Ballet Archives

Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky in ballet "Paquita", 1908, Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia Bronislava Nijinska recounts a memory in 1907 where her brother Vaslav Nijinsky met his idol the pianist Josef Hoffman though  Nijinsky's friend  Prince Lvov. Nijinska describes this moment in her own words and when her brother quit teaching his Social Dancing classes.   "He has only to enter a room and his presence and personality brighten everyone and everything around him"  "Seeing how impressed Vaslav was by Hoffman, Lvov talked to him at length, trying to encourage Vaslav's ambition and stressing how important it was for him to have continuous training in dancing and then he should take every possible lesson with Cecchetti. I think Lvov must have known that Vaslav did not feel that Legat's classes had much to offer him and that Vaslav took advantage of the slightest excuse in order to miss them." "Lvov also advised Vaslav that he should ...

Photo Credit: Concert number "Lezginka" Vaslav Nijinsky from the Divertissement "Pir", 1909, Berlin   During 1907 Nijinsky was to dance the part of the Prince in Swan Lake with ballerina Anna Pavlova but he became ill and wasn't able to make the performance.  Pavlova instead finding a new partner decided to perform a solo, the  swan this  performance would be the most memorable and live on as one of her greatest performances. Nijinsky read about what the critics thought about the performance and he was happy for Pavlova and Fokine but was disappointed he couldn't be part of that success and he was disappointed he didn't get to  dance with Anna Pavlova.  In my post about Nijinsky Dancing with Anna Pavlova please see  https://balletarchives.blogspot.com/2021/03/nijinsky-and-pavlovas-almost-swan-lake.htm l for more about how that night he was sick went. During Vaslav Nijinsky dealing with a cold Bronislava Nijinska asks him about his time in Moscow. ...

Photo Credit: Nijinsky in the Siamese Dance in Les Orientales, 1910 Vaslav Ninjinsky gave a mind blowing performance when he took the stage as Blue Bird from The Sleeping Beauty  Ballet Bronislava Nijinska recounts this memory in her own words.    "Three days after the first performance of Le Pavillon d' Armide, Vaslav's dream was realized. On Wednesday, November 28, 1907, he was to dance the grand pas de deux, " Princess Florine and the Blue Bird," in Act II of The Sleeping Beauty." "Nijinsky was only eighteen years old when he was chosen to appear as the Blue Bird on the stage of the Maryinsky Theatre. It was most unusual that such an important dancing part as the Blue Bird should be entrusted to an Artist in his very first ballet season in the Imperial Theatres," "Princess Florine was to be danced  by Lydia Kyaksht. I was not familiar with this excellent classical dancer, for soon after her graduation from the School, in 1902, she had only ...

Photo Credit Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky from the ballet Le Pavillon d' Armide, 1907, Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mikhail Fokine a young new choreographer was conducting rehearsals for his one act- ballet Le   Pavillon d'Armide in 1907. The ballet   was going to premier for the first time. Both Bronislava Nijinska and her brother Vaslav Nijinsky were part of it but things don't go as planned for the rehearsal. Bronislava Nijinska recounts the stress that happened during their dress rehearsal in her own words.  "For the Divertissement Kshessinska had asked Kulichevskaya to mount a pas de deux, to music by Chopin, for her and Vaslav. Kshessinska had greatly admired Isadora Duncan since seeing her dance in an all-Chopin concert in Vienna in 1903. The following year Kshessinska had been instrumental in bringing Duncan to Russia for her first visit." "The pas de deux called "Nocturne" that Kulichevskaya mounted used both a nocturne ...

Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina in the " Giselle",  Ballet, Paris,  1911    Vaslav Nijinsky the young artist of the Maryinsky Theatre was in demand the critics raved about Nijinsky and the most famous ballerinas wanted to dance with him. Bronislava Nijinska recounts her brother's popularity in her own words.   "In October he danced a peasant dance with Tamara Karsavina, a semiclassical pas de deux  from Act I of Giselle.  As soon as he came out onto the stage for his variation the audience applauded him. Afterwards he told me that though he was happy and proud to be dancing with soloists like Sedova, Kyaksht, and Karsavina, he was dreaming of the day when he would dance a grand pas de deux in Giselle, Swan Lake, or Sleeping Beauty." "But despite his youth, more and more ballerinas and premieres danseuses wanted to dance with Vaslav. Anna Pavlova often invited him to join her practice sessions with Maestro Cecchetti. She had an a...

  Photo Credit: Vaslav Nijinsky and his sister Bronislava Nijinska in the ballet L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune. Bronislava Nijinska memory of when she spent time with her brother Vaslav Nijinsky's new friend Prince Lvov.  Their Mother was rather fond of the Prince since he helped her avoid a court summons when her husband never payed her debt off from 1904 which she was under the assumption that he did and was full of fear when she discovered that wasn't true.  The Prince and his attorney took care of everything which put Bronislava and Nijinsky's mother at ease and she avoided the court summons.   Bronislava Nijinska recounts the memory when she met a Prince and experienced a concert with her brother Nijinsky and the Prince in her own words. "Prince Lvov, Chamberlain of His Highness and secretary of the Minister of Transport and Communications, was then about thirty-five years old, six feet tall and had dark brown hair, which he wore smoothly combed and parted. He w...

Photo Credit: Bronislava Nijinska Graduation photos in 1908 Bronislava now in her last year of the Imperial Theatrical school describes how her current days go and how her and her brother Vaslav Nijinsky have completely different opinions when it comes to the school. Bronislava Nijinska recounts this memory in her own words.    "At the beginning of September I had returned to the Imperial Theatrical School for my last year there, my graduation year. Now I was to share the room for graduating students. Though there were seven of us who were to graduate that year, Yelizaveta Gerdt was not a resident student, so there were only six of us sharing the room, which was very comfortable and enjoyable in it's privacy after the long narrow dormitory of fifty students." "We each had our own table with drawers beside our beds. We could study and read in our room, were allowed to stay up later than the younger students, and could have a half hour longer in bed in the mornings....

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...