Nina Vyroubova

She was born in Gurzuf, Crimea, but moved to Paris as a child with her grandmother and widowed mother, fleeing the Russian Revolution. Her first ballet teacher was her mother, followed by renowned Russian ballerinas Olga Preobrajenska, Vera Trefilova and Lyubov Yegorova.[1][2][3]

In 1937, the 16-year-old Vyroubova made her debut in Caen as Swanilda in the comic ballet Coppélia.[2] She performed with the Ballets Polonais (1939) and the Ballet Russe de Paris (1940).[2] During her work in recitals staged by the French critic Irène Lidova from 1941 to 1944, she met the French choreographer, dancer and ballet company director Roland Petit.[2] When Petit formed Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées in 1945, his breakthrough work, Les Forains, featured her.[1][2] It was, however, a revival of the romantic ballet La Sylphide, with new choreography by Victor Gsovsky, that catapulted Vyroubova to stardom.[1]

At the age of 18, Vyroubova joined the Paris Opera Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet. In 1949, Serge Lifar made her the Danseur Étoile ("star dancer", equivalent to prima ballerina) of the Paris Opera Ballet, succeeding Yvette Chauviré.[1][2] She was featured in his productions of Suite en Blanc (1949), La Dame in Dramma Per Musica (1950), Giselle (1950), Blanche-Neige (Snow White, as the Wicked Queen) (1951), Les Noces Fantastiques (1955), Hamlet (1957) and L'Amour et son destin (1957).[1][3] In 1957, when Lifar resigned from the Paris Opera Ballet, she followed him to the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas touring company, where she starred in George Balanchine’s La sonnambula.[1][3] When Rudolf Nureyev defected in 1961, she was paired with him in The Sleeping Beauty in his first post-defection performance.[2] However, she became furious when he added some impromptu extra steps to his final solo, and she refused to speak to him for five years.[3] After the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas disbanded in 1962, she continued to work freelance.[2] In 1965, a role was created especially for her in the Hamburg Ballet's Abraxis.[3]

After her retirement, she taught in Paris and later in Troyes (1983-1988).[1] She died in Paris at the age of 86.

Nina Vyroubova was married three times (one of the husbands was Arkadij Kniaseff) and had a son, dancer Yura Kniazeff (born 1951, a soloist with the National Ballet of Canada).[1][3][4]

Vyroubova appeared in a number of documentaries, including the 1996 Les cahiers retrouvés de Nina Vyroubova (The Rediscovered Notebooks of Nina Vyroubova).[5]