[Glasha]

Brought back another interview in 2001 (from another subject)
http://www.rusk.ru/st.php?idar=800501

  I liked: "My father was a representative of the surprisingly romantic profession - he has built bridges. Here I am going to follow in his footsteps that my father is very impressed: he wanted me to" serious "profession and feared to hear later in my address: "We Vasily Lepeshinskiy two daughters: one smart, and another - a ballerina"

"We were turned to the future"
(Interview with the editor of the legend of Russian Soviet ballet, folk artist of the Soviet Union Olga Lepeshinskaya - on time, country and personal destiny.)

Anna Grushin. Olga, we often meet with you at "Tuesday" in our magazine in the Central House of Arts, at meetings of the Board of the House.
And every time I admire your constant cheerfulness, ability to work at least twelve hours a day, and yet you - not a young virgin ...

Olga Lepeshinskaya. In connection with this recall as someone once said enthusiastically AA Yablochkin: "Alexandra, you have 97, but you look at all 100! .." Yes, I have not Delek young maiden. Born September 28, 1916 in Kiev. My parents, Maria S. and Vasily Lepeshinskii, waiting for her son, because they already had a daughter, my older sister, Eugenia. Alas The aspirations of parents do not come true. But the character I was quite boyish - wore shorts, never played with dolls. Subsequently, the features of nature such as independence and "obstinacy", has helped me achieve the goal, to survive in difficult everyday situations ...

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AG Please tell us about your roots.

OL Well, here is my information is very scanty. Once in Russia from Paris came as a tourist in my aunt's son, who lived in Cannes. Of course, the presence of my relatives overseas, I had no idea. In the Tretyakov Gallery Parisian cousin saw the portrait of a ballerina Lepeshinskaya A. Gerasimov. Last we have very often, he became interested. Returning to France, told his mother ... Soon I received from Cannes letter sent to the address straightforward:? Moscow, ballerina Lepeshinskaya?. My aunt wrote before the revolution as they traveled from Kiev to Constantinople, and from there - in Europe. What is it and baptized me some great prince ... some of the details of the history of our family, remembering the older sister ... In the end, today I know that my father - scion of an old noble family, in Russia Lepeshinskii were under Catherine II, after some Polish uprisings; great-grandfather on his estate near Kyiv, opened a school for peasant children. My mother came from a bourgeois class ... That's all. In modern times it was customary to look back. When she got out of a treasured chest lace handkerchief to attach it to my dress uniform, I was indignant: I will not wear himself a legacy of the bourgeois past. Yes, our generation was concentrated exclusively in the future - of course, only the bright and just happy.
Today, having lived a long life, I'm not all remember in glowing terms, but neither of which did not deny, including from its Komsomol youth. There was a sincerity, a kind of universal belief in the possibility of happiness on earth - happiness for all, for all the people. But a Communist, I ceased to be a long time - aunt after his arrest and her two girls, who returned from China where it is allowed to those who participated in the construction of the CER and after the Revolution had been cut off from their homeland. Girls just disappeared. No, I did not officially entered the ranks of the CPSU. Even in the 1990's did not burn my membership card, pulled it into the sewer. However, the change of mind occurred even in those early years.

AG Who were your parents? As you grow up, brought up?

OL My father was a representative of the surprisingly romantic profession - he was building bridges. That's what I was going to follow in his footsteps that my father is very impressed: he wanted me to "serious" profession and feared to hear later in his address: "We Vasily Lepeshinskiy two daughters: one clever and one - a ballerina." Start to teach me to literature, to serious pursuits native speech. All children play, and I scribbled to his dictation - of Turgenev, Bunin, Prishvin ...
Pope was not in 1942 in Kuibyshev evacuation, and my mother passed away in 1948, here in Moscow. In general we have always lived together: parents, sister and me. This was something patriarchal and, in my opinion, very correct: generation should not be separated, stand apart from each other.

AG And yet you have become a ballerina ...

OL I started at the Ballet School and at the first attempt fails. This is in my nature to just provoke me. In general, I felt that failed only because of the terrible boyish vorticity on the head. At our house was a reproduction of a portrait of Anna Pavlova - smooth head, neat parting: that's hairstyle this ballerina! And what I have just not anointed by his naturally curly, tousled hair - until the fuel oil. Of course, it was not the hair, but that did someone worthy of me.

AG In any case, you have a.

OL Yes, and then this happens more than once: I did was stubborn. I remember studying do fuete. Fuete, I must say - calling card ballerina. (However, now, it seems, the concept has changed: Maya Plisetskaya, for example, dancing "Swan Lake", does not fuete where it was originally delivered. She performs some other technique, which, however, does not detract from its merits . But in our time is considered completely unacceptable.) And then my mother became acquainted with the school caretaker Kuzma, which supplied cigarettes "Kazbek". When all costs, Kuzma revealed to us a class, turn on the lights. I drew with chalk on the floor of a large circle and worked to exhaustion. First, I draw from the circle after four fuete, then after ten and so on. Simultaneously, the circle became narrower. In the end, after some time I could make the argument for sixty-four fuete! Of course, this is only possible in fifteen years. That such was my nature.

AG Olga, you have entered the history of Russian Soviet ballet performance as Kitri in "Don Quixote" by Minkus LF, Tao-Hoa in "Red Poppy" by M. R. Glier, Cinderella in the ballet Prokofiev, Jeanne in " Flames of Paris "Asafiev. You - the brightest representative of the Moscow Ballet School, as Galina Ulanova - Leningrad ...

OL My only similarity with Ulanova is that her parents were waiting for the boy, too, and was born Halina. Yes, even our tables in the dressing room stood nearby. In 1944 I came to the front, I go to his dressing room, and there Ulanova ... That's all. It was absolutely brilliant dancer, but I - one of many.

AG You are being modest, Olga. Ulanova - it Ulanova, and Lepeshinskaya - it Lepeshinskaya.

OL I insist that with Galina Ulanova was matched only Timofeevna Marina Semenova, which, unfortunately, soon left the scene. Even Ulanova recognized genius only in 1956, after the London tour. They say that Queen was shocked to Shakespeare's Juliet performed by Galina Ulanova ... As for these two schools, in fact, they were very different. Leningrad - a pure classic, traditional Mariinsky Theater - a courtier, caressed by monarchs, therefore, with great potential. Suffice it to say, that appeared in 1841 in France, "Giselle", which was set by Filippo Taglioni for his famous daughter Mary, next, 1842 m, shown in St. Petersburg ... The Moscow School of different innovative search. Just a little girl I was at a performance at the Bolshoi: on the stage - the globe around it - the proletarians with chains ...
But fate and here was me favorably. Director of the Bolshoi Theater was Elena Malinovskaya - a talented woman and very intelligent. She knew: despite the fact that we, the Muscovites, so to speak, interesting and innovative, we lack the Leningrad classical training. And for two years before my release Malinovskaya has transferred from Leningrad to Moscow six best teachers. Thus, our class (Issue 1933) became the first "product" connect the two dance schools.
I should add that we have in school, in addition to outstanding teachers in ballet, character dance, was a unique head teacher. We, the dancers, taught to read and write decently, we passed the exams at the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum and the Museum of Western Art, where I first saw Matisse - dancing red figures on a green background awakened imagination.

AG That is the general culture of attention has been paid not less than the profession?

OL Yes. For example, the lessons of listening to music. We had to understand the music inside and dance music ... director of the ballet school, Viktor Semyonov, the first time in the history of the national ballet began releasing us from the school show. AI Chekrygin and AM Monakhov, also arrived from Leningrad to Moscow to call Malinowska, put "The Nutcracker". With his girlfriend, Galya Petrova (she left when the scene was a very good teacher), I took turns dancing in the graduate play the lead role. Partners we were already out more, we put on airs, trying to make a grown hair. Once I was in school with a permanent. Viktor Semyonov took me by the hand, took a child's dressing room, opened the tap and put my head under the stream of water. We are not only taught, but also brought ...

AG About You say that while some of the performance you broke a leg, but did not leave the scene. This is a legend or truth?

OL True. November 7, 1951 at the Bolshoi was "Red Poppy". I danced Tao Hoa. Suddenly, my sister, Eugenia, who was sitting in the second row, heard a loud crack. She decided that my shoes are broke insole. According to the scenario at that time the captain of a Soviet ship and taken to China food, the owner of a small tavern in gratitude "treats" the dancer Tao-Hoa - that is me. No, in such an important play, in one of the key scenes, I could not afford to leave. Fortunately, at that time bore the palanquin to the Tao-Hoa, received from the captain of the red poppy - the symbol of the revolution. I sat on these original stretcher and carried him backstage. There, I fainted and the ambulance was sent to the hospital on Granovsky Street. After X-rays on the eyes of doctors, I realized: it is bad. Indeed, the fifth instep bone was broken in four places. Add: it generally has been hard pressed in my life. They arrested her second husband (first marriage I was married to Ilia Trauberg - a successful young filmmakers. It is well known, for example, his film "Blue Express" ... Then why do some marriages easily fall - fell apart, and ours). I have been asked by all responsible public positions, which I took. There is this terrible trauma. In short, in the hospital, I wanted only one thing - to die. Haunted idea what will happen to her daughter ...


AG Do you have a daughter?

OL Child of her husband. When we met, she was seven years old. Her own mother died in childbirth. By the time we lived together for thirteen years - I felt for her no less than for native blood. Now has her own grown daughter.

AG When you asked me, what can be of interest to readers of our magazine, I told you: that you are largely personify his era - with its unthinkable ups and downs, its spirit, inherited from the history of Russia and now seems to be finally lost.

OL I understand what you are saying. Now in 1937 considered to be an exceptional year of repression. We, whom the repression was not affected, lived their full and happy - for us it was the heyday of the arts, creative discoveries, of great hope. In 1937 I received my first order "Badge of Honor", commonly known as "Jolly Fellows," because it depicted a guy and a girl. I do with the age of sixteen had lived in love with the Komsomol affairs. With what joy I danced "Flames of Paris"! Act on the French Revolution, it was great. And often during a performance in Stalin's box appeared, quietly sat down and watched this very act ...

AG But back to the tragic case of 7 November 1951. You are in the hospital, in a depressed state of mind ... What helped you survive?

OL Fortunately for me, in the same hospital was Mikhail Prishvin. He knew that the sentence: 78 years, an incurable disease ... We are very close. In the fourth volume of his memoirs is this entry: "They brought some kind of a ballerina with a broken leg. I looked - nothing special." And just three pages: "In love, as a schoolboy." We were friends avidly, enjoy socializing. I have already mentioned that the dictation of the Pope wrote to dictation Prishvin. I knew him "Facelia, other works. Mikhail was very surprised that some ballerina so deeply felt his creativity. Yes, it is not a random encounter. I quickly came to life, three months had already gone to the scene.

AG When you stop dancing?

OL In 1962. This was preceded by a great happiness and great sorrow. In 1956 I met with Antonov Antonov General of the Army at the time - the first deputy chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, while the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the United States - members of the Warsaw Pact. After some hours we both went out. It was pouring rain, I ezhilas: cool, and dress ... sorry Antonov offered to drive me home. I replied that I need to the country. He had the time, and we went. In the car talking. He initially did not recognize me, but went to my performances. I, too, of course, did not know that it Antonov, which all military memoirists unanimously named an outstanding strategist and an unusually intelligent man. (Someone wrote that even Stalin turned to Antonov exclusively on the "you" and first name and patronymic.)
Come on, talk. I'm still falling under the spell of this man, I did not want to part with it. Therefore, near the most giving suddenly remembered: I am to an urgent need to return to Moscow. He, I think, understood everything, but gave no sign: delivered to the house, casually asked the phone number.
I waited for three days. On the fourth call ... Antonov Antonov was a widower. We were married and lived together for six years. In 1962, he was gone.
I remember the funeral at the Kremlin wall. Everyone froze, men hold portraits of her husband, on the Mausoleum - the members of the Politburo. Brezhnev took out a handkerchief from his pocket, brings to my eyes ... then everything turned black, even the sun. Adjutants Antonov caught me ... I lost my sight. I realized that I will not dance. Later, Galina Ulanova tried to persuade me to return to the scene. I tried to go to his favorite "Walpurgis Night", but only finally convinced: I can not. For me, never existed separately from the dance music - I felt the need to dance it to music. Apparently, this need is gone ...
After some time, I was sent for treatment in Italy. There I met enabled such Ruza, the leader of the dance academy in Rome. Once in Russia, she was a dancer in the style of Isadora Duncan. After the revolution in Novorossiysk fell in love with a British admiral. They married, and he took a young dancer to his homeland. But England had not liking the girl - a true Russian man it is difficult to settle down. It is now almost no difference: all mixed up, as in the Tower of Babel ... five years later she left her husband and went to Italy, having decided to continue a dance career. Obivaya thresholds of different cultural institutions, it has always seemed: "I am Russian." And it did: "Iya Ruza".
Knowing that I was in Italy, Ia found me and offered to take a class in its "Academie de Danz. I agreed, but had no teaching experience. And now - an exam. I taught 5 th or 6 th grade. Publication comes out my girls and - oh, horror! - All Lepeshinskii: style, style, bows ... It was a lesson for life: This teacher should not break a student under him, and fully identify his identity.
Since then, the teaching work was my main occupation. Knowing that I had left the scene, invited me to his Komiche Oper Walter Felzenshtayn. An interesting detail: to lead the theater, he moved from West Berlin to East ... Felzenshtayn asked me, together with the German choreographer Tom Schilling arrange for Komiche Oper ballet company that we eventually did. The pupils I gained very, very unusual way: walking the streets and be looking for girls and boys with good legs. It was easy, because in Germany, almost all schools taught artistic gymnastics. Work started in the ruined school, survived zakutke. Repaired, equipped the room ... I think this theater is now in Germany, even more famous than the old state.
Then there were Hungary, Sweden ... I think I just did not work in Australia.

AG What is your attitude to what is called modern culture?

OL Personally, I do not accept. When the Bolshoi Theater performers dance in masks - I repeat, do not accept. However, as chairman and CEO of Central House of Arts, I can not only impose their point of view, but merely an obligation to provide home sites for any event of interest in some way or other. These are our traditions, we are proud of and which is different from other art houses in Moscow - we are open to all and no one to answer for any event we do not take money. (The only pity is that the walls are collapsing, the roof is leaky, and the support of Moscow Government does not.)

AG In the days when the Bolshoi Theater was celebrating 225-year anniversary, we met at the Central House of Arts, and you said that it will not take part in the anniversary celebrations. Why? Due to disagreement with the artistic program of the current Big?

OL The reason here is not aesthetic, and ethical. Here I get an invitation from the theater, who gave his life. On a gray piece of paper written something like this: Dear Olga! A certain date at a certain time at the Bolshoi Theater anniversary celebrations. If you prepare gifts - such a room if you want something to find out - phone for information such and such ... No, we were brought up quite differently, and I cherish the memory of his Bolshoi Theater. Because the anniversary did not go, but sent me a commemorative medal put in an envelope in which it was, and sent back.

AG In the past year to 70-th anniversary of the Central House of Artists you have been awarded Amber Cross Russian Academy of Art and musical performance. As far as I know, House was created with your active participation?

OL This was the idea Lunacharskogo. I went along with his daughter Irina, visited their house. So he said something like: you, people of art, fragmented, create a circle of some ... We took a small cozy room in Pimenovsky Lane. The founders of the circle made by a number of famous actors of the Moscow Art Theater and the Maly Theater. I am, seventeen, exemplary and a member of the Komsomol district committee, sent a - append our masters in public life. It was funny. I looked at each of them as a 17-storey home - from the bottom up ... Either way, with a circle, from which later grew House of Artists, I have not separated - was unchanged deputy chairmen of the board - from Ivan Mikhailovich Moskvin to Ruben Yevgen'yevich Simonov. And now direct in "Boris Godunov" by A. Pushkin: "The seventh year, I really pravlyu State ..."

AG Olga, during the Great Patriotic War, you, among other famous artists were in the army. What for you was a war?

OL First time in the army, I had visited in 1941. Our small group, which included Dormidontovich Maxim Mikhailov, Dmitri N. Zhuravlev, Lena Kruglikova, Asaf Messerer and I managed Valeria Autograph. We went with the Political Department of the Army in the 1 st Proletarian Moscow division, badly damaged in the fighting, but not overcome, to the ceremony (if that word is appropriate), giving it just put the title of "Guards". Getting to the best of Moscow just two and a half hours - so close was the enemy. Guards were awarded the banner, gave a concert. It was generally, if not mistaken, the first concert of our artists in WWII.
Soon the Bolshoi Theater began to prepare to evacuate. Without thinking, we are with Ivan Kozlovsky sent a telegram to Stalin: "Please let the front. Kozlovsky, Lepeshinskaya." I received permission. (I really helped that I shot well, had even icon Voroshilovskiy arrows. ") Until Victory, I spoke to the front grounds. She danced on the bare ground, on the grass. Sometimes, the legs get stuck in the sand, but I still dance. Until now, I can not look without emotion newsreels, captured our presentation to Zhukov. I think it was 1943. Kharkiv just been released, and Georgy summoned there our team. In the bunker feed us dinner, then Ivan Kozlovsky singing just appeared song "Dark Night". Students could not hide his feelings. Nor, for that Zhukov was always stern, stern, imperturbable, with a face as if carved out of marble, - but this time, and his eyes filled with tears ...
Usually the word "war" waiting for the terrible stories. Yes, there are terrible. Never forget: we make our way to the front and we ran into the rear of mortal flowing river - the refugees. Do not iron, but the sad stream. Women, harnessed to carts, frightened children, wretched belongings ... Or an episode. We are going ahead on a dirt road, but for us - a jeep with the correspondents. Our car miraculously skips and the jeep is undermined by a land mine ...
But there was something else. The bright sun, blue sky-blue. Against the background of high green poplars in a truck with lowered sidewalls is Ivan Kozlovsky. He sings. As he sings! Before him a small mountain slope - a kind of amphitheater filled with pilots. Every now and then heard the roar of planes taking off and sitting down. Some viewers go, others appear. All the happy, excited ...

As a child, the nurse taught me prayers. In my heart and now live the words: Lord, give us peace and quiet, love and reconciliation! Maybe this sounds strange, but it is at war, I fully and deeply felt love for people. In the most bitter, difficult years we carried them the most peace, silence, love, reconciliation - and this was our great truth. Once Sergei Vladimirovich Obraztsov (by the way, our fathers were friends with him and often dad Sergei Vladimirovich lamented: "Vasily!" How lucky we are not with children: I played with dolls, your dancing ") to the question of what, in his view, happiness , replied: "To be fit." In war we needed - needed in the highest sense, when service to the people is the only justification for staying on the ground. And the greatest happiness.