Vladimir Vasiliev (ballet dancer)
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Viktorovich Vasiliev (Владимир Викторович Васильев in Russian language
Moscow, April 18, 1940), a Russia
n ballet
dancer, was principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet
, and was best known for his role of Spartacus and his powerful leaps and turns.
) and joined the Bolshoi Ballet. He became a premier dancer who made enormous contributions to the development of classical male dance; he came to embody the strong new Bolshoi male.
He was the first dancer to be given the award la médaille d’or du meilleur danseur du Monde (“The Gold Medal of the World’s Best Dancer”); subsequently Mikhail Baryshnikov
and Patrick Dupond were also awarded the distinction. Russia’s influential ballet critic and choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov called him “God of the dance … A miracle in art, perfection”.
Numerous roles were created for him, and he performed throughout the world, usually partnering his wife, Bolshoi prima ballerina Ekaterina Maximova
. Among the most notable were those created by Yuri Grigorovich, who gave him the principal roles in his original productions of The Stone Flower, Spartacus
, The Nutcracker
, the ballet version of Ivan the Terrible
, Valery Gavrilin
's Anyuta (1982), and Yakov Eshpay's Angara (1976). Besides Maximova, Vasiliev’s famous partners included: Galina Ulanova
, Maya Plisetskaya
, Alicia Alonso
, Carla Fracci
, Rita Poelvoorde and Ambra Vallo
.
Yet Vladimir Vasiliev is not as well known in the west as such dancers as Rudolf Nureyev
and Mikhail Baryshnikov
, because he remained in the Soviet Union
and did most of his work there rather than defecting. Nonetheless, he and Maximova gleaned wide exposure for their appearances in Franco Zeffirelli
's filmed version of Giuseppe Verdi
's opera
La traviata
(1983). Both performed in Spanish costume (Vasiliev as a matador
) in the divertissements composed for the equivalent of Act II, scene 2.
New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff described the excitement of one of Vasiliev’s U.S. performances with the Bolshoi Ballet: “Yekaterina Maksimova and Vladimir Vasiliev burst upon New York City in 1959, the greatest of the passionate young dancers who, with Moscow's more established stars, made the Bolshoi Ballet's American debut a total triumph.”
In March 1995 Vladimir Vasiliev was appointed the General and Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theatre after Yuri Grigorovich, artistic director of the ballet company since 1963, was dismissed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin
. Vasiliev was himself dismissed as director of the Bolshoi Theater August 28, 2000 in a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin
. Vasiliev learned about his dismissal from hearing it on the radio.
Since his exit from the Bolshoi, Vasiliev premiered in the ballet production Lungo Viaggio Nella Notte di Natale, set to Tchaikovsky’s music, in Opera di Roma, and continues to choreograph and stage new ballets.
Over the years Vasiliev has received many of the most prestigious Soviet, Russian and foreign prizes, orders and highest awards including the USSR State Prize, Russian State Prize, Russian State order “For Merits” and State Order “For Merits” of France, Lithuanian State Order, State Order of Brasil “Rio Branco”, UNESCO Pablo Picasso Medal and others.
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
Moscow, April 18, 1940), a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
dancer, was principal dancer 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...
, and was best known for his role of Spartacus and his powerful leaps and turns.
Biography
Born in Moscow in 1940, the son of a truck driver, Vasiliev graduated from the Moscow Ballet School in 1958 (his teachers included Aleksey YermolayevAleksey Yermolayev
Aleksey Nikolayevich Yermolayev was a Soviet baller dancer, choreographer, and teacher. He played an important role in the development of Russian ballet between 1920 and 1950, and he was considered an outstanding actor....
) and joined the Bolshoi Ballet. He became a premier dancer who made enormous contributions to the development of classical male dance; he came to embody the strong new Bolshoi male.
He was the first dancer to be given the award la médaille d’or du meilleur danseur du Monde (“The Gold Medal of the World’s Best Dancer”); subsequently 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 Patrick Dupond were also awarded the distinction. Russia’s influential ballet critic and choreographer Fyodor Lopukhov called him “God of the dance … A miracle in art, perfection”.
Numerous roles were created for him, and he performed throughout the world, usually partnering his wife, Bolshoi prima ballerina Ekaterina Maximova
Ekaterina Maximova
Ekaterina Sergeevna Maximova was a Soviet and Russian ballerina of international renown.-Career:Maximova was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. An artist who combined great technical prowess with piquant prettiness, Maximova enjoyed her greatest successes in Giselle, Don Quixote, Cinderella and The...
. Among the most notable were those created by Yuri Grigorovich, who gave him the principal roles in his original productions of The Stone Flower, Spartacus
Spartacus (ballet)
Spartacus, or Spartak, is a ballet by Aram Khachaturian . The work follows the exploits of Spartacus, the leader of the slave uprising against the Romans known as the Third Servile War, although the ballet's storyline takes considerable liberties with the historical record. Khachaturian composed...
, 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...
, the ballet version of Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible (Prokofiev)
Ivan the Terrible is music by Sergei Prokofiev originally composed for the Sergei Eisenstein film about the sixteenth-century ruler. Prokofiev composed music to Part 1 in 1942-44, and to Part 2 in 1945; the score is cataloged as Op. 116...
, Valery Gavrilin
Valery Gavrilin
Valery Aleksandrovich Gavrilin was Russian composer, Honoured Artist of Russia, People's Artist of the USSR and a recipient of the USSR State Prize.-Biography:...
's Anyuta (1982), and Yakov Eshpay's Angara (1976). Besides Maximova, Vasiliev’s famous partners included: Galina Ulanova
Galina Ulanova
Galina Sergeyevna Ulánova is frequently cited as being one of the greatest 20th Century ballerinas. Her flat in Moscow is designated a national museum, and there are monuments to her in Saint Petersburg and Stockholm....
, Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Plisetskaya
Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya , born is a Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as the great Galina Ulanova, and took over from her as prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi in 1960...
, Alicia Alonso
Alicia Alonso
Alicia Alonso Martínez is the Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer. Her company became the Ballet de Cuba in 1955....
, Carla Fracci
Carla Fracci
Carla Fracci is a ballet dancer and actress. Her career highlights include Nijinsky, Giselle , Complete Bell Telephone Hour Performances: Erik Bruhn 1961-1967.-FAO Ambassador:...
, Rita Poelvoorde and Ambra Vallo
Ambra Vallo
Ambra Vallo is a classical ballet dancer. Born in Naples, Italy, she is currently a Principal Dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.-Biography and Career:She trained at the Royal Ballet School of Flanders...
.
Yet Vladimir Vasiliev is not as well known in the west as such dancers as Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was a Russian dancer, considered one of the most celebrated ballet dancers of the 20th century. Nureyev's artistic skills explored expressive areas of the dance, providing a new role to the male ballet dancer who once served only as support to the women.In 1961 he...
and 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...
, because he remained in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and did most of his work there rather than defecting. Nonetheless, he and Maximova gleaned wide exposure for their appearances in Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
's filmed version of Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
La traviata
La Traviata (1983 film)
La Traviata is a 1982 Italian film written, designed, and directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It is based on the 1853 opera of the same name with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. The film actually premiered in Italy in 1982, then went into general release there in 1983. It...
(1983). Both performed in Spanish costume (Vasiliev as a matador
Matador
A torero or toureiro is a bullfighter and the main performer in bullfighting, practised in Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Mexico, France and various other countries influenced by Spanish culture. In Spanish, the word torero describes any of the performers who actively participate in the bullfight...
) in the divertissements composed for the equivalent of Act II, scene 2.
New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff described the excitement of one of Vasiliev’s U.S. performances with the Bolshoi Ballet: “Yekaterina Maksimova and Vladimir Vasiliev burst upon New York City in 1959, the greatest of the passionate young dancers who, with Moscow's more established stars, made the Bolshoi Ballet's American debut a total triumph.”
In March 1995 Vladimir Vasiliev was appointed the General and Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theatre after Yuri Grigorovich, artistic director of the ballet company since 1963, was dismissed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
. Vasiliev was himself dismissed as director of the Bolshoi Theater August 28, 2000 in a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
. Vasiliev learned about his dismissal from hearing it on the radio.
Since his exit from the Bolshoi, Vasiliev premiered in the ballet production Lungo Viaggio Nella Notte di Natale, set to Tchaikovsky’s music, in Opera di Roma, and continues to choreograph and stage new ballets.
Over the years Vasiliev has received many of the most prestigious Soviet, Russian and foreign prizes, orders and highest awards including the USSR State Prize, Russian State Prize, Russian State order “For Merits” and State Order “For Merits” of France, Lithuanian State Order, State Order of Brasil “Rio Branco”, UNESCO Pablo Picasso Medal and others.