roles. right afterward, but many of us would escape BR: What was it like to dance Spectre de la to the top balcony and watch the rest of the Rose with him, at his “Creative Evening”?

7/00 89:9 63 TL: I didn’t see anything. You don’t dance in artistically very ambitious. He wanted to try therealworldinthisballet.You’resomewhere everything. else. On the one hand certainly you’re just in TL: Yura badly wanted to do the full-length yourbody,inyourphysicalworldwhenyou’re Don Quixote. He had performed only the Grand dancing,becauseyou’reusingyourtechnique, Pas de deux. But twice in rehearsal he injured but at the same time, it is not the real world. his back trying to do the one-hand lift in act You remember the ball and it is so beautiful. 1, carrying Fedicheva and Valentina Ganni- And what is very difficult that this physique balova. Finally he went to Moscow because he that Yura had could be so soft and gentle, to thought that Alexei Yermolayev could teach create a pure living spirit. He was very lyri- him, the same way he had taught Vladimir cal;that’swhyitwasnotverydifficultforhim. Vasiliev. We didn’t know Yermolayev; we did- He found it in himself, despite the fact that he n’t know his phone number. But you couldn’t had this physique. just call up and say, “I’m going to come down BR: But I think he wanted to do more than to Moscow and I want to work.” The way you lyric roles; he wanted to expand his emploi. would do things is to go to the Bolshoi, and say TL: He was always looking for somebody, hello to Vasiliev, and say, “Do you think you for some way to express himself. could put in a good word for me and ask Yer- BR:It’sinterestingthatGeorgiAlexidzecast molayev?” Yura went to Moscow, but Yermo- him not as a lyricist, but as a heavy: first layev was on a bender, and not long after that Sergei opposite Fedicheva’s Katerina in a duet died. that Alexidze made suggested by Lady Macbeth Yura’s acting skills were very much devel- of Mtsensk. Then Aegithus in Orestia for Fedi- oped by his relationship with his partners, cheva’s evening at the Kirov. How did he like because he’d dance, for example, Swan Lake working with Alexidze? with Osipenko, Fedicheva, Makarova, with TL: Very much. It was very interesting to Olga Moiseyeva, and each one would lift him work with him. He was very musical, and up higher. What he got out of Fedicheva was emotional like a true Georgian. Very charm- dynamism, strength, courage. ing. Later I rehearsed his Les Petits Riens for LW: I thought Fedicheva was fantastic. I Baryshnikov’s Creative Evening in 1974. It was saw her dance Odile opposite him in Wash- wonderful. When we re-staged it with Xenia ington in 1964. My father was then First Sec- Ter-Stepanova and Valery Yanitz, it was very retaryoftheFrenchembassy,andIwasstudy- good, but with Misha and Ira Kolpakova it was ing ballet with Igor Schwezov at the Wash- like champagne. ington School of Ballet. LW: Yura said to me in 1969, “There’s this The Kirov split up the role: Makarova was young dancer in the company. . . . Oh, you Odette.Fedicheva’sOdilewasverysexual,sex- should see Misha! He’s such a fantastic danc- ually aggressive. She brought out that part of er. And when the girls see Misha they all go him. “When you dance with your ballerina crazy.” you fall in love with her,”he later told me. And TL: They were very different. Nobody could onstage he really did: you could see the con- do grand pirouette like Baryshnikov. Nikolai nection between the two. Zubkovsky worked with Yura on grand pirou- TL: Moiseyeva was spiritual; he got more ette. He was very good, and he helped him, but from her emotionally, expressively. She was still Yura’s working leg would drop. Barysh- taught by Vaganova, she preserved the Impe- nikov’s par terre work was absolutely genius. rial traditions. But he only did Blue Bird once, because he BR: Moiseyeva at her graduation perform- didn’t have the elevation for the repeated en- ance in 1947 reminded people of Pavlova. trechats sixes. TL: Makarova was as lyrical as he, and they BR: At one time I think that Soloviev was would just flow together.

64 ./0012 314516 LW: They were beautiful together in Wash- er. He helped me with my Russian. He taught ington Alyona gymnastics, how to repair things. He TL: Osipenko was a senior master, but she was a tinkerer, a good mechanic, and she’s a wasn’ta typically standard type of dancer.She do-it-yourselfer. Could Shavrov have helped was interesting . . . complex. He was so young, him to become a teacher at the school? and he was beside himself with excitement TL: Shavrov was really quite a selfish indi- that he was going to dance with her. vidual and felt “I have done what I needed to LW: He adored and admired her. He told me do for you and you’re going to have to do the that she was kind and generous to him, as an rest for yourself, and I have no intention of inexperienced partner. using up my pull to do something for you or BR: Soloviev was asked to coach a young for anyone else.” It was just his style. Pushkin corps dancer for Danila in Stone Flower. would try to do things for people. Other peo- TL: He was big but he had no talent, no abil- ple would. ity, but he was the boyfriend of a ballerina. LW: But Yura was fond of Shavrov, and Yura said, “My God, I’ve been stuck with this grateful to him for making him the dancer, guy.” He tried everything. He did everything the technician he was. Yura once told me, to pull whatever there was out of this person. “They say that Pushkin trained both Nureyev “TherewasnothingIcoulddowithhim,”Yura and me. It’s not true. Shavrov was my peda- said. “And look what’s going to happen: be- gogue. And I’ll say one thing further, when I cause what they’re going to say is, ‘Hah, you left Shavrov’s class and went to Pushkin’s [at see, Soloviev is no teacher. Soloviev is not able the theater], I started dancing worse.” to do it, because we gave him this boy and he TL: Shavrov was teaching the exact posi- wasn’t able to do anything with him.’ And it’s tions, and he was very precise. He was de- going to look like it’s me. And it’s not.” manding and he was very dry. Pushkin was BR:ButEvgeniScherbakovsaidhewasbril- much softer, first of all, and at the same time liant coaching him in his own role in Distant he created such combinations that the pupils Planet. would learn the right positions. He didn’thave TL: Yura’s teacher Boris Shavrov went to ask for them. I’m sure that Yura must have somewhere for about ten days, for some kind rehearsed Chopiniana with Pushkin. of symposium, and he said, “Yura help me out, BR: Why? teach my classes.” Yura walked unannounced TL: Because of the result. Because he got so into the studio, and the boys were of course much out of Chopiniana beside themselves with surprise and excite- BR: I suppose Soloviev meant that his danc- ment. During the center adagio, one boy was ing had become less academically pristine. trying so hard that he hyperventilated and Nureyev, of course, was Pushkin’s student at fainted to the ground. Yura was afraid that it the school and he accused Shavrov of turning was his fault. Afterward, he asked some of the everyone into “Shavrovchiki.” otherteachersiftheythoughttheproblemwas LW: But his son Sasha said with pride, “We that he had given combinations that were too were all known as Shavrovchiki, the Shavrov difficult. Everybody laughed it off; it was just Gang,alwaysrecognizablebecauseofourclean that the boy was overwhelmed at being taught techniques, especially jumps, entrechats. We by his idol. could out-entrechat anyone in the yearly ex- Everythingthathedidhewantedtodowith ams!” his whole heart. He couldn’tdo it just half way. TL: Nureyev’s comment was a scandal. It That’s why he was unsure sometimes, about was at an official meeting. To say such a thing whether he needed more knowledge to be able at an official meeting was outrageous. I don’t to pass it on. agree with him. It was not good manners. But LW: He would have been an excellent teach- Nureyev would always do things that nobody

7/00 89:9 65 else would. I remember when were in Egypt a long riffof the dog’s reminiscence of the life in 1959, we were all climbing up the pyramids. it had lived and whom it had loved. Yura’s vi- It was so difficult; our legs burned even going gnette was understanding, sweet and touch- up, but going down was worse. It was all pic- ing, albeit somewhat melancholy. turesque and very, very beautiful. The bazaar TL: Misha and Yura were so funny togeth- was bizarre because people were also wash- er. [Natalia] Kasatkina and [Vladimir] Vasi- ing themselves, getting haircuts. We had nev- lyev were molding the dancers like sculptors er seen anything like this. We all were buying totheroles,becausetheyknewwhattheycould platesandwoodenartwork,butRudikbought demand from them, and they were creating only one thing: a tiny, round cameo. It was together with the dancers. probably very expensive. BR: So you watched the rehearsals? BR: Was Soloviev intrigued by the new style TL: I was working with Vecheslova, who of Nureyev? The high arabesque, the high re- was a repetiteur. When Vecheslova left the levé? company, they trusted me to stage it in Tash- TL: We didn’t feel that it started with Nu- kent; Kasatkina and Vasilyev came for the last reyev. We just felt that we went overseas and ten days. I was already a teacher, but once at we noticed different things, and so we start- the Kirov Svetlana Yefremova got sick and at edchangingtoo,liftinguphigherontheturns. the last minute I had to dance the She-Devil. It was actually Moscow that was the first to Misha was Adam. respond. Dudinskaya started telling us, high- BR: Was Soloviev God? er legs, higher turns. But it was just consid- TL: No, Scherbakov danced that perform- ered an evolution, a development. We under- ance. stood that the world was changing, and it was BR: Artistically, Soloviev’s last great state- Rudik who learned it from other places. We mentwasperhapsLeonidLebedev’sTheInfanta all changed, and every time there was some- as a guest artist at the Maly in 1976 opposite thingnew,ofcourseitwasinterestingforYura Kolpakova. to see and to do and to emulate. TL: He was very enthusiastic about doing BR:Dudinskayahadherantennaeout.Sizo- Infanta. We saw something that Lebedev had va said that she and Soloviev learned Flower done and thought, “Ah.” Yura so wanted to Festival from a tape that Dudinskaya had got- show his talents, to do something new, rather ten hold of. And of course she’d brought John than repeating what somebody else had done. Taras to Leningrad to stage Balanchine’s Sym- Lebedevwasnotaclassicalchoreographer,but phony in C for one of her evenings at the Phil- he was very gifted, very musical, and his harmonic. When I interviewed you in 2000, themes were always very good. she was just about to arrive in Boston for what The music, sort of Spanish style, was writ- turned out to be her last trip, staging Bayadère. ten by one of the dancers of the Maly theater. She was eighty-eight. He was a page who was in love with his mis- TL: It was such an honor for us, we had such tress, and she is indifferent to him, and so be- respect for her. If she even pointed at some- cause of that he kills himself. It was very diffi- one once and said, “I didn’t like this gesture; cult. It was at least twelve minutes long, and it should be this way,” we would already feel he and Kolpakova were both on the stage the blessed. entiretime.Onewoulddance,theotherwould BR: What did Soloviev contribute to TheCre- dance, they would dance together. It was ex- ation of the World, as they were rehearsing? traordinary.VeraKrassovskayanoticedit,and TL: A lot. Steps, details, gestures. shewroteaboutit.Butthechoreographersaid LW: Yura was a fabulous comic mime. For after that performance, nobody else would example,he’dseeadogtrottingdownthestreet ever dance it again. And it was never put on and mimic its gait, its manner, and then start again.

66 ./0012 314516 BR: His last months seem to have been an he found a way to kind of slip out of it; I don’t ordeal. think he ever danced it on stage. Anyway they LW: Yura paid dearly for his resistance, for only had two performances. the lines he drew in the sand. Reminds one of Sometimes I would come in the room and Mark Antony’s words in Shakespeare “It was he would sort of move the book he was hold- a grievous fault and grievously hath Caesar ing to give the impression that he had been answered it.” reading, but I would think, he’s not reading, TL:Inthespringof1976he’dbeeninMoscow he’s just lost in his thoughts. with the Kirov,where they performed in hon- Yura always felt this obligation and this or of the 200th anniversary of the Bolshoi. senseofduty.Buthispsychologywassuchthat Then we went to Japan, where he had an in- he didn’t believe enough in himself. Before his credible work load. We returned to Leningrad last performance, the last Romeo, he said, “I’m in September just before the new season supposed to do this variation,” in the Balcony opened. Kolpakova left for a month’svacation, pas de deux. buttheydidn’tallowYuraanytimeoff.“Ican’t, But his back hurt, his legs hurt. And I said, I can’t leave,” he said. “I have to do it.” Igor “Well, don’t, just stand and strike some pos- Belsky, who was now the ballet’s artistic di- es.” He said, “I can’t. You know who I am and rector, invited the choreographer Elizarov to you know what my position is, that I’m a Peo- create TylEulenspiegelat the Kirov.He was Bel- ple’s Artist, etc. I have to do it. How can peo- sky’s student at the Conservatory. ple come to the theater and say, ‘But he didn’t Tyl was a very difficult ballet to dance and dance.’” I said to him, “It doesn’t matter if you the rehearsals were awful. He gave Yura all don’t do it. Any pose that you do, you will do kinds of extremely difficult things to do. At it right and beautifully and everybody will onepointhehadtostandonhisheadandturn, love it.” and he got a splinter in his scalp. Since it had In Romeo and Juliet there’s a lot of running, gone deep in his skull, they had to shave the and he was in such pain. He couldn’t run. He top of his head. And so he was in this terrible still ran, because he felt he had to. He was state of exhaustion, doing this ballet which just happy that he hadn’t disappointed any- was so difficult and unpleasant, “I can’t do body – Kolpakova, his Juliet, or the public: this,” he would say. “These are horrible steps; “Thank God I got through everything.” they’reawful.”Buthewouldgoback,andpush TL: “My head is breaking open,” Sasha Go- himself to the limit in the rehearsals, no mat- dunov wrote me from Moscow.“I cannot com- ter what. I think that is what did him in. prehend it. A person with the rarest soul has He wasn’t sleeping. I tried to make things left us, and a great dancer. My beloved night- as quiet as possible for him. When he could ingale [into which “Soloviev” translates in not sleep, we tried this, we tried that, I gave English]. . . .” him warm milk, we tried acupuncture. If he LW: Osipenko said to me that his death happened to fall asleep, I left him alone and was “a weeping wound,” a wound that never made sure that nobody bothered him. Finally heals.

7/00 89:9 67