Academy

History of the Academy

The Vaganova Ballet Academy is one of the oldest ballet schools in the world. Founded in 1738 by Empress Anna Ioannovna, it has maintained its standing among the finest ever since.

Jean-Baptiste Landé

The first teacher of Her Imperial Majesty’s School of Dance was the French dancing master Jean-Baptiste Landé. His first pupils were the children of palace employees. Ballet in those days was, of course, very different from ballet today: Landé devoted all his efforts to teaching his pupils ballroom dances, which then formed the basis of their training. The result was clear: the Russian Empire now had a ballet tradition of its own.

The development of the Russian school

Most of the important events that shaped Russian ballet took place within the walls of the St Petersburg school. It was here that the first Russian ballet master, Ivan Walberg (Lesogorov), worked, preparing the company for the arrival of the celebrated Frenchman Didelot. Charles Louis Didelot, the founder of modern classical dance teaching methods, taught at the school for about twenty years. During that time, he succeeded in making Russian ballet part of the European tradition, where a new system of theatrical classical dance on pointe was then taking shape. Moreover, at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Russian ballet surpassed many foreign companies, and the classical dance introduced by Didelot became the core of the Academy’s curriculum. Outstanding Russian poets, including Pushkin and Derzhavin, celebrated Didelot’s ballets and ballerinas in their verse.

Another world-famous Frenchman, Jules Perrot, a leading ballet master of the Romantic era, also came to St Petersburg at the invitation of the Directorate of Imperial Theatres.

Marius Petipa

Marius Petipa and the traditions of European schools

Later, Marius Petipa began teaching at the school; the period associated with him became known as the Petipa era. The Italian Enrico Cecchetti, whose work inspired interest in male dancing, also taught there, alongside many other outstanding teachers.

Each ballet master brought features of his own national school — French, Italian or Swedish — into Russian ballet, and the Academy absorbed all this knowledge.

Graduates of the Academy

The Academy’s fame rests on its gifted graduates as well as its renowned ballet masters. Anna Pavlova, who shone in Paris in Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons, introduced Russian ballet to the world. During the difficult 1920s, Marina Semyonova demonstrated to her own country the continuing importance of classical ballet.

Over the years, the Academy’s reputation was strengthened by the work of Galina Ulanova, Feya Balabina, Natalia Dudinskaya, Vladimir Ponomarev — one of the founders of the school of male classical dance — Mathilde Kschessinska, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ulyana Lopatkina.