Ballet Archives

Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky as Prince Albert from "Giselle", Ballet, Paris, 1910  Bronislava Nijinska recounts her brother having a serious love and considering marriage but their Mother sees through the disguise of the supposed love of her son as just someone who wants to help their career while toying with her son's affection. Bronislava Nijinska recounts this event in her own words.    "In an apartment on the same floor as ours lived a ballet artist, Anna Domershikova. Mother was surprised to notice Vaslav going to visit our neighbor and taking flowers, boxes of chocolates, and French pastries. I became curious too when I came home for the weekend and saw that each of his visits was lasting longer  than the one before." "I learned from Vaslav that the real attraction was not Domershikova but her very close friend, the beautiful Maria Gorshkova. During the summer Gorshkova also had been dancing at Krasnoe Selo, and she and Vaslav had met there often....

Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky dancing with Anna Pavlova at the Maryinsky Theatre, c. 1910 Bronislava Nijinska recounts seeing her brother dance at the Maryinsky Theatre but was skeptical of his dance partners. She explains this memory in her own words.    "The season of the ballet and opera in the Maryinsky Theatre began this September with the opera, A Life for the Tsar. The ballet performances were given on Sundays and sometimes on Wednesdays. Nijinsky's debut as an Artist of the Imperial Theatres came in La Source, the first ballet performances of the season." " La Source was an old ballet in three acts and four tableaux by Saint-Leon, to music by Minkus and Delibes. It had been remounted in 1902 by Achille Coppini in an attempt to produce  a ballet that was different style of Petipa." "There were thirty-three dance numbers in the ballet. and many students were used, as well as the whole ballet company. Throughout the performance the corps de ballet marc...

Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky in "Le spectre le de la rose." Paris, 1911 Vaslav Nijinsky now an Artist of the Imperial Theatre moves his family into an apartment bought where he also can walk to the Theatre. Bronislava Nijinska recounts this memory in her own words.    "The new apartment that Vaslav and Mama found for us in St. Petersburg was on Torgovaya Ulitza. It was a three- room apartment on the third floor. I was worried that this would mean a lot of stairs for Mama to climb but Vaslav proudly told me that they had chosen an apartment in a newly built house that had an elevator. " "In the very small apartment that Mama had taken the year before, Vaslav had  to sleep in the living room whenever he came from the school, but now that he was living at home all the time he had a room of his own." "It was quite a small room, but he arranged it very well. He placed his desk under the only window. with one of our black lacquered bookcases on one side an...

Photo Credit:  Concert number "Lezginka" from Vaslav Nijinsky's the divertissement "Pir" 1909, Berlin  During the end of the summer in 1907 Nijinsky finds an apartment for his mother, himself and his sister back in St. Petersburg where they are safer. Bronislava Nijinska describes what their life was like living in the dacha in Krasnoe Selo in her own words.    "Mama and I would feel quite frightened alone in the dacha, being surrounded by military camps and having heard of several robberies committed by the soldiers. However, all was calm for us until the last few days before the end of the summer maneuvers. Then, as the soldiers began to leave their billets and camps, they would wander past the dachas singing lewd songs, pilfering from sheds, and stealing laundry hanging out in the gardens." "One evening as I was sitting in Vaslav's room, on the floor beside the bookcase, picking out something to read, a bullet whistled through the window an...