Vasili Vainonen
Encyclopedia
Vasili Vainonen  (1901-1964) was a renowned Soviet choreographer, mainly for the Kirov Ballet, now known as the Mariinsky Ballet, with which he worked from 1930 to 1938. Perhaps his most celebrated production was his 1934 version of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

, a production which was successfully revived in 1954, is available on DVD in a 1994 revival, and remains in the repertory of the company to this day. Other choreographers of the beloved Christmas ballet, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...

 and Yuri Grigorovich, have freely borrowed several ideas supposedly from the Vainonen Nutcracker for their own productions. Vainonen is often erroneously credited with being the first choreographer to introduce the idea that Clara's adventures with the Nutcracker turn out to be a dream, a plot twist not found in the 1892 original production, and he is also often mistakenly credited with the idea of casting adults rather than children in the roles of Clara and the Nutcracker/ Prince, thereby introducing a love interest into the plot which was not present in the original production .It was choreographer Alexander Gorsky who actually came up with both these ideas in his 1919 revival of the ballet.

However, Baryshnikov, in his production of The Nutcracker did borrow Vainonen's choreography for the "Snowflake Waltz", and gave him credit for it in the billing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0136439/

Vainonen also choreographed several other ballets, one of the most notable being the first full-length staging of Dimitri Shostakovich's The Golden Age. He also spent a total of eight years with the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, however it only achieved worldwide acclaim by the early 20th century, when Moscow became the...

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