68 Facts About Marius Petipa

1.

Marius Petipa is noted for his long career as Premier maitre de ballet of the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres, making him Ballet Master and principal choreographer of the Imperial Ballet, a position he held from 1871 until 1903.

2.

Marius Petipa created over fifty ballets, some of which have survived in versions either faithful to, inspired by, or reconstructed from the original.

3.

Marius Petipa revived a substantial number of works created by other choreographers.

4.

Marius Petipa was born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa in Marseille, France on 11 March 1818.

5.

Marius Petipa's mother, Victorine Grasseau, was a tragic actress and teacher of drama, while his father, Jean-Antoine Petipa, was among the most renowned Ballet Masters and pedagogues in Europe.

6.

At the time of Marius's birth, Jean Petipa was engaged as Premier danseur to the Salle Bauveau, and in 1819 he was appointed Maitre de ballet to that theatre.

7.

Marius Petipa spent his early childhood traveling throughout Europe with his family, as his parents' professional engagements took them from city to city.

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8.

The young Marius Petipa received his general education at the Grand College in Brussels, while attending the Brussels Conservatory where he studied music and learned to play the violin.

9.

At the age of nine Marius Petipa performed for the first time in a ballet production as a Savoyard in his father's staging of Pierre Gardel's 1800 ballet La Dansomanie in 1827.

10.

The violent street fighting that followed caused all theatres to be shut down for a time, and consequently Jean Marius Petipa found himself without a position.

11.

The Marius Petipa family was left in dire straits for some years.

12.

The Petipa family relocated to Bordeaux, France, in 1834 where Marius' father had secured the position of Premier maitre de ballet to the Grand Theatre de Bordeaux.

13.

The 21-year-old Marius Petipa accompanied his father on a tour of the United States with a group of French dancers in July 1839.

14.

Marius Petipa took part in performances at the Paris Opera where his brother Lucien Marius Petipa was engaged as Premier danseur.

15.

Marius Petipa was offered the position of Premier danseur to the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux in 1841.

16.

Marius Petipa's partnering of Carlotta Grisi during a performance of La Peri was much celebrated, particularly his almost acrobatic lifts and catches of the ballerina that dazzled the audience.

17.

In 1843, Marius Petipa was offered the position premier danseur at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain.

18.

Rather than keep his fateful appointment, Marius Petipa quickly left Spain, never to return.

19.

Marius Petipa then travelled to Paris where he stayed for a brief period.

20.

In 1847 Marius Petipa seduced yet another man's wife, and the husband called for a duel, yet again.

21.

So, Marius Petipa found himself in St Petersburg late in the same year.

22.

In 1847, Marius Petipa accepted the position of premier danseur to the Imperial Theatres of St Petersburg, at that time the capital of the Russian Empire.

23.

In 1848 Marius Petipa's father relocated to St Petersburg, where he taught the Classe de perfection at the Imperial Ballet School until his death in 1855.

24.

At the time Marius Petipa had arrived in St Petersburg, the Imperial Ballet had experienced a considerable decline in popularity with the public since the 1842 departure of Marie Taglioni, who had been engaged in the Imperial capital as guest ballerina.

25.

Marius Petipa was accompanied by his chief collaborator, the prolific Italian composer Cesare Pugni, who was appointed Ballet Composer of the Imperial Theatres, a position created especially for him.

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26.

On 29 May 1861 Marius Petipa presented his 1859 ballet Le Marche des parisiens at the Theatre Imperial de l'Opera in Paris as Le Marche des Innocents.

27.

Choreography was a logical alternative to dancing for the now 41-year-old Marius Petipa, who was to retire from the stage.

28.

In 1860 the renowned French Ballet Master Arthur Saint-Leon was given the coveted position by the director of the Imperial Theatres Andrei Saburov, and soon a healthy and productive rivalry between him and Marius Petipa ensued, bringing the Imperial Ballet to new heights throughout the 1860s.

29.

Rosati enlisted the assistance of Marius Petipa, who reminded Saburov that the Imperial Theatres were contractually obligated to grant the ballerina a new production for her benefit.

30.

Marius Petipa began work by collaborating with the composer Pugni, who wrote his melodious and apt score with Marius Petipa while in rehearsals.

31.

The ballet included Marius Petipa's celebrated scene known as The Kingdom of the Shades, for which the Ballet Master staged some of his most outstanding choreography.

32.

La Bayadere would prove to be among Marius Petipa's most enduring works.

33.

The eldest son of Marius Petipa Marius was the famous drama actor, and his son Nikolai Radin was famous Russian actor too.

34.

In 1876 Marius Petipa married the ballerina Lyubov Savitskaya, who before she married Marius Petipa had given birth to their first child.

35.

Marius Petipa kept track of all of his living expenses in journals, as well as box-office receipts at the theatre.

36.

Marius Petipa was well known for his generosity, always lavishing presents upon his children and grandchildren, and was known to purchase tea or lunch for the dancers during a rehearsal.

37.

The Paquita Grand pas classique is among Marius Petipa's most celebrated divertissements, and is today included in the repertories of ballet companies all over the world.

38.

In 1884 Marius Petipa staged what is considered to be his definitive revival of the romantic masterwork Giselle, and in 1885 he mounted a new production of Arthur Saint-Leon's Coppelia, a revision which would serve as the basis for nearly every version staged thereafter.

39.

Marius Petipa staged many new works as well throughout the 1880s, including Zoraiya in 1881 and Nuit et Jour, a work produced by Marius Petipa and Minkus especially for the celebration gala held at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in honor of the coronation of Tsar Alexander III.

40.

Marius Petipa staged Pygmalion, ou La Statue de Chypre in 1883 and L'Offrandes a l'Amour in 1886.

41.

In 1886 Marius Petipa mounted a revival of Jules Perrot's La Esmeralda especially for Zucchi, a production that is considered to be his definitive revival of that work.

42.

For Zucchi's benefit performance in February 1887, Marius Petipa staged the ballet L'Ordre du Roi, a work based on Delibes' operetta Le roi l'a dit.

43.

Each new season required that Marius Petipa create a new multi-act Grand ballet, that he choreograph the dance sections for various operas, and that he prepare galas and divertissements for court performances, royal nuptials, etc.

44.

Marius Petipa presented his colossal grand ballet set in ancient Rome La Vestale in 1888, which was staged for the benefit performance of the visiting Italian ballerina Elena Cornalba.

45.

Marius Petipa was diagnosed with a severe case of the skin disease pemphigus in 1892.

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46.

Some claim either that Marius Petipa was responsible for staging the entire ballet or that he merely supervised Ivanov's progress.

47.

In 1893 Marius Petipa supervised Cecchetti and Ivanov's staging of the ballet Cinderella, set to the music of Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell.

48.

Marius Petipa was so enamored with the stellar ballerina that he bestowed upon her the rarely held title of Prima ballerina assoluta, and over the course of the next eight years, Marius Petipa staged many new ballets especially for her talents.

49.

Marius Petipa returned to choreography from his long infirmity with the one-act Le Reveil de Flore, set to the music of Riccardo Drigo.

50.

Marius Petipa staged Le Reveil de Flore in honor of the wedding of Tsar Alexander III's daughter, the Grand Duchess Xenia to the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich.

51.

Marius Petipa would spend a great deal of his final years reviving older ballets.

52.

In 1896 Marius Petipa was given a benefit performance to celebrate 50 years in service to the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres.

53.

One example of Telyakovsky's efforts in his attempt to "de-throne" Marius Petipa came in 1902 when he invited Alexander Gorsky, former premier danseur to the Imperial Ballet, to stage his own version of Marius Petipa's 1869 ballet Don Quixote.

54.

Marius Petipa became furious when he learned this new version would be staged for the St Peterburg troupe, as he had not even been consulted on the production of a ballet that was originally his creation.

55.

Marius Petipa was further frustrated by the fact that the Imperial Theatre's newly appointed regisseur Nicholas Sergeyev was being paid large sums to travel throughout the Russian Empire and stage many of the ageing Ballet Master's works.

56.

In late 1902 Marius Petipa began work on a ballet adaptation of the tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs titled The Magic Mirror.

57.

Marius Petipa mounted the work for his own benefit performance, which was to mark a "semi-retirement" for the Ballet Master.

58.

In spite of this Marius Petipa received a roaring ovation from the audience at the end of the performance.

59.

Le Miroir magique was given, and was considered to be an all-around failure, though Marius Petipa's choreography was not mentioned among the criticisms.

60.

Marius Petipa has staged both ballets entirely differently and in a much more original manner.

61.

Marius Petipa was invited in March 1904 to stage The Pharaoh's Daughter at the Paris Opera by relatives of Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, who wrote the ballet's libretto, but his health prevented him from it.

62.

In 1904 Marius Petipa coached the great Anna Pavlova for her performances in Giselle and her debut in Paquita.

63.

Marius Petipa's diaries reflect the constant fear of his aging body, and that he had little time left to live.

64.

In 1903 Marius Petipa presented completely new choreography for many of the pas in his 1868 ballet Le Roi Candaule.

65.

Marius Petipa then set to work on what would prove to be his final ballet.

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66.

For Marius Petipa this was the final straw, and soon afterwards he was rarely seen at the theatre or at the Imperial Ballet School where rehearsals were held.

67.

Marius Petipa noted his final composition on 17 January 1905 in his diaries: a variation to the music of Cesare Pugni for the Prima ballerina Olga Preobrajenska from the old ballet La Danseuse en voyage.

68.

At the suggestion of his physicians he left with his family to Yalta in southern Russia where the air was more agreeable with his health, and soon the Marius Petipa family relocated to the resort Gurzuf in the Crimea, where the Ballet Master spent his remaining years.