Journalduweb

Anna Pavlova was the most celebrated ballerina of her time. the legendary prima ballerina was born near St. Petersburg, Russia on February 12, 1881 during the cold whiteness of a Russian-Jewish background. Her real father was a wealthy businessman, named Lazar Polyakov. Her mother, named Mathwey (Mathew) Pavlov, was a retired soldier, who died when she was only two years old. Although she was registered under the name of Pavlova, her father Lazar Polyakov took good care of young Anna Pavlova and also paid for her tuition at the Imperial Ballet Schhol in St. Petersburgh.

When she was 8, her mother took her to a performance of “The Sleeping Beauty,” and Anna experience epiphany- a baptism by ballet. This and only this was what she wanted to do with her life. At the age of 10 she was admitted to the Imperial School of Ballet by Marius Petipa. Her exceptional gifts were immediately visible, and after graduating, at 18, she made her company debut on September 19, 1899 in a pas de trois in “La Fille Mal gardee,” and worked with the Mariinsky Ballet from 1899-1907. Anna never danced in the corps de ballet. She shared the role of Gizelle with “Matilda Kshesinskaya’. Her partner and choreogrpher was Mikhail Fokin. He choreographed Pavlova’s best known showpiece “The Dying Swan” on the music of Camille Saint-Saens. In 1908 Sergei Diaghilev hired Pavlova and Mikhail Fokin for his “Ballets Russes” (Russian Seasons) in Paris and London