Who was Petipa?
Marius Petipa (1822-1910) was trained in France and had danced in Spain and the United States before he emigrated to Russia in 1847, where he dominated Russian ballet from 1870 to 1905. He choreographed (among many other ballets) Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda, and Swan Lake (this last in collaboration with Lev Ivanov.) Together with Ivanov, Christian Johansson, and Enrico Cecchetti, he raised Russian ballet to world pre-eminence. He is generally regarded as a ballerinas’ choreographer, however; his parts for male dancers were weak.
