Saturday, June 4, 2011

La Lutte éternelle: a ballet by Schwetzoff

Oh dear. When you start opening old boxes and files ..

Lots and lots of photos of ballet dancers. Mostly unlabelled, but here and there one is named. Irina Baronova. Bronislawa Nijinska. Georges Skibine. Tamara Grigorieva. Sono Osato as Beauty (or is it Reality). Loads of Tamara Toumanovas. It's Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes in their Australian season of 1939.

This one is clearly labelled. An unnamed ballet (I see it was La lutte eternelle) choreographed by Igor Schwetzoff (Schwezoff) with music taken from the works of Schumann. And the artists are Slava Toumine, Nina Verchinina, Paul Petroff, Yura Skibine and Oleg Tupine.



Action photos, posed press photos, somebody's happy snaps, a Christmas Card (of himself) from Skibine ..

Now, I know nothing and care nothing for ballet. But there must be a balletic equivalent of me, somewhere, to whom the contents of this file would mean a great deal. He or she had better get in touch.
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6 comments:

  1. ladyviolette.comApril 28, 2013 at 2:34 PM

    WOW!
    OMG!

    I am so glad to have found this! Igor Schwezoff was my ballet master and there are very few pictures of his works anywhere!

    I am currently trying to write about his life from 1931 onward. He defected from the USSR in 1931 and wrote a book titled Borzoi about his career to that point. I am taking it from there. He passed away in 1982 and he himself had none of the programs or photos of his work in his own possession.

    This photo is very meaningful to me. Have you anything else? From that time period? About him or the other dancers? it would be so helpful to me!

    Thanks so much for posting this photo!

    I am so excited to see it!

    Violette de Courcy

    ReplyDelete
  2. ladyviolette.comApril 28, 2013 at 2:35 PM

    WOW!
    OMG!

    I am so glad to have found this! Igor Schwezoff was my ballet master and there are very few pictures of his works anywhere!

    I am currently trying to write about his life from 1931 onward. He defected from the USSR in 1931 and wrote a book titled Borzoi about his career to that point. I am taking it from there. He passed away in 1982 and he himself had none of the programs or photos of his work in his own possession.

    This photo is very meaningful to me. Have you anything else? From that time period? About him or the other dancers? it would be so helpful to me!

    Thanks so much for posting this photo!

    I am so excited to see it!

    Violette de Courcy

    ReplyDelete
  3. ladyviolette.comApril 28, 2013 at 2:44 PM

    I do not know why my former comment was posted twice! sorry about that! As you can see I was very excited.

    I have now reread your post and see that the box was full of other photos of dancers mostly unlabeled. Any chance I could take a look at the other photos? I bet you I could identify them and they would fill in many of the answers to mysterious career questions I seek!

    I studied with many of the people in your photo of La Lutte Eternelle when they had stopped performing and turned to teaching. So the contents of your box really interests me.

    Violette de Courcy

    ReplyDelete
  4. ladyviolette.comApril 28, 2013 at 7:10 PM

    Kurt, I have written a post on my blog about this post of yours and the photo you found of Schwezoff's ballet. Hope that is cool with you! Violette

    My blog is ladyviolette .com

    ReplyDelete
  5. GEROLSTEINApril 29, 2013 at 2:50 AM

    Violette, I just got your April posts.I HAVE got other photos, and you are welcome to them
    write to me at ganzl@xtra.co.nz
    Kurt

    ReplyDelete
  6. ladyviolette.comApril 30, 2013 at 4:35 PM

    Hi Kurt. I just sent you an email and my postal address on the email address you directed me to.

    Thanks!

    Violette

    ReplyDelete