Background
She was born in Saint St. Petersburg as Olga Preobrazhenskaya (the final syllable of her surname was dropped to shorten her name for professional purposes, and she used the French transliteration, Preobrajenska).
choreographer music educator ballet dancer
She was born in Saint St. Petersburg as Olga Preobrazhenskaya (the final syllable of her surname was dropped to shorten her name for professional purposes, and she used the French transliteration, Preobrajenska).
Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet.
Olga—born frail and with a crooked spine—was an unlikely prima ballerina. The selection committee repeatedly rejected her as a candidate. Despite her physical shortcomings, Preobrazhenskaya grew strong with training under master instructors Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov and Anna Johansson.
She developed excellent turnout and toe point, though her hunched back remained troublesome.
She was also naturally expressive, bringing new life to a "hackneyed" repertoire, and exhibited the desired softness and grace of a dancer. In addition to her love of dance, Preobrazhenskaya had musicality to go with lieutenant
She studied singing, performed opera arias, and played the piano masterfully. In 1892, she made her debut in Kalkabrino, the first of her many performances in Petipa creations, which included Bluebeard (1896), Les Millions d"Arlequin (1900) and Les Saisons (1900).
She also performed in Ivanov and Gerdt"s Sylvia (1901), Nikolai and Sergei Legat"s The Fairy Doll (1903), and Mikhail Fokin"s The Night of Terpsichore and Chopiniana (1908).
In 1895, she began to make international appearances, including in Paris, London and the United States. One of her finest moments as a performer was dancing at Milan"s famed Louisiana Scala theatre. She received critical acclaim and audience adoration, no small feat for a Russian ballerina trained in the Italian school.
She then began to pay more attention to ballet instruction.
In 1914, she began her teaching career in Saint St. Petersburg, where her pupils included Alexandra Danilova. In 1921, following the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, she emigrated and taught for two years in Milan, London, Buenos Aires and Berlin, before finally settling in with the large white émigré community in Paris.
She finally retired in 1960. She died two years later, aged 91.
She was buried in the Russian Orthodox section of the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.