Stalin's favourite ballerina dies, aged 92
Olga Lepeshinskaya, who died in Moscow on December 20 aged 92, was the Bolshoi Ballet's prima ballerina in the 1930s and 1940s and Josef Stalin's favourite performer – rumoured to be her lover, he would bring red roses to her dressing room after performances, and he decorated her four times with the Stalin Prize.
Her combination of phenomenal virtuosity and irresistible exuberance made her the queen of comic ballet roles such as Kitri in Don Quixote and Swanilda in Coppelia, in which she would bring the house down with her extraordinary flying jump and top-speed precision.
She made herself additionally interesting to Stalin by her work for the Communist Party, and the dictator hailed her as the model Soviet ballerina, the epitome of dazzle, energy and social positivity. This enthusiasm, however, did not protect her first husband, an intelligence chief whom Stalin jailed for plotting against him; Lepeshinskaya divorced him on the ground that he was "an enemy of the people".
Olga Lepeshinskaya's position as Stalin's darling saw her performing inside the Kremlin at banquets of great luxury. In a recent interview she recalled his whispering to her that she should not dance in a tutu but in something lighter, "between friends". From then on she ensured she was lightly dressed when invited by him.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Her combination of phenomenal virtuosity and irresistible exuberance made her the queen of comic ballet roles such as Kitri in Don Quixote and Swanilda in Coppelia, in which she would bring the house down with her extraordinary flying jump and top-speed precision.
She made herself additionally interesting to Stalin by her work for the Communist Party, and the dictator hailed her as the model Soviet ballerina, the epitome of dazzle, energy and social positivity. This enthusiasm, however, did not protect her first husband, an intelligence chief whom Stalin jailed for plotting against him; Lepeshinskaya divorced him on the ground that he was "an enemy of the people".
Olga Lepeshinskaya's position as Stalin's darling saw her performing inside the Kremlin at banquets of great luxury. In a recent interview she recalled his whispering to her that she should not dance in a tutu but in something lighter, "between friends". From then on she ensured she was lightly dressed when invited by him.