Natalia Dudinskaya

Ruthless first lady of the Kirov Ballet

Natalia Mikhailovna Dudinskaya, ballet dancer and teacher: born Kharkov, Ukraine 21 August 1912; married Konstantin Sergeyev (died 1992; one son deceased); died St Petersburg 29 January 2003.

Natalia Dudinskaya enjoyed a dazzling career as prima ballerina with the Kirov Ballet (now the Maryinsky Ballet) when it was at its artistic height during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

She came at the right time and every opportunity fell into her lap. She was Agrippina Vaganova's favourite, enjoying many privileges. Marrying Konstantin Sergeyev, leading dancer and artistic director, enabled her to wield an autocratic power. Her partnership with Sergeyev became a professional entente and throughout their careers they worked with a remarkable fluency of understanding. They both extended their dancing careers into the 1960s, to the detriment of young up-and-coming dancers. In her last appearances, Dudinskaya was almost a parody of her former self.

Natalia Mikhailovna Dudinskaya was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1912. Her mother, Natalia Tagliore, of Greco-Italian descent, had learned from Enrico Cecchetti and Evgenia Sokolova but was deprived of a dancing career by her parents who considered the stage life would be a social impediment. She was also a gifted violinist and had passed through conservatory but ballet was her love and she organised a flourishing school in Kharkov. She taught her daughter from birth, taking great care that she would not suffer the same fate as herself.

After grounding her daughter in the essentials, she sold her precious violin, and took Natalia at the age of seven to Leningrad. Life in Leningrad during those early years of Communism was one of privation and hardship but Vaganova became interested in the child and helped them survive by giving them butter and sugar to combat starvation. Dudinskaya became her dedicated pupil with whom she studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School for 23 years.

Vaganova found her so musical, adaptable and spontaneous that she gave her every opportunity and moulded her to a high state of technical perfection, so much so that while still a student Dudinskaya made her début as Princess Florine (Bluebird) in The Sleeping Beauty. Graduating in 1931, she joined the Kirov Ballet and was soon dancing leading roles.

One looked to her for a scintillating ease and breathtaking fluency that made the most difficult movements look easy. However, her technical brilliance was not matched by her histrionic powers.

The great Vahktang Chabukiani considered her so exceptional that he devoted much time to coaching her, and found that partnering her took no toll of his physical energies. He gave her the title role in his ballet Laurencia (music: Krein), which was considered a milestone in the development of heroic ballets in Soviet Russia. This was, perhaps, her most brilliant exposition.

After Chabukiani, Sergeyev became her partner and created The Path of Thunder and other ballets he made specially for them. With Surgeyev she danced the classical repertoire. They were the most celebrated partnership of the period. Together they were invulnerable. She possessed a captivating personality of charm and naïveté which concealed her ruthlessness.

Her principal classical roles included Flames of Paris, Raymonda, Swan Lake, Cinderella, Bayadere, Giselle, etc. Among contemporary works, outstanding in her repertoire were Gayana (choreography: Nina Anisimova; music: Kachaturian), Shurale (choreography: Leonid Jacobson; music: Yarullin) and The Bronze Horseman (choreography: Vainonen-Zakharov; music: Glière).

Dudinskaya inherited Vaganova's post as Professor of the Class of Perfection, for many years teaching the Kirov's leading dancers. She moved beyond Vaganova, concentrating on big movements and acrobatic tour de force. Small allegro did not interest her. Everything had to be big, fast and spinning.

She was a little spoiled by success and privilege and became dictatorial, often arriving late to conduct her class, but she was loved and adored by her students, despite the severity of her regime. The dedication of those days was remarkable – dancers ate, slept, rehearsed and performed.

From her hand came a string of glittering ballerinas who exemplified the Kirov style, expressive, fluent and immensely strong but one noted that the lyricism of previous generations was now a thing of the past. The Kirov style of the St Petersburg era had become sharpened, repowered and modernised. Technique paramount, still with grace, but histrionics bypassed by virtuosity.

Dudinskaya possessed a brilliant memory and was invaluable to the Kirov as répétiteur. She knew not only the roles she danced but every step and nuance of the whole choreography of the ballet. She became the first lady of Leningrad's ballet and, with Sergeyev, conducted a regime of domination of the Kirov's development.

Their reign came to an abrupt end with the defection in 1970 of Natalia Makarova. They were sacked from the Kirov Ballet but, such was their grip on the purlieus of power, they were soon installed as artistic director and principal classical teacher respectively at the Vaganova Choreographic Academy. Their knowledge of repertoire was so invaluable that they gradually became re-involved with the company. At every performance they sat together in two front row stalls permanently reserved for them and noted every aspect of the production.

So privileged were they that they survived the humiliation of the defections that bedevilled their final years and were allowed to travel abroad to make productions of the classics in Japan, Canada, the United States and Cuba. They enjoyed Cuba as a winter retreat.

When I visited Dudinskaya at her apartment at No 2 Gogol Street in the 1970s, I was astonished to find that her rooms were filled with dolls, teddy bears and mascots of all descriptions. Ballet and the theatre was her whole life. Her home life was little more than a dormitory of childish dreams.

John Gregory

* John Gregory died 27 October 1996