On January 2 legendary choreographer Yuri Grigorovich celebrates his 90th birthday.
NOVAT congratulates the distinguished master on his anniversary; a lot of memorable pages of the Theatre life are closely connected with his name. We are proud that those years that he spent with our Company became a notable period of the acknowledged modern classic's biography. We wish Yuri Grigorovich good health and prosperity! Many years to come!
Artistic biography of the People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Grigorovich began in 1946 when he joined the company of the Leningrad opera and ballet theatre n.a. S.M. Kirov, where he danced character and grotesque parts. In 1957 his first full-length ballet Stone Flower with music by Prokofiev was staged; it became a turning point for development of choreographic art of the second half of the XX century. After that, another masterpiece of ballet art emerged - Legend of Love with music by Melikov. It seemed like one can happily continue working in the Leningrad theatre, but the spirit of freedom that hung thick in the air in the 60s did its part: Grigorovich decided to reverse his life and set off for Novosibirsk.
In 1960-61 Yuri was an artistic director of the Novosibirsk opera and ballet theatre's ballet Company. Later he will write: "I don't serve anymore. I don't go to office, therefore I can choose what city to work in and what productions to stage. I'm free from office, but not from serving". Yuri Grigorovich reminisces of his short period of life in Novosibirsk with pleasure, his room right in one of the "wings" of the Theatre, where he had to live and where he wrote letters to his mother in Moscow over an amusing signature "Mamin-Sibiryak". Here he staged Stone Flower (1959), Legend of Love (1961), his own revision of The Swan Lake (1962), but the capital invited him to its stage and Yuri Grigorovich left Novosibirsk to become the principal ballet master of the Bolshoi Theatre.
15 years later Yuri Grigorovich returned to stage the Spartacus ballet. Novosibirsk opera and ballet theatre became the only theatre that was bestowed an honour to present the ballet on its stage in 1977. Grigorovich explained his decision to stage the ballet on the Novosibirsk stage: "Novosibirsk Theatre is among my favourites". After another 20 years in February of 1997, he (after becoming an acknowledged choreographer around the globe) was watching the grandiose battles of gladiators on the stage of the Novosibirsk Theatre from the first row: the performance was dedicated to 50th anniversary of his artistic career.