The flight is free. “Where is Alla How did Alla Osipenko’s son die

Ballet is my whole life.

Outstanding ballerina, student of the legendary A.Ya. Vaganova, became a legend during her lifetime.

Alla Evgenievna was born on June 16, 1932 in Leningrad. Her relatives were the artist V.L. Borovikovsky(his works are exhibited at the Tretyakov Gallery), the once popular poet A.L. Borovikovsky, pianist V.V. Sofronitsky. The family adhered to old traditions - they received guests, went to relatives for tea, always sat down to dinner together, raised their children strictly...

Two grandmothers, a nanny and a mother kept a vigilant eye on Alla, protected her from all misfortunes and did not let her walk alone so that the girl would not be exposed to the harmful influence of the street. Therefore, Alla spent most of her time at home with adults. And she really wanted company, with people her own age! And when she, returning from school, accidentally saw an advertisement for registration in some circle, she begged her grandmother to take her there - this was a chance to break out of four walls and get into the team.

The circle turned out to be choreographic. And after a year of classes, the teacher strongly advised to show Alla to specialists from the ballet school, as he discovered that the girl had “data”.

On June 21, 1941, the result of the screening became known - Alla was accepted into the first class of the Leningrad Choreographic School, where A.Ya taught. Vaganova (now it is the Academy of Russian Ballet named after A.Ya. Vaganova).

But the next day the war began. And Alla, along with other children and teachers of the school, urgently went into evacuation, first to Kostroma, and then near Perm, where her mother and grandmother later came to see her.

Classes were conducted in spartan conditions. The rehearsal hall was a frozen vegetable storehouse installed in the church. To hold on to the metal bar of the ballet barre, the children put a mitten on their hand - it was so cold. But it was there, according to A.E. Osipenko, she awoke an all-consuming love for the profession, and she realized “that ballet is for life.” After the blockade was lifted, the school and its students returned to Leningrad.

Alla Evgenievna bears her father's surname. Her father Yevgeny Osipenko was from the Ukrainian nobles. Once on the square, he began to scold the Soviet government and call on people to go and free the prisoners - former officers of the tsarist army. It's 1937...

Subsequently, the mother, wishing her daughter a better fate, suggested that when she received her passport, she should change her surname Osipenko to Borovikovskaya. But the girl refused, considering that such a cowardly step would be a betrayal of a loved one.

A. Osipenko graduated from the choreographic school in 1950 and was immediately accepted into the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater. CM. Kirov (now the Mariinsky Theater).

Everything in her career was going well at first, but when, after the dress rehearsal of her first big play “The Sleeping Beauty,” she, 20 years old, inspired, was riding home on a trolleybus, but in a fit of emotion she did not get out, but jumped out of it. The result was difficult treatment for her injured leg, 1.5 years without a stage... And only perseverance and willpower helped her get back on pointe shoes. Then, when her legs became really bad, her friend, another wonderful ballerina, N. Makarova, paid for her surgery abroad.

In the Kirov Ballet in its best years, everyone devoted themselves to serving the profession and creativity. Artists and choreographers could rehearse even at night. And one of the productions by Yu. Grigorovich with the participation of Alla Osipenko was generally born in the bathroom of the communal apartment of one of the ballerinas.

A kind of crowning achievement of A. Osipenko’s work is the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in the ballet “The Stone Flower” to the music of S. Prokofiev. It was staged at the Kirov Theater by Yu.N. Grigorovich in 1957, and after the premiere A. Osipenko became famous. This role made a kind of revolution in the ballet of the Soviet Union: not only was the role of the keeper of underground treasures unusual in itself, but also, in order to enhance the authenticity of the image and the resemblance to a lizard, the ballerina for the first time appeared not in the usual tutu, but in tight tights.

But after some time, the unprecedented success in “The Stone Flower” turned against the ballerina - she began to be considered an actress of a certain role. In addition, after R. Nureyev’s escape to the West in 1961, Alla Evgenievna was restricted from traveling for a long time - she was allowed to tour only in some socialist countries, the Middle East and her native Soviet expanses. There were moments when Alla Evgenievna was locked in her room so that she would not follow the example of unreliable comrades abroad and remain in the capitalist world. But A. Osipenko had no intention of “throwing away the trick” even before the introduction of “draconian measures” - she always loved her homeland, missed St. Petersburg and could not leave her family. At the same time, A. Osipenko believed that Nureyev was forced to flee, and she did not break off good relations with him.

Hiding the true reason for the inaccessibility of the amazing ballerina to the Western public, the “responsible comrades” referred to the fact that she was allegedly giving birth. And when meticulous foreign colleagues, world ballet masters, were looking for her in Leningrad, the first thing they did was find out how many children she had, since their press reported about the next birth of the ballerina Osipenko.

Alla Evgenievna managed to dance through a fairly large and varied repertoire. "The Nutcracker", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Swan Lake" by P.I. Tchaikovsky, "Bakhchisarai Fountain" by B. Asafiev, "Raymonda" by A. Glazunov, "Giselle" A. Adana, "Don Quixote" and "La Bayadère" by L. Minkus, “Cinderella” and “Romeo and Juliet” by S. Prokofiev, “Spartacus” by A. Khachaturian, “Othello” by A. Machavariani, “The Legend of Love” by A. Melikov... And at the Maly Opera and Ballet Theater she performed another famous role - Cleopatra in the play "Antony and Cleopatra" by E. Lazarev based on the tragedy by W. Shakespeare …

Nevertheless, after 21 years of work at the Kirov Theater, Osipenko decided to leave it. Her departure was difficult - everything merged into one: creative reasons, conflict with management, a humiliating atmosphere around... In a statement, she wrote: “I ask you to fire me from the theater due to creative and moral dissatisfaction.”

A woman to the core and to the tips of her fingers, Alla Evgenievna was married several times. And she didn’t say a bad word about any of her ex-husbands. The father of her only and tragically deceased son was actor Gennady Voropaev (many remember him - athletic and handsome - from the film "Vertical").

Alla Evgenievna's husband and faithful partner was the dancer John Markovsky. Handsome, tall, athletically built and unusually gifted, he involuntarily attracted the attention of women, and many, if not all ballerinas, dreamed of dancing with him. But, despite the noticeable age difference, Markovsky preferred Osipenko. And when she left the Kirov Theater, he left with her. Their duet, which existed for 15 years, was called the “duet of the century.”

D. Markovsky said about A. Osipenko that she has ideal body proportions and therefore it is easy and comfortable to dance with her. And Alla Evgenievna admitted that it was John who was her best partner, and with no one else she was able to achieve such complete bodily fusion and spiritual unity in dance. From the height of her experience, the famous ballerina advises young people to look for and have a permanent, “their” partner, and not change gentlemen like gloves for each performance.

After leaving the Kirov Theater, Osipenko and Markovsky became soloists of the Choreographic Miniatures troupe under the direction of L.V. Jacobson, who staged numbers and ballets especially for them.

As you know, the unusual and new are not immediately understood at all times and are difficult to break through. Jacobson was persecuted, not wanting to accept his unusually expressive choreographic language and inexhaustible creative imagination. And although his ballets “Shurale” and “Spartacus” were performed on stage, they were forced to remake them. It was even worse with his other works - officials at various levels constantly looked for signs of anti-Sovietism and immorality in the dances and did not allow him to be shown.

When the party-Komsomol commission, completely ignorant of art, saw “eroticism and pornography” in the dance number “Minotaur and the Nymph”, staged by L. Yakobson, and the performance of the ballet was strictly prohibited, out of despair and hopelessness, Alla Evgenievna, together with the choreographer, rushed to the chairman Leningrad City Executive Committee A.A. Sizov.

“I am ballerina Osipenko, help!” – she exhaled. “What do you need – an apartment or a car?” asked the big boss. “No, only “The Minotaur and the Nymph”... And when she was leaving, joyful, with a signed permit, Sizov called out to her: “Osipenko, maybe, after all, an apartment or a car?” “No, only “The Minotaur and the Nymph” “,” she answered again.

Jacobson, a talented innovator, had a rough, harsh and tough character. He could translate any music into choreography, and inventing movements, creating plastic forms and arranging poses, he demanded complete dedication from the artists and sometimes even superhuman efforts during the rehearsal process. But Alla Evgenievna, according to her, was ready to do anything if only this brilliant artist would create with her and for her.

There were many dramatic turns in her artistic life. Having been a prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Theater, she left it at the peak of her career and popularity, not agreeing with the humiliating persecution for freedom of thought and creativity.

Remaining true to friendship, she did not break off contact with the “emigrant Nureyev”, knowing that at any moment she could be held accountable for this in the USSR. For several years she endured hellish pain in her legs, until Makarova convinced her to accept help and have surgery. And just two weeks later, after special plates were implanted into her joints, she ran away from the clinic, jumped onto the plane flying to St. Petersburg, and returned home to dance the premiere!

Ballerina Alla Osipenko danced on the best stages in the world. And after finishing dancing, she became an excellent teacher and tutor. I could easily continue to work with young artists. But she remained true to the principles of her youth, the main one of which: creative honesty. That’s why I wrote another statement. About what?

“About dismissal from the Mikhailovsky Theater,” says Alla Evgenievna, with whom we are talking at her dacha in the village of Tarkhovka near St. Petersburg. “I don’t like the spirit of unprofessionalism that has reigned there for some time now.”

In search of art on the Place des Arts

Russian newspaper: When a few years ago the Mikhailovsky Theater was headed by businessman Vladimir Kekhman, who had previously had nothing to do with art, many were surprised by the appointment...

Osipenko: He invested a lot of money in the reconstruction of the theater building. Remembering the Russian philanthropists Morozov, Mamontov, Tretyakov, who spared no personal resources for art, I was happy for the troupe. But Kekhman, it seems to me, misunderstood something and began to interfere in purely professional matters. I endured it as long as I could. She made compromises. After all, my students are there!.. They, fortunately, are sought-after artists. They perform a lot abroad. Recently, one of my girls called after the premiere on one of the European stages: “Alla Evgenievna, I did everything you asked!” This is my greatest joy. And the fact that it went nowhere... I’ve already been through this. This kind of thing doesn't scare me.

Gift of fate - Sokurov

RG: Are you talking about leaving the Kirov Theater in 1971? Eyewitnesses of those years testify that the city's balletomanes were shocked by your decisive step.

Osipenko: I was saving myself from UNcreativity. At some point it began to predominate in the ballet of the Kirov Theater. That's why I left the troupe. It’s better this way, I decided, than to endure humiliation. But soon Leonid Yakobson called to him. And in 1982, completely unexpectedly, I received a script from Sokurov with an offer to act.

RG: Alexander Nikolaevich was known at that time mainly from documentaries, and you were a prima!

Osipenko: Yes, he was just starting out in big cinema. But I had heard a lot about him. When Sasha sent me the script for the future film “Mournful Insensitivity,” I read it and thought: what role does he want to invite me to, he doesn’t know me at all? There was one such mise-en-scène: the door opens slightly and a ballet leg appears in the opening. Here, I decided, this is mine! He calls me:

“Did you read it? Did you like it? Come and let’s discuss it.” We then lived nearby on the Petrograd side. I came to him. The room is 8 meters in a communal apartment, there is nowhere to move. We started talking, got carried away, and found out we had so much in common. We didn’t notice how the day passed. It turned out that he had seen Jacobson's ballet "The Idiot" with my participation and wanted me to play the main role in his film - Ariadne. “I need you as you are,” he said, understanding my state of being an inexperienced girl in cinema. Fate sent me Sasha.

RG: I heard that this film was badly torn up by Soviet censorship...

Osipenko: We filmed in Pavlovsk in late autumn. I dived into the pond, which in the morning was covered with a web of ice, and swam. Some kind of unreal atmosphere was created, from another life. Sokurov was then fascinated by beautiful shots and knew how to create them. However, all this was cut out, nothing was included in the film. Because, as Lenfilm management explained, the actress is naked.

RG: Were you embarrassed to go naked in front of the camera?

Osipenko: Well, I wasn’t completely naked, in a white transparent peignoir... When I look at glossy magazines now, sometimes my eyes dazzle from naked women’s bodies. I find myself thinking: why? Just for the sake of making money? I don't understand. It's another matter if it's connected with something beautiful. Sokurov, before I walked into the frame, I remember apologizing: “God, he will probably punish me, but I ask you, Alla Evgenievna...”

RG: Has Sokurov changed a lot since your first meeting?

Osipenko: You know, no. He is an unusually interesting and creative person. And very honest. Before yourself - first of all.

Among the muses

RG: Was the transition from ballet, the performing arts, to cinema, especially in adulthood, easy for you? And as a film actress, it seems to me that you have become quite successful, having starred in films by Sokurov, Averbakh, Maslennikov.

Osipenko: These are different professions. Very dissimilar. I still don’t understand how I became a dancer. I didn't have the character for this. I was always wildly afraid of the stage. She delayed her exit until the very last moment. I told myself: that’s it, this is the last time, I’ll never go out again. Only with Boris Eifman, when he began to specifically bet on me, using my capabilities, did this gradually go away. I wasn't a technical ballerina.

RG: A student of Agrippina Vaganova herself - and not a technical one?..

Osipenko: Imagine, I didn’t have good data by nature. For example, I couldn’t spin. All my ballet life I avoided performing 32 fouettés. The legs were not naturally adapted to this. My mother also dreamed of ballet; she lacked one voice to enroll in school, and, as an adult, she relied on me... It would probably be strange if I did not connect my life with art, thereby continuing the family traditions.

Our family comes from the artist Borovikovsky. There are also musicians in it: my mother’s brother, my uncle Volodya Sofronitsky. But, by the way, I fell in love with the art of cinema much earlier than with dance. Thanks to my nanny Lida. Instead of walking with me, three years old, in the fresh air in the neighboring kindergarten, she dragged me to the cinema, sternly instructing me: if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you! I watched all the films of those years with her, I knew all the famous artists by name and face. Grandma was surprised every time: we walked for three whole hours, and the girl was so pale? I was silent like a partisan... I was always wildly afraid of the stage. In cinema there is no nervousness in front of the camera. When I get ready to shoot, I withdraw into myself, sometimes I just ask the director what I should do.

RG: Does it warm your soul that you are a descendant of the great Russian artist Borovikovsky, the niece of the famous musician Vladimir Sofronitsky?

Osipenko: In recent years I have begun to appreciate this. My maternal ancestors were very famous people in Russia. Among them, in addition to the artist Borovikovsky, is his great-nephew, senator and poet Alexander Lvovich Borovikovsky, the son of the latter, and my grandfather, the famous metropolitan photographer (along with Karl Bulla) Alexander Alexandrovich Borovikovsky, who did not recognize Soviet power... In our family, When I was little, attention was not focused on this. Maybe the time was not conducive to this, after all, the 1930s-1940s. But at the same time, the old family way of life was carefully observed. We regularly went to our relatives for tea, and they came to us. I listened to the conversations of adults. I know a lot of family legends. And, by the way, when I read now about the Russian artist Borovikovsky, I remember these home stories, compare them, and find a lot from him in my character. But what generation am I already? Almost two centuries have passed... At the age of 5, my mother took me to the Russian Museum. She took him to “Hadji Murat” and began talking about his great-great-grandfather. I remember I was struck by how beautifully he stood - this unknown Murat, how courageous and proud he was. Don't knock this man down with anything. Apparently, the portrait painter himself had firmness built into his character, otherwise he would not have painted it that way.

Duet of the century

RG: Having left the Kirov Theater and successfully starred with Sokurov, why didn’t you stay in cinema?

Osipenko: When I decisively, cutting off all loose ends, left the Kirov Theater, where they insulted me, not only by not giving me new roles, but by forcing me to perform in a mimance on tour in London, I thought that I would stop dancing. To suddenly lose the stage, the audience that knows and loves you... I don’t wish this on anyone. I reassured myself that I had done everything I could and was capable of in ballet. Although I still really wanted to dance! And after some time I accepted Leonid Yakobson’s offer.

RG: Your close friend and colleague, ballerina Natalya Makarova, emigrated and made a brilliant career in the West.

Osipenko: Natasha is completely different. We were very friendly with her. Both before her emigration and after. And now we are friends. We grew up together. When we meet, we begin to remember the past, we cease to understand how old we are now. If I start talking about men, she laughs: “Aren’t you tired of that?” But for my 70th birthday she gave me, guess what, red underwear! And after that she will say that we have changed a lot!.. She and I have a lot in common. But unlike me, Makarova always loved to dress fashionably and have plenty of money and wealthy fans. She did the right thing by staying in the West. But for me there are other people there, you know? Not mine. I went there out of necessity, out of poverty in the 1990s. A small pension, and Vanya’s son just got married. Money was needed. And they offered me a job abroad. She taught for ten years in Italy, then in the USA.

RG: There, in Italy, you had some wonderful romantic story. They say you almost married a millionaire...

Osipenko: He was my student. When he came to study with me, he was barely 15 years old. At 18 he declared his love to me. He carried it in his arms. An extraordinary handsome man - Jacopo Nannicini. Ballerina Ninel Kurgapkina, having arrived in Florence and hearing about my not even a romance - we have a colossal age difference - but passion, sympathy, immediately asked: “Is the young man tall and black-haired?” In response to the question: “Do you know him?”, she answered with her characteristic humor: “I know Osipenko!”... Poor boy, he never got married, and he is now over thirty. Jacopo calls me regularly. He persuades her to sell her dacha and apartment and move in with him. This is impossible. This is my home, my parents and grandparents lived here. Everything around is mine: this golden autumn outside the window, and this ruined place called “dacha”, where I am now going to live permanently. Where to go, why?

RG: Your duet with dancer John Markovsky was once called the “Duet of the Century”. Just like your long-term romance.

Osipenko: Our unforgivable romance lasted 15 years. Unforgivable because I am 12 years older than him. We coincided proportionally with Markovsky. And they matched perfectly on nerves - two slightly abnormal artists. When we broke up, I tried to dance with Maris Liepa. Very famous, very talented and... too normal for me. Nothing succeeded. I married Markovsky. We left the Kirov Theater together and danced with Yakobson, Makarov, Eifman, Dolgushin. In Samara, Chernyshev invited me to stage Giselle. “Alla, let’s do it differently, our way,” he told me. But John didn’t want anything then. But I didn’t want to go with another partner. And the work did not happen.

Tell me, Danae!

RG: Are there any parts in the ballet that you dreamed of, but never performed?

Osipenko: Eat. But I try not to think about it. I try not to regret anything. I was lucky in my life, I worked with the greatest directors: Grigorovich, Belsky, Aleksidze, Chernyshev, Yakobson. It was extremely interesting! I remember Grigorovich staged “The Stone Flower”. I was the first performer. Yuri Nikolaevich broke my body to the point of impossibility, he wanted me to bend like a lizard. At some point I had to see a doctor. They took a picture of the spine, something had shifted there...

RG: They would refuse "Flower"!

Osipenko: Come on, it’s impossible! Because true happiness was rehearsing, then performing. Real creativity. Do you really think about your health at such moments?.. Now, unfortunately, I don’t see anything like this anymore. There is no joy in creating a performance. I became convinced of this while working at the Mikhailovsky Theater. Throughout my two and a half years there, I tried to persuade myself not to be too strict with the directors, not to demand the impossible from them. Well, there are no talented choreographers today, what can you do?

RG: Where did they go?

Osipenko: Don't know.

RG: Then where did they come from?

Osipenko: It is impossible to explain the appearance of the Choreographer (with a capital C!). This is probably from God. A ballerina can be taught different steps, any one. Whether she will become famous is another matter; that is a matter of talent. But you can’t study to be a choreographer. I don’t know a single outstanding stage master who would become such solely thanks to conscientious study. At the beginning of this season, a new chief choreographer, Mikhail Messerer, the nephew of the famous choreographer Asaf Messerer, came to the Mikhailovsky Theater at the beginning of this season. I started by taking on the task of remaking Swan Lake. A performance that will certainly appeal to any viewer, educated or uneducated from the point of view of ballet culture. But for us, professionals, “Swan” is Lev Ivanov and Petipa, and we cannot touch it. Gorsky touched him at one time, Asaf Messerer touched him, but he restored Gorsky. And now Mikhail Messerer... I immediately remembered Sokurov’s film “Russian Ark”, shot in one shot in the Hermitage. I had an episode there in the Rembrandt room in front of his painting “Danae”. I had a dialogue with her about how each of us women has our own secret. I talked to her for a very long time. Silently. I tried, in particular, to understand what its charm was. After all, she has a belly! I wanted to take a brush and cover it up. But why didn’t Rembrandt himself, with his impeccable taste, do this? He probably saw something else in Danae, something much more important. Why is it that every new ballet director strives to follow the classics and “paint over the belly”? Yes, put something of your own!

RG: I sometimes think: during the Soviet era, censorship was brutal, but there were so many brilliant directors and performers. Now there is no censorship and practically no greats either...

Osipenko: I can only explain this in one way. We were internally free then. We were a free spirit. And now, with complete freedom, the spirit has disappeared somewhere. The story with "Swan Lake" was the last straw for me. My resignation letter, however, has not yet been signed. They probably think I’ll ask to go back. Of course, financially it will probably not be easy for me. It's OK. Instead of turkey, I will eat scrambled eggs and drink tea not with chocolate, but with bread. This is not the main thing, but the fact that I have achieved something in life. When leaving, she said to the director of the Mikhailovsky Theater: “For two and a half years I was your dear Alla Evgenievna, who you could kiss on the cheek, who does not get into any fights. Meanwhile, I am Alla Osipenko, a famous ballerina, film actress, teacher - a tutor whose students perform successfully all over the world. I have a modest title - People's Artist of the RSFSR, received in 1960. But I have a name. And it doesn’t matter to me what you think about me and my work.”

RG: What did he answer?

Osipenko: Didn't answer. For the first time, I think I thought about it.

One of the last students of Agrippina Vaganova herself, Alla Osipenko - a sophisticated, aristocratic and extraordinary actress, performed on the best stages in the world. Her life is full of dramatic events and twists, but despite all the trials she was able to maintain inner freedom and love for art, which she has been doing all her life.

Family to which he belongs Alla Osipenko , has rich cultural traditions. Her ancestors were the artist Vladimir Borovikovsky and the poet Alexander Borovikovsky, her grandfather was one of the first photographers of St. Petersburg, Alexander Alexandrovich Borovikovsky, and her uncle was the pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky.

The day before the start of the war, Alla became a student at the Leningrad Choreographic School. The entire school moved to Perm. It was there, studying in the cold room of a former church in mittens and outerwear, that she felt that “.” After graduating from college, Alla began working at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater.

Real success came to her in 1957 after performing the role of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in Y. Grigorovich's ballet "The Stone Flower". In addition to the fact that this role was already distinguished by its unique choreography, to make it more like a lizard, Alla abandoned the usual tutu and performed in tights. However, success also had a downside: the actress was given roles of only one type, and it was not easy to change the situation. And after fleeing to the West, who was the ballerina’s partner in several performances, including on those ill-fated tours in Paris, Osipenko was not allowed to participate in the theater’s foreign tours for many years.

The ballerina danced leading roles in all the performances that then made up the repertoire of the Kirov Theater. However, in 1971 Alla Osipenko leaves the troupe due to conflicts with management and a suffocating atmosphere inside. Her partner, the young talented artist John Markovsky, also left with her. They worked together for several years at L. Yakobson's "Choreographic Miniatures" Theater.

Many of the innovative director’s performances had to be negotiated with the highest authorities, proving to officials far from the arts that they contained neither anti-Sovietism nor pornography. Due to injury, she had to leave the theater. During this period, the actress starred in films with A. Sokurov and I. Maslennikov. In 1977 she returned to the stage. Especially for her he staged the play “The Idiot” based on Dostoevsky’s novel to the music of Tchaikovsky.

After finishing her dancing career, Alla Osipenko worked as a teacher in the West, and then returned to her hometown. She continues to work now and even participates in theater performances.

In the Writers’ Book Shop, at the so-called “writer’s table,” a short woman of elegant age was offering customers the book “Alla Osipenko.” It was Olga Rozanova, a theater critic who wrote an introductory article to the album about the unforgettable ballerina of the Kirov Theater, Jacobson and Eifman troupes. A “theatrical” issue of Aurora magazine was being prepared, and I talked with the writer. Alas! She, citing being very busy, refused to give any material to the magazine. “Yes, she will write you memories herself. Call Alla Evgenievna,” and she handed me a piece of paper with her phone number. Alla Osipenko! People's Artist of the RSFSR! The last student of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova! “The second to last one,” the ballerina corrected me when we met, “the last one was Irina Kolpakova.”
A small two-room apartment on the Petrogradskaya side in an old house with high ceilings and windows on the staircases in the Gothic style, a large hall, the walls of which are hung with photographs, souvenirs and prizes, a round table with a corner sofa on which the owner’s favorite - a beautiful beige-brown cat - is basking color, with long fluffy hair like a Siberian cat, but with the oriental flavor of a Siamese cat. Alla Evgenievna, an elegant, slender woman, walks with a slight limp; her injuries do not allow her to forget about herself. Yes, and bitter resentment, no, no, and yes, slips into the conversation. When she danced with Leonid Yakobson, in the “Choreographic Miniatures” ensemble that was booming at the end of the last century, her joints had to be treated, and she could not fulfill all the choreographer’s ideas; asked to postpone rehearsals for six months. “Then go away, I don’t need cripples,” he answered her sharply. And she left.
– In the fifth grade, I read from Balzac that life is a struggle. Yes, life fully showed me that this is a struggle, but I didn’t know how to fight, I didn’t know how to threaten... When it became completely unbearable, I simply left, often, as they say, “to nowhere.”
Alla Evgenievna tells how she left the Kirov Theater. True, there were two attempts. The first time this happened was on a theater tour in Romania.
– They didn’t take me on tours often. And then... the ballet director Zhuravko put me in a mimance! Of course, with the words that all the ballet soloists will take turns appearing in the role of a lady. And suddenly they put me down three times! This is not just humiliation, it is a disaster! I wrote a letter of resignation there. But this is a scandal, almost a demonstration. Our party leader comes to me in the morning, persuades me... But John (John Markovsky, partner and husband of the ballerina - T.L.) did not let him into our room. He says: “Have you seen how she cries at night?” Then Baryshnikov defended me. But I still had to leave, after about six months. She recalls how she was once with a friend at the WTO restaurant, and one of her friends said that the next day at the theater “Swan Lake” was replaced with “The Bronze Horseman”. And on this day there was a holiday for water utility workers. The sharp-tongued ballerina commented on this event, joking that there is more water in The Bronze Horseman. The witty joke ended with a call the next day to the theater director Rachinsky, who, having fallen into an administrative rage, said that he, the director, was in charge of the repertoire! “But for me, you are not a director,” the People’s Artist of the Russian Federation interrupted his monologue - this title was awarded to Alla Evgenievna Osipenko in 1960 - and left the office.
She served, as actors say, at the Kirov Theater for 21 years, being a performer of leading ballet roles. (And she never returned to this stage again. True, later, when Igor Dmitrievich Belsky became the main choreographer of the theater, he invited her to return to this stage, but alone, without John Markovsky. The conditions were unacceptable: the Osipenko-Markovsky couple was just as inseparable , like Ulanova and Sergeev, Dudinskaya and Chabukiani (later Dudinskaya and Sergeev). But from the end of the service at the Kirov Theater we will return to the roots.
On her mother's side, Alla Osipenko belongs to the family of the famous Russian artist, late 18th - early 19th century Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, whose brother is the great Ukrainian poet Levko Borovikovsky. Father Evgeniy Osipenko came from Ukrainian nobles, but became a security officer and served in Tashkent as the head of a camp where officers and generals of the tsarist army were imprisoned. One day, apparently in a state of alcoholic intoxication, he jumped on his horse and with a drawn saber in the market called on residents to go liberate the generals from the camp, in which he himself ended up in 1937. He was released when the war began in 1941, and he responded to the call to atone for his guilt as a volunteer in the penal battalion. Fate favored her father; he went through the entire war without even being wounded. The ballerina shows me a photograph of her parents in their youth and agrees with me that she looks like her father. Smiling, she takes out a photograph of “the beautiful Aunt Nadya” and with a smile says that her mother constantly kept this photograph in front of her during pregnancy so that, according to beliefs, the born child would look like the desired prototype. Genetics at that time was still a science unfamiliar to a wide range of women. But I think that nature was right in rewarding the future ballerina with her father’s traits; she had a good choice.
Alla's mother, Nina Alekseevna Borovikovskaya, studied at the Obolensky gymnasium and also miraculously did not become a ballerina, one (out of the required twenty!) recommendations from ballet dancers was missing. But her daughter in June 1941 was enrolled in the first class of the Leningrad Choreographic School (known as the Vaganova School, and now the A.Ya. Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). Alla Evgenievna recalls that usually in the summer she was sent to her great-grandmother in Vyshny Volochok. But this year they were late, and in June he and his mother went to rent a dacha in Vyritsa - a room on the second floor, with lilac branches leaning through the window. When we were returning to Leningrad, the train stopped in front of the city and stood for a long time - a man was hit by a train - a bad omen! The omen really turned out to be bad. There were crowds of people around the loudspeakers in the city, and her uncle, actor of the Pushkin Theater Georges Osipenko, who met them on Nevsky Prospekt, near house 63, where they lived, said that the war had begun.
War. Already on July 3rd, barriers and airships appeared in the sky of Leningrad. The Vaganova School was urgently evacuated. And first-grader Alla’s mother and grandmother, on the advice of singer Shashkov’s wife, sent her and the school into evacuation to Kostroma, rightly believing that there are many schools, and the ballet school is unique. At this time, the first doubts already appeared that the war would end in two to three weeks. In August, Nina Alekseevna managed to evacuate from Leningrad, and she also came to Kostroma, where she worked at a school, sewing ballet slippers. Alla’s grandmother and godmother remained in the city “to guard the apartment and the Borovikovskys’ legacy.” The lower grades remained in Kostroma, and the high school students were sent to the Kama River, to the city of Molotov (now Perm). Already in 1942(!), enrollment of children in the first grade of the ballet school was opened there, and the junior classes from Kostroma were transported there. Alla Evgenievna says that they became friends there for life. “And grandma,” I ask, “how did her fate turn out?”
– Grandma lived in the blockaded city until 1943, and barely survived. When the blockade was broken, she was taken out with difficulty. Mom was given a telegram from my grandmother at the school telling us to meet the ship. We are standing on the pier, people are coming out, but our grandmother is not there. Then they help some old, old old woman of immense size to come out, people help her down, carry out several huge trunks. This old woman looks blankly somewhere, no one meets her. Mom and I decided to go milk and wait for another ship. They moved away... And suddenly I had a flash in my memory, and I told my mother that our grandmother had a scarf of the same color as this old woman. Mom stopped and said, let's go back. We are back, looking... The old woman is sitting in the same place and also indifferent. Mom said quietly: “Mom!” She turned around... It was grandmother, unrecognizable, swollen from hunger. You know, such patients need to be fed very little. She lay on our bed and could hardly get up. It's early in the morning at school, mom is at work. And our compassionate hostess baked shanezhek, these are pies with potatoes, and out of the kindness of her heart she fed her. Mom miraculously left my grandmother. But she did. In 1944, together with the school, the three of us returned to Leningrad, to the same apartment on Nevsky 63, which our godmother had saved for us. She even kept this chest. – Alla Evgenievna points to an old forged chest. – Family heirloom of the Borovikovskys. During the blockade, one of the artists gave them this chest. I can’t even imagine how they, my grandmother and godmother, dragged him to the fifth floor.
On the chest there is a bronze sculpture, this is already a relic of the mistress - a cast of her leg. “And also very heavy,” the ballerina smiles. “Only a grandson can take it off.” In 1950, a student of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova made her debut on the stage of the Kirov Theater in the role of the fairy Lilac, staged by Fyodor Vasilyevich Lopukhov, and from that moment her path to fame began, she became the first performer of leading ballet roles.
But the beginning was also promising - the second cast of roles was performed by Alla Shelest, Inna Zubkovskaya, Natalya Dudinskaya. At twenty years old
Her first dance premiere was to take place in the ballet “The Stone Flower”. She was such a success at the dress rehearsal that the ballerina’s apartment on Nevsky Prospekt was simply littered with flowers.
But... joy gave way to great grief. Alla Evgenievna says that she loved ice cream very much, and they decided to celebrate the premiere at an ice cream parlor on the street. Zhelyabova. Returning home, I passed a trolleybus stop and unsuccessfully jumped off it. The leg got caught between the trolleybus and the parapet. Military-medical Academy. Professor Krupko recommends that the twenty-year-old ballerina forget about ballet: “during the war, people lost their lives, not to mention their legs.” For a long year and a half, she did not part with the attending military doctors Tkachenko and Petrov, healed her injured leg and returned to the stage, maintaining relations with them and maintaining a grateful memory of them for the rest of her life. And the premiere of “The Stone Flower” took place, but without her.
In the theater, her partners were Anatoly Nisnevich (first husband), Bregvadze, Kuznetsov and even... she danced with Vakhtang Chabukiani in the play “Othello”, and one performance “The Path of Thunder” with Konstantin Mikhailovich Sergeev. Alla Evgenievna says that she was similar to Natalya Mikhailovna Dudinskaya, at the beginning of her artistic career she tried to imitate her, but she was not able to achieve the same high technical skill as Dudinskaya. At one of the rehearsals, when K.M. came into the class. Sergeev, he heard Dudinskaya making constant comments to Osipenko: do the hip this way, etc. Sergeev said: “Natalia Mikhailovna, leave Alla alone, let her do everything as she feels.” This forced the ballerina to start looking for her own path, emphasizing her individuality. However, Alla Evgenievna noted, Konstantin Mikhailovich was an artist of traditional views on art. When he became the chief choreographer, he once answered her: “Well, what are you asking Raymonda when you are doing only two rounds...”. And this was, of course, humiliating, since she could not work according to the principle: “go on stage and dance your part”; She constantly had to “overcome her technical imperfections.”
The ballerina believes that this lack of self-confidence and duality is due to the fact that she was born on June 16, under the sign of Gemini. Are the stars to blame here? Or, rather, high demands on one’s talent and the art it creates. I think it's the latter.
Of the choreographers with whom she worked at the Kirov Theater, Alla Evgenievna singles out the most talented choreographer Boris Aleksandrovich Fenster. At that time, she began to gain a little weight, and the choreographers gave up on her. But Boris Alexandrovich invited her to “try out” in 1955 in the role of “Pannochka” in the ballet “Taras Bulba” to the music of Solovyov-Sedov. The actress believes that: it was “... firstly, my first great success, and secondly, my first real dramatic, complex role. We rehearsed with him at night, I tried very hard, and then something attracted him to my personality. This was the most important role, which made me think deeply about my character. “I am very grateful to Boris Alexandrovich for completely changing my role.”
Yes, the search for my path was not in vain. When Alla Evgenievna left the theater, and in unison with her, John Markovsky simultaneously submitted a letter of resignation to the personnel department (there was no talk of contracts or penalties at that time), the individuality of the duet manifested itself especially clearly and fully. Leonid Veniaminovich Yakobson, an innovative choreographer, organized the Choreographic Miniatures ensemble in Leningrad in 1969. This is where Alla Osipenko and John Markovsky shone with renewed vigor.
Rodin come to life! "The Minotaur and the Nymph"! Alla again had to remember Balzac’s words that life is a struggle. A commission under the city committee, consisting of three women, one of whom was Valentina Matvienko, did not allow the nymph with the minotaur to pass, it seemed to them that this was... pornography! Yes, the Komsomol-Party feminists had vague ideas about pornography at that time. Yakobson, according to Alla Evgenievna, lost his temper and shouted at them: “Who are you to forbid them! What do you understand!". The stunned “culturologists” of that time were outraged at the way he spoke to women. “You are not women for me,” the choreographer answered them. And the artists had to go to Smolny for an appointment with the chairman of the city executive committee, Alexander Alexandrovich Sizov, a builder by profession. He was at some meeting. The delegation waited for a long time in the reception area. When he finally appeared with a folder in his hands, Alla Evgenievna rushed to him with the words: “I am Osipenko, from the Kirov Theater.” He looked at her gloomily: “What? An apartment? A car? “No, no, we were banned from the minotaur.” Sizov did not understand anything: “what kind of minotaur, what kind of nymph.” And he invited me to go into the office. Alla Evgenievna had to be a prima here too, she said that this is not pornography, a minotaur, this is a bull, etc. After listening to her, Sizov asked: “Do you have any paper?” “Yes, yes,” Yakobson handed him a statement, on which Sizov wrote: “Allow.” The fate of the masterpiece was decided. When the petitioners headed for the exit, Sizov called out to her: “Osipenko! So an apartment? A car? She repeated again: “No, no, only the minotaur!” Injury in 1973, a sharp “cripple” thrown by Jacobson. Alla and John again face a choice of what to do. Lenconcert. They create their own theater of four actors: the one-act ballet “Antony and Cleopatra” in the first part, miniatures in the second. And in three years we traveled all over the Union. In 1977, the duo received an invitation from Boris Eifman, who created his own theater “New Ballet” at Lenconcert. Alla Evgenievna says that the invitation came a month before the premiere. Eifman invited her and John to perform a one-act play “Antony and Cleopatra.” To a new theater with a repertoire that has been tested throughout the country?! A categorical “no”! Her regular tutor and friend Maria Nikolaevna Shamsheva comes to the rescue. Alla Evgenievna warmly remembered her several times during our conversation. Maria Nikolaevna suggested that she call the choreographer Mai-Ester Murdmaa in Tallinn; Alla Evgenievna was familiar with her: for Baryshnikov’s benefit she staged Prokofiev’s “Prodigal Son,” where Osipenko played the role of Beauty. May-Ester agrees, comes to Leningrad, there is no hotel, lives in the ballerina’s apartment on Nevsky. And a month later, at the opening of the theater, Alla Osipenko and John Markovsky appear in the premiere of B. Bartok’s “Under the Cover of Night” (“The Wonderful Mandarin”).
At the Eifman Theater she danced the Firebird to the music of Stravinsky, Cleopatra, Nastasya Filippovna in the brilliant “The Idiot” and much more. On her Wikipedia page, I counted 68 roles performed by her over more than half a century of her dancing activity. Is this a complete list?! But this ensemble was not without struggle. It was not so easy to enter the youth group, where one of the ballerinas, who later became her close friend, said that an “old woman” was taken into the ensemble. But they entered. “Two Voices” by Eifman, performed by the Osipenko-Markovsky duet, was perceived by both the audience and critics as a shock! But... and again it's a but. When the ensemble was preparing for the first tour in Moscow, Alla Evgenievna learned that this ballet was not included in the tour program - again the same notorious “pornography”. She rushed into battle! Either to Moscow, or I'm leaving. The administration finds a Jesuitical solution: after the tour the theater will be closed! Do you agree? “We agree!” - all the “guys” supported her. A stunning success among the Moscow audience! Criticism primarily noted “Two Voices.” Victory! Another victory on stage. And life continued, accompanied by ups and downs. The break with Markovsky, his departure from the stage, the absence of a partner. She says that whatever personal disagreements she had with Markovsky, whatever happens in family life, they never spilled out onto the stage. He smiles and says that there were some strange things in his behavior. Once he lay on the couch for two days, getting up only to have a snack: “I separate my soul from my body.” On the third day I got up and said: “It was a success. Separated." And life returned to normal again.
New love... Who among the seventies does not remember Gennady Voropaev, an artist of the Comedy Theater? The first chance meeting on the bus... Love, betrayal, breakup and... gratitude: “I am grateful to him for my son.”
Son Ivan Voropaev chooses the path of a dramatic actor, marries actress Basilevich, grandson Danila follows the path paved by his parents...
But this is now, and then... And immeasurable grief - the untimely death of his only son.
“When John stopped dancing,” says Alla Evgenievna, “Jacobson staged “Autographs” for me, it’s like an autobiography, my whole creative journey. Then, in the 90s, a tiny pension that you can’t live on, a two-room apartment for four and... And again the struggle. She leaves to work abroad and begins teaching the art of dance to ballerinas. She has plenty of experience; she had previously worked with girls at the Vaganova School. She helps her son’s family, sends him parcels of goodies, and he asks for... sausages. Fatal nineties. Alla Evgenievna finds out that Markovsky has disappeared, sold his apartment and disappeared. Finds him, returns him to the city, he is placed in the House of Stage Veterans. Once in Italy, where she taught, a translator approached her and said that Nureyev was asking her. “Which Nureyev?” It was Rudolf Nureyev, another dramatic page in her life. Distant 1961. Touring in Paris, she danced “Swan Lake” with Nureyev. “Rudik”, she always addressed him “on your own”, and he called her Alla, but “on you”. After the performance, the actors were invited to a restaurant. They were advised to refuse, but Alla Evgenievna convinced the troupe administrator that it was inconvenient, and that there would be journalists there in the evening. She convinced: “Under your responsibility.” The evening ended at 5 o'clock in the morning, she and Nuriev lived in different hotels, parting, she asked him not to miss the plane - in the morning they were flying to London. He wasn't late. Boarding was announced and she boarded the plane. But something alarmed the ballerina in Nuriev’s behavior, although nothing foreshadowed such a development of events. In Paris, Rudolph spent all his money - he ordered costumes for himself for “The Legend of Love”; in this ballet, upon his return, he was supposed to dance with Alla Evgenievna. When Nureyev stepped onto the plane's ramp, the ramp was pushed away and he drove away. Already in London, a message arrived that Rudolf Nureyev had asked for political asylum. And his luggage with suits flew to Moscow. But the audience was unlucky: they were not able to see this duet in “Legend”. We talk for a long time about life, about fate, about meetings. The ballerina talks about the films in which she starred: “Fouette” together with Valentin Gaft, in Igor Fedorovich Maslennikov’s melodrama “Winter Cherry” she brilliantly played the episodic role of the mother-in-law. The actress says that the constant companion of her life was self-doubt, duality, it is not for nothing that according to her horoscope she is a Gemini, almost before every appearance on stage she told Markovsky: “John, I can’t...”, came out and danced brilliantly. But the camera didn’t bother her; she behaved naturally, not noticing it. He speaks warmly about Alexander Sokurov. “He is a special person, he does everything with an open soul and recklessly.” He invited her to star in the role of Ariadne in the film “Mournful Insensibility” based on the play “Heartbreak House” by Bernard Shaw. Alla Evgenievna recalls that when she came to Sokurov, he lived in an eight-meter room on Kirovsky Prospekt; all the walls were hung with portraits of young beautiful actresses. When the auditions began, she did not yet know that Margarita Terekhova (!) was also applying for this role along with her. “I immediately wanted to leave, bought a cake for the girls, went in to say goodbye and suddenly found out that I was chosen!” Critic P.M. Karp, having learned about this, said: “Victory over Terekhova is your Waterloo.” Alla Evgenievna says that during filming, when she lived in Oranienbaum for a month, she often communicated with Ramaz Chkhikvadze. I once asked him what it was like for him to film with non-professionals. “Very interesting,” he answered her, “very!”
Alla Evgenievna has a rich creative life, recognition, fame behind her... She is one of the brightest stars, a legend of Soviet ballet. Alla Evgenievna does not like this high title of “legend”. “What kind of legend am I? All my life I was unsure of myself, I doubted, I had to fight all my life.” To my question whether there was something in her life that she had planned but did not accomplish, she answered with unexpected fervor: “Yes, I did nothing of what Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova would like to see in me. She wanted me to combine the highest technique with spirituality.” I don't think so. Olga Rozanova, a theater critic, in a collection of articles published by the Terpsichore Foundation for the ballerina’s anniversary, wrote: “After Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Alla Shelest, not a single St. Petersburg ballerina managed to so subtly feel and express in plastic the human spirit in its contradictory complexity and height. This is given only to exceptional talents, for clarity called geniuses.” It is this spirituality and imagery that Alla Evgenievna tries to convey to her students. And in theater literature a new term appeared - “Osipenkovsky style”.
– You had to experience everything in life: recognition, fame, love, betrayal, grief of loss. How do you feel? Are you a happy person?
For a split minute she thought about it, tears flashed in her eyes.
- Yes, I am a happy person.
As I say goodbye, I ask Alla Evgenievna whether she is writing memoirs about her life. So many events, so many meetings, such people! She talks about meetings with Nina Vyrubova, whom she puts first in the ballet world, about Serge Lifar, about the fact that she kept a diary for her son, but stopped after his death. But she wrote memoirs “Paris in my life” in the anniversary collection.

Alla Osipenko. (Collective collection) St. Petersburg, 2007, International Terpsichore Foundation.

The famous ballerina celebrates the anniversary of her creative activity

“I don’t like being called great, because it’s strange and funny to hear such things about yourself,” Osipenko admitted at a meeting with journalists, but Ulyana Lopatkina objected: “You deserve it!”
Because when it comes to Alla Osipenko, it is impossible to avoid pompous words and epithets. Because today, when almost every artist is a star, and there are almost no legends left, she is truly a legend of the Leningrad ballet.
On the eve of the anniversary gala evening, the VP correspondent met with Alla Evgenievna.

Left the Mariinsky Theater when I was transferred to Mimamsa
— It’s probably a serious trauma for ballerinas to leave the theater early. How can you survive this and not break?
— Yes, it’s probably very difficult and painful, but the fact is that I stayed in ballet and danced until I was 54 years old. The last time I was invited, I was perfectly thin, and physically it was possible for me. Of course, I no longer danced Swan Lake, but they put on those performances in which I could dance, despite my age. I managed to stay on stage for a long time.
— You yourself left the Mariinsky Theater, it was a brave act...
“I left the Mariinsky, not having suffered the fact that at the age of 39, after I had danced there for twenty years and enjoyed success, I was suddenly put in a mimance and I began to appear in “ladies.” Then the audience wrote a note to the theater administration: “It is a disaster for the Leningrad ballet that Osipenko is standing in the mimance.” For me this was a great insult, and therefore I left - to Leonid Yakobson, on a beggarly salary of 70 rubles, but I knew what I came there for. And he could yell at me, beat me, force me to do everything that his twenty-year-old students did - I didn’t mind, because I knew why I was here, and that was the main thing.
Life is a fight!
— Once upon a time, excerpts from your diary were published in a magazine. Are you still running it?
- No, I don’t, it was such a period.
— Why did it become necessary to write a diary?
— I had a son, and I wrote for him and to him. When my son died, this need went away.
- But you have a grandson Danya...
— My grandson is not interested in ballet, he has other interests.
- Which ones?
- He is now twenty years old, I don’t really know what exactly he is interested in, because Danya is a closed boy: the tragedy with his father that he experienced left a mark on his character. But he is good, kind, handsome and looks like his father.
— Did you have any desire to write a book?
“Now I have this thought, sometimes I think: why am I sitting idle, there are few rehearsals, I have free time, maybe I should really write a book?” We can tell our students more than they know about ballet, about life, about how to overcome difficulties. For example, in the fifth grade I wrote down for myself Balzac’s thought: “Life is a struggle in which you must always threaten.” And now I’m already laughing at this, although I learned very well that life is a struggle, but I still didn’t understand that it is necessary to threaten. I now tell my students that they must be very persistent in the struggle for their existence.
It's arrived in the ballet
some kind of failure
— Do you think St. Petersburg and St. Petersburgers have changed?
“I’m from the Borovikovsky and Sofronitsky family, so those people among whom I grew up were completely different - different from those whom I meet now. And the city becomes more beautiful than it was after the war, as I saw it as a child. But then the snow fell, and, unfortunately, it was dirty again, but this doesn’t happen in the West. There the snow falls, but the sidewalks and roads remain clean. We need to learn from them to maintain order and cleanliness, just as they learned ballet from us.
—Have the audience changed?
— Previously, there were more regular spectators - ballet lovers, fans of certain names, but now there are fewer of them. Because there are a lot of tourists, they all want to go to the theater, so sometimes there is an audience at the performance that does not know or understand ballet at all. Ballet, unfortunately, is ceasing to be an elite art.
— Alla Evgenievna, what do you think is the state of modern Russian ballet?
“It’s no longer possible to kick me out of nowhere, so I can tell the truth and not bend my heart.” It seems to me that in our country now we have not only an economic crisis, but also a crisis in ballet. I tell my students who graduated from the Academy. Vaganova, I say: “How is it possible, they taught us better at school than you at the academy!” I don’t know what this depends on, whether it’s the fact that talented students are rarely born, or the teachers. They used to say that our ballet was “ahead of the rest,” but now this phrase is no longer uttered; there has been some kind of failure in ballet. But maybe we need to wait, the time will come and some new wave will break out...
I was fat and weighed 57 kilograms!
— Probably, like every ballerina, you have your own secret of how to stay in shape and maintain a slim figure?
— I think that there are ballerinas who don’t need to do anything for this, they were just born thin. Unfortunately, I’m not like that; when I graduated from school, I was fat and weighed 57 kilograms, and when I finished my career as a ballerina, I weighed 45. To do this, I had to give up food, I don’t go on diets, but I limit myself in my diet, I don’t eat sweets, flour, or fatty foods.
I can’t imagine that a teacher would allow himself to get fat: since he requires the student to keep in shape, then he himself must keep it.

Interviewed by Victoria AMINOVA, photo by Natalia CHAIKA

Alla Evgenievna Osipenko was born on June 16, 1932 in Leningrad.
On June 21, 1944 she was enrolled in the Leningrad Choreographic School. After graduation, she was immediately accepted into the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater. Kirov (today - Mariinsky). From 1954 to 1971 - prima ballerina of the theater. From 1971 to 1973 - soloist of the ballet troupe "Choreographic Miniatures" under the direction of Leonid Yakobson. During these years she danced many parts with her partner in life and on stage, John Markovsky. Since 1973 she worked at Lenconcert. She performed in performances of the Leningrad Maly Opera and Ballet Theater (today the Mikhailovsky Theater). From 1977 to 1982 - soloist of the Leningrad Ballet Ensemble under the direction of Boris Eifman.
People's Artist of Russia (since 1960). Laureate of the Prize named after. Anna Pavlova of the Paris Academy of Dance.
She was married four times. Son - Ivan Voropaev (1963 - 1997) - died tragically. Grandson Daniel was born in 1990.

On December 4, on the stage of the Opera and Ballet Theater of the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, an evening of the ballet “Coryphaeuses of the Russian Stage” will take place.
As project producer Grigory Tankhilevsky told reporters, the performance is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the legendary ballerina’s stage activity. Famous dancers will perform numbers that were once performed by a famous artist. Numbers that have not been performed for a long time will be shown, restored especially for this project.
“It will be interesting to see these numbers performed today. And those who saw me on stage will be able to compare,” Osipenko noted.
In excerpts from the performances “Swan Lake”, “The Legend of Love”, “Spartacus”, “Walpurgis Night” the audience will see a unique star cast - Ulyana Lopatkina, Irma Nioradze and Igor Kolb, Valery Mikhailovsky, Anastasia Kolegova and Evgeniy Ivanchenko, Elizaveta Cheprasova, Konstantin Zverev and Grigory Popov, Olesya Gapienko and Peter Bazaron. Ulyana Lopatkina will perform the number “The Dying Swan”. “Today we lack the brightness that was characteristic of the Leningrad ballet. We must learn from that experience, and not remember our heritage sometimes, on the occasion of some date,” Lopatkina noted.
The organizers of the evening are preparing an exhibition of unique photographs and documents from her personal archive, kindly provided by the ballerina, which depict many great artists. These exhibits have never before been published in the public domain.
The project was prepared for a single show and will not be repeated.