Latest news with #KirovBallet
New York Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Valery Panov, Ballet Star Who Fought to Leave the U.S.S.R., Dies at 87
Valery Panov, a star of the renowned Kirov Ballet, who was fired when he sought to leave the Soviet Union in 1972 and whose two-year harassment by Soviet officials made him an international cause célèbre before he and his wife, a ballerina, finally won exit visas to Israel, died on June 3. He was 87. His death was confirmed by the Israel Ballet, with whom he sometimes worked. It did not say where he died. The struggle of Mr. Panov, who was half Jewish, to leave the Soviet Union was taken up by Western political leaders and arts celebrities, and it served to dramatize the plight of Soviet Jews and dissidents who sought free emigration in a period of Cold War tensions. Mr. Panov's high profile as an internationally known dancer made him a prime target of the Communist authorities. Using world tours of Russia's famous ballet companies for propaganda purposes, they diligently policed the troupes against defectors whose preference for the West or Israel might humiliate the Soviet Union. Denounced by fellow Kirov dancers for seeking to emigrate, Mr. Panov was trailed by the K.G.B. and at one point jailed for 10 days on a charge of hooliganism, for supposedly spitting on a man who had accosted him. He also engaged in a hunger strike. Mr. Panov's desire for artistic and personal freedom — and perhaps a more lucrative career in the West — was championed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Britain, Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington and a raft of American celebrities, including Carol Channing, Harold Prince and Tony Perkins, who held a rally for him in Manhattan in March 1974. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Russian ballet maestro Yuri Grigorovich dies age 98
Acclaimed Russian ballet choreographer, Yuri Grigorovich, has died aged as one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century, he was artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet from 1964 to 1995, which he is said to have led with an iron productions of the Stone Flower, Ivan the Terrible and Romeo and Juliet redefined Soviet ballet. Praised for revitalising male dance, he created parts for men demanding exceptional strength and in 1927, a decade after the Bolshevik Revolution, his work was steeped in the traditions of classical ballet. His uncle, Georgy Rozai, had studied under the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky and the young Grigorovich went on to dance as a soloist with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad before turning to departure from the Bolshoi in 1995, amid disputes over performers' contracts, led to the first ever dancers' strike at the theatre in its 200-year history. During a scheduled performance, a dancer emerged to inform the audience the show was cancelled, leaving a stunned silence. Following the Soviet Union's collapse, the Bolshoi faced instability. Grigorovich moved to Krasnodar to found a new ballet company. He returned to the Bolshoi in 2008 as a choreographer and ballet received top Soviet and Russian honours, including the titles People's Artist of the USSR and Hero of Socialist Labour. His wife, renowned ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova, died in death came on the same day as that of one of his most celebrated collaborators, dancer Yuri Vladimirov, aged Gergiev, head of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres, told Izvestia newspaper that Grigorovich was "a legendary figure who will continue to command respect and admiration for decades to come".
