Marius Petipa

Choreographer, dancer

• Born: March 11, 1818
• Place of Birth: Place of birth: Marseilles, France
• Died: July 14, 1910
• Place of Death: Place of death: Crimea, Russia

Education:Grand College in Brussels

Significance:French-born Marius Petipa is known as the "father of the Russian ballet." He is most famous for his choreography, creating more than sixty ballets as well as many dances for operas. Petipa worked for nearly sixty years at St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet Theatre, which later became the Imperial Marinsky Theatre. Petipa collaborated with Tchaikovsky on The Sleeping Beauty (1898) and The Nutcracker (1893).

Background

Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was born in Marseilles, France, on March 11, 1818. His parents both earned a living in the performing arts. His mother, Victorine Grasseau, was an actress, and his father, Jean Antoine Petipa, was both the principal dancer and maitre de ballet at the Salle Bauveau in Marseilles. As maître de ballet, or ballet master, Jean Antoine trained dancers in the corps and choreographed performances.

When Petipa was seven, his father began teaching ballet to him and his older brother Lucien, who would later become of one of the best-known ballet dancers of his time. Although Petipa was not fond of dancing, he was skilled enough to make his first public appearance in one of his father's productions, La Dansomanie, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1831 when he was about thirteen. He also attended the Grand College of Brussels, where he studied music in the conservatory. Petipa continued dancing even after the Belgium Revolution forced the family to move to Bordeaux, France, in 1834. When his family eventually moved to Nantes, France, in 1838, Petipa became a principal dancer.

After this, Petipa returned to Bordeaux, where he studied with ballet master Auguste Vestris (1760 – 1842). He performed as a principal dancer in several key ballets and also began choreographing his own dances. After being hired as a principal dancer at King's Theatre, Madrid, he spent four years dancing and studying the Spanish style of dance.

Life's Work

In 1847, Petipa traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was offered a one-year contract as a principal dancer at the Imperial Theatre. In addition to his dancing, he soon became known for acting and pantomiming on stage during his performances—he created a resurgence in popularity for the theatre. While Petipa choreographed some performances during this time, he focused mostly on his dancing and also taught at the Imperial Ballet School.

When Petipa began focusing on choreography, he did so alongside maitres de ballet Jules Perrot (1810 – 1882) and Arthur Saint-Léon (1821 – 1870), and much of the credit for the performances went to them. In 1862, he choreographed La fille du pharon, his first major solo work. It was extremely successful, and Petipa became the Imperial Theatre’s chief choreographer. Within seven years, he was named the theatre's Premier Ballet Master.

As Premier Ballet Master, Petipa used his wealth of dance experience in France, Spain, Brussels, and Russia to choreograph some of the great ballets of the world in ways that are still performed in the twenty-first century. Petipa set Don Quixote to music in 1869 as an original creation and also choreographed La Bayadère as an original work in 1877. La Bayadère features what appears to be a simple scene in which dancers come on stage one by one performing identical arabesques. The scene is much more complex than it appears to be, and requires the dancers to synchronize their moves perfectly. The scene is now considered a test of proficiency among contemporary dance troupes.

In addition to his original works, Petipa choreographed a number of existing ballets, including Giselle (1884), The Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892), Cinderella (1893), Swan Lake (1895), and The Little Humpbacked Horse (1895).

Petipa's last major work was Les Millions de Harlequin, performed first in 1900. At this time, changes were taking place in the Imperial Theatre, in which Petipa had been a fixture for more than fifty years. The new theatre director, Vladimir Telyakovsky (1860 – 1924), wanted to take the theatre in a new direction. Petipa was offered a bonus of nine thousand rubles, about ten times the annual salary of the average Russian at the time, to retire. He continued to work with several of the dancers, who still held him in high esteem, but no longer choreographed performances for the theatre.

During the final ten years of his life, Petipa wrote his memoirs and spent time with his younger children. He died in Crimea on July 14, 1910, at the age of 92, and was buried at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

Impact

Many consider Petipa to be the greatest ballet choreographer of all time. Petipa created more than sixty ballets at the St. Petersburg's Imperial Theatre, and his ballet corps was considered the best in Europe. Petipa significantly influenced modern Russia ballet and established St. Petersburg as a cultural center. He choreographed several classic ballets that are still performed by contemporary ballet corps. At the height of his choreography career, the demand for tickets to his performances was so high that many regular attendees were unable to get seats. This demand for tickets to Petipa’s ballets is credited with starting the practice of selling season subscriptions to a series of shows at a venue.

The dance community continues to hold his work in high regard. In September 2023, the Petipa Heritage Foundation held a ballet awards gala in San Francisco, California. The organization debuted a forgotten work by Petipa, "Grand Pas Électrique" from his ballet Bluebeard. Although Bluebeard was not recorded on paper when Petipa choreographed it in 1896, after the Russian Revolution, many people pooled their memories of the ballet to preserve as much as they could. Vasily Medvedev, a founder of the Petipa Heritage Foundation, reconstructed the "Grand Pas Électrique."

Personal

Petipa married a fellow dancer at the Imperial Theatre, Maria Scurvshikova (?-1882), in 1854. In 1857, they had one daughter, also named Maria, who became a ballerina. Petipa and Maria divorced in 1869. Petipa did not marry again until 1882. He and his second wife, Lubova Leonidovna (?), had eight children. Sons Marius, Victor, and Marii became actors. Petipa’s daughters by Lubova—Nadezhda, Liubov, Vera, and Eugenia—were all dancers, but only Eugenia showed aptitude. She became ill and died at the age of fifteen.

Bibliography

Bonelli, Valentina. "Marius Petipa: the Tsar of Ballet." The Global Dispatches,Oct. 2014. Web. 11 June 2016.

Ehtiromkhan, Qudratullayeva, and Rafiqjon Ahmedov. "History of the Art of Ballet." Proceedings of Scientific Conference on Multidisciplinary Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1-4, econferenceseries.com/index.php/scms/article/view/3409. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Growcott, Amy. "About Petipa." The Marius Petipa Society, petipasociety.com/about/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

"A Hidden Gem: Gala Will Feature U.S. Debut of Forgotten Petipa Work." Palo Alto Online, 2023, www.paloaltoonline.com/spotlight/2023/10/26/a-hidden-gem-gala-will-feature-u-s-debut-of-forgotten-petipa-work/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

"Marius Petipa." American Ballet Theater, n.d. Web. 11 June 2016. Web.

"Marius Petipa." John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, n.d., Web. 11 June 2016.

"Marius Petipa." Royal Opera House, London, n.d., Web. 11 June 2016.

"Marius Petipa." St. Petersburg Official Website, n.d., Web. 11 June 2016.

Rizzuto, Rachel. "Marius Petipa." Dance Teacher Magazine, January 2014. Web. 11 June 2016.