Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.
Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance. It was not until the 19th century that ballet gained status as a "classical" form. In ballet, the terms 'classical' and 'romantic' are chronologically reversed from musical usage. Thus, the 19th century Classical period in ballet coincided with the 19th century Romantic era in music. Ballet music composers from the 17th–20th centuries, including the likes of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Prokofiev, were predominantly in France and Russia. Yet with the increased international notoriety seen in Tchaikovsky's and Stravinsky's lifetime, ballet music composition and ballet in general spread across the western world.
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic opera house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. Through most of the Soviet era, it was known as the Kirov Theatre. Today, the Mariinsky Theatre is home to the Mariinsky Ballet, Mariinsky Opera and Mariinsky Orchestra. Since Yuri Temirkanov's retirement in 1988, the conductor Valery Gergiev has served as the theatre's general director.
Marius Ivanovich Petipa, born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa, was a French and Russian ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. Petipa is one of the most influential ballet masters and choreographers in ballet history.
Yury Nikolayevich Grigorovich is a Soviet and Russian dancer and choreographer who dominated the Russian ballet for 30 years.
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.
Ekaterina Sergeyevna Maximova was a Soviet and Russian ballerina of the second part of the 20th century who was internationally recognised. She was a prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre for 30 years, a ballet pedagogue, winner of international ballet competitions, Laureate of many prestigious International and Russian awards, a professor in GITIS, Honorary professor at the Moscow State University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, and an Executive Committee member of the Russian Center of Counseil International De La Danse, UNESCO.
Rostislav Vladimirovich Zakharov was a Soviet and Russian choreographer, ballet dancer and opera director. He was a professor at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow (1946–1983). Zakharov was awarded the Stalin Prize twice and designated the People's Artist of the USSR (1969).
The Alexander Spendiaryan National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, simply known by locals as Opera, is an opera theatre in Yerevan. It officially opened on 20 January 1933, with a performance of Alexander Spendiaryan's opera Almast as its first show. The opera building was designed by architect Alexander Tamanian. It consists of two concert halls: the Aram Khatchaturian Concert Hall with 1,400 seats and the Alexander Spendiaryan Opera and Ballet National Theatre with 1,200 seats.
Yevgeny Yevgenievich Nesterenko was a Soviet and Russian operatic bass. He made an international career, based at the Bolshoi Theatre. He performed a vast repertoire of 50 leading roles, and was known for the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. He was active in concert, and composers wrote music for him such as Suite on Verses of Michelangelo by Dmitri Shostakovich. He was a teacher at Moscow Conservatory and the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna.
New Georgian Ballet is a non-repertory theatre of modern dance, founded by Georgian choreographer Tamaz Vashakidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1993.
The Limpid Stream, Op. 39, is a ballet in 3 acts, 4 scenes, composed by Dmitri Shostakovich on the libretto by Adrian Piotrovsky and Fyodor Lopukhov, with choreography by Fyodor Lopukhov. It premiered in Leningrad's Mikhaylovsky Theatre in 1935.
Teodor Currentzis is a Greek conductor, musician and actor.
Artem Vyacheslavovich Ovcharenko is a Russian classical ballet dancer. He is a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet and a guest artist with the Hamburg Ballet.
Galina Olegovna Stepanenko is a Russian ballet teacher. She is a former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, and since 2013 has been head of the Bolshoi's ballet troupe.
National Ballet of Ukraine from the Taras Shevchenko National Opera of Ukraine performs works of classical ballet and tours internationally. It currently has 24 ballets in its repertory, one of the largest in the world, and has had many notable dancers among its members.
Radu Poklitaru – choreographer-director working in Ukraine and many other countries of the world, the Honoured Worker of Culture of Ukraine (2017), the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine winner (2016), The Personality of the Year prize winner (2017), the People's Artist of Moldova (2016), the laureate of numerous international contests, the founder and the chief ballet master of the Kyiv Modern-Ballet Academic Theatre. Professor of the Department of Modern Choreography at the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.
Nadine Koutcher is a Belarusian opera singer. A dramatic coloratura soprano, she was the winner of the 2015 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
LAHDA, the Russian Musical Dramatic Art Society, was a group formed in London in 1919 by director Theodore Komisarjevsky, tenor Vladimir Rosing, and dancer Laurent Novikoff. The purpose of the organization was to “bring closer friendship and understanding” between England and Russia “by means of art and its beauty of expression.” LAHDA also hoped to create needed work for the many talented but struggling Russian artists and performers who had been arriving in London as stateless refugees since the Russian Revolution.
