Love at First Sight

 Did you know the first ballet Anna Pavlova saw as a child was Sleeping Beauty? 

When Anna Pavlova was a child, her mother worked as a laundress. She saved enough money to take her daughter to see the Sleeping Beauty Ballet at the Mariinsky Theater, which she fondly called fairyland. Anna’s mother didn't know how much seeing the ballet would impact her daughter. After Anna Pavlova attended the Sleeping Beauty ballet it was love at first sight, she decided that her dream and her life’s goal was to become a ballerina. 

Anna told her mother she wanted to enroll in The Imperial Ballet School. Her mother was concerned Anna was too fragile and she was concerned about the rigor and thoroughness of the school's teaching.  Anna did not want to give up and she pestered her mother about going to the school from morning to evening until her mother finally gave in. Unfortunately, Anna Pavlova was disappointed when she was refused entry into the school because she was not yet ten years; a prerequisite to attend the school. They were told to reapply to the school when she was the required age. Heartbroken, she returned home with her mother and cried. 

Anna’s disappointment left her mother feeling sad but thought it was probably only a phase and her daughter would get over it eventually. Instead, Anna Pavlova made a routine of practicing what she could remember from the Sleeping Beauty ballet until she mastered the ballet steps. Her mother realized that this was not a temporary phase for her daughter but something important. 

The moment Anna Pavlova turned ten, her mother took her to apply to the Imperial Ballet School. She had to pass several tests before she was accepted, but she succeeded at those. Her tuition would be paid by the Tsar, who funded the school. Anna Pavlova would receive an excellent education and have enough food to eat. Her mother could see there were more advantages than not to her daughter entering the school, although separating from her daughter made her uneasy. She couldn't turn down her only child's hopes and dreams. Once Anna Pavlova became a student of the school her life changed forever. 

"From the first measures of the orchestra I became very grave and began to tremble, troubled for the first time by the thrill of the beautiful. From that night on I knew I must give the rest of my life to dancing.- Anna Pavlova 

Sleeping Beauty Ballet with (Right) Marie Petipa as the Lilac Fairy & (Left) Lyubov Vishnevskaya as an attendant- 1890