Leskova, Tatyana Yuryevna

Parents

Tatyana’s father, Yuri Leskov ^{[* 1]} , was born in 1892 in St. Petersburg, in the family of Andrei Nikolaevich Leskov, the son of a writer , and his wife Olga ^{[* 2]} . After graduating from the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, he served as a lieutenant in the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment , participated in the First World War, then worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Shortly before the revolution, he married the daughter of Baron N.V. Medem Elena ^{[* 3]} , shortly after which he was appointed to a diplomatic post, first to Serbia and then to Great Britain.

After the revolution, Tatyana's parents unsuccessfully tried to return to Russia through Constantinople. Returning to England, they boarded an icebreaker bound for Murmansk (according to Tatyana herself, the ship was supposed to take away members of the imperial family from Russia, but the order was withdrawn by British Prime Minister Lloyd George ). Six months later, without going to the Russian port, the icebreaker returned to Oslo, from where the Leskovs sailed to Italy after some time. In 1922, the couple moved from Venice to Paris, where they soon had a daughter. Yuri, who knew several languages, began working as a translator, while Elena got a job as a fashion model in the fashion house of Elsa Schiaparelli . Soon after, the parents broke up.

Study and career

Tatyana studied at the girls' school of Princess Paley , located near Paris, in ^[2] . At the age of nine, she lost her mother who died of tuberculosis. Tatyana herself in childhood was a physically weak and painful child. At five, she was sent to improve her health with mountain air in the Pyrenees, then the doctor advised the child to do gymnastics. Since her father was an avid ballet lover , and her grandmother worked as an accompanist in the ballet school of L.R. Nesterovskaya, it was decided that the girl would begin to practice ballet. In 1932, she was shown to Lyubov Yegorova , who did not deal with young children, and therefore advised Nikolai Kremnev . Having mastered the basics of classical dance, Tatyana returned to Yegorova, whom she studied until she was fourteen years old and who later, as a soloist, she repeatedly turned for help. During the war, along with Shovira , Zhanmer and Skorik studied with Boris Knyazev . As a dancer she possessed strong technique and a good jump.

In 1937-1938, Tatyana had an internship in the ballet troupe of the Opera-Comic Theater, led by Konstantin Cherkass. At the same time in 1937-1939 she danced in the troupe " Ballet of Youth ", created by Egorova for her students. At the invitation of Jean-Louis, Vodoye danced on the stage of the Comedy-Francaise in the prologue of the production of Moliere. In 1939, she participated in an evening commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Sergei Diaghilev in the Tuileries , in the ( Sylphs , Youth - Serge Lifar ). In the same year, she was accepted into the Original Russian Ballet by Colonel de Basil : Sergey Grigoriev and Lyubov Chernysheva took her and Genevieve Mulen in a lesson from Egorova. She prepared the games with tutors of the troupe Tatyana Shamye , Larisa Obydennaya and Marian Ladre . Performing solo parts in the ballets of Mikhail Fokin , she rehearsed with the choreographer himself.

She danced as a member of the troupe until 1945, performed with her in Great Britain (May – July 1939), Australia (where they sailed in November 1939), then in the USA (Los Angeles and San Francisco). In 1941, further tours were disrupted: during a trip to Cuba, eighteen dancers led by Alberto Alonso went on strike and left the troupe, leaving for New York. The remaining artists of Russian Ballets were left without a livelihood: in Havana, only two performances were given, after which the theater broke the contract - there was no corps de ballet for the performance.

The dancers lived on the island for six months, earning as much as they could (trip organizer Sol Yurok refused to pay a salary to artists who, with Nanson passports , could neither return home to war-torn Europe, nor leave for the next contract in South America, as the troupe collapsed). Tatyana, as part of a small group organized by David Lishin , traveled with performances around the island, danced the “African dances” set by him in the Tropicana night club.

When de Basil was able to conclude contracts for performances in Detroit and then in Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, his troupe, which lost such stars as Baronova , Tumanova and Ryabushinskaya , continued his tour with the composition of young soloists ^{[* 4]} , including Tatyana also entered.

While in Buenos Aires, I wanted to go to the Colon Theater in order to be able to work with Balanchine - however, I could not do this because of my minority. In 1945, in Rio de Janeiro, Tatyana and her friend Anna Volkova were offered a profitable four-month contract with the casino " Copacobana ", which had its own theater and its own choreographer. Since de Basil refused to give them leave, they both left the troupe. A good fee enabled Volkova to open a ballet school. Soon, deciding to marry an Australian and leave Rio de Janeiro, she transferred the school to Leskova.

In 1948, Tatyana, like many other dancers of her time, organized her own small troupe. In 1950, she became a soloist with the Rio de Janeiro Opera House , then headed his ballet troupe; worked with her on the production of ballets from the classical repertoire, in 1952 she founded a ballet school at the theater. She invited to Rio de Janeiro for the productions of her colleagues in Russian Ballets: after finishing dancing, she did several dances for her by Nini Teilade , Georges Skibin , Igor Shvetsov , performed their ballets, and Leonid Myasin came twice.

At the end of 1960, while on vacation in Paris, she met with Myasin, who invited Tatyana to become his assistant in preparation for the 5th International Dance Festival in , whose artistic director he was. In the period from March to August of the following year, with the help of Tatyana, Myasin renewed his ballet The Beautiful Danube and Horeartium , Sheherazade by Fokine, and also staged three new ballets in which the ballerina also participated as a performer.

Later Leskova became a recognized specialist in the restoration of Myasin's ballets, which was also renewed by his son, Lorca , although his work was seriously criticized by artists working with Myasin). She resumed such choreographer’s ballets as “The Omen ” ( Paris Opera , at the invitation of Rudolf Nureyev , 1989 ), “Horeartium”, “The Beautiful Danube”.

In 1985-1990, at the invitation of Olga Lepeshinskaya, she came to Moscow, to the Bolshoi Theater. In 2001 and 2003, she visited in Orel the house-museum of her great-grandfather, Nikolai Leskov . She handed over to the museum family relics - the lyceum badge and the lyceum rings of her father.

Original Russian ballet

• La Sylphide , The La Sylphide by Mikhail Fokine to the music of Frederic Chopin ^{[* 5]}
• Florentine beauty , " Paganini " by Mikhail Fokin to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov

Rio de Janeiro City Theater

• " Etudes " by Harold Lander

The renewal of Myasin's ballets

• The omens to the music of the Fifth Symphony of Tchaikovsky - with the troupe of the Paris Opera (at the invitation of Rudolf Nuriev), then - in the Joffrey ballet .
• " Choreatrium " to the music of the Fourth Symphony of Brahms - Danish Royal Ballet , , .
• "The Beautiful Danube " to the music of Johann Strauss-son - National Ballet of the Netherlands.

Sources

Comments

M. Meilakh. Eutherpa, are you? Artistic notes. Conversations with artists of the Russian emigration. Volume I: Ballet .. - M .: New Literary Review, 2008. - S. 107-116. - 768 p. - ISBN 978-5-86793-629-7 .