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Ivan Vsevolozhsky
Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky (; 1835–1909) was the Director of the Imperial Theatres in Russia from 1881 to 1898 and director of the Hermitage from 1899 to his death in 1909. Vsevolozhsky ran the Imperial Theatres with a determination for excellence. In 1886, Vsevolozhsky initiated two major reforms for the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, namely the relocation of the Imperial Ballet and Opera from the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre (deemed unsafe by 1886) to the Mariinsky Theatre, and the abolition of the post of ''First Imperial Ballet Composer'', a post previously held by such composers as Léon Minkus and Cesare Pugni. Alexandre Benois and Roland John Wiley credit him with the revival of ballet as a serious art form in Russia.Wiley, p. 94. Early life The Vsevolozhsky family was descended from the Rostislavichi of Smolensk. He graduated from the University of St Petersburg before working in the Asian section of the Department of International Affairs, the Rus ...
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Ivan A
Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was the Bulgarian Saint Ivan of Rila. It is very popular in Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Belarus, North Macedonia, and Montenegro and has also become more popular in Romance-speaking countries since the 20th century. Etymology Ivan is the common Slavic Latin spelling, while Cyrillic spelling is two-fold: in Bulgarian, Russian, Macedonian, Serbian and Montenegrin it is , while in Belarusian and Ukrainian it is . The Old Church Slavonic (or Old Cyrillic) spelling is . It is the Slavic relative of the Latin name , corresponding to English '' John''. This Slavic version of the name originates from New Testament Greek (''Iōánnēs'') rather than from the Latin . The Greek name is in turn d ...
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The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)
''The Sleeping Beauty'' ( ) is a ballet in a prologue and three acts to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 66, completed in 1889. It is the second of his three ballets and, at 160 minutes, his second-longest work in any genre. The original scenario was by Ivan Vsevolozhsky after Perrault's '' La belle au bois dormant'', or ''The Beauty Sleeping in the Forest''; the first choreographer was Marius Petipa. The premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890, and from that year forward ''The Sleeping Beauty'' has remained one of the most famous ballets of all time. History Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky on 25 May 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation on the subject of the story of '' Undine''. It was later decided that Charles Perrault's '' La Belle au bois dormant'' would be the story for which Tchaikovsky would compose the music for the ballet. Tchaiko ...
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The Enchantress (opera)
''The Enchantress'' (or ''The Sorceress'', ) is an opera in four acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky based on the libretto by Ippolit Shpazhinsky, using his drama with the same title. The opera was composed between September 1885 and May 1887 in Maidanovo (a village in the Klin district of Moscow) and was first performed in Saint Petersburg in 1887. Composition history Ippolit Shpazhinsky's play ''The Enchantress'' was first produced in 1884 at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, and soon it had seen more performances than any other play being staged in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. The actresses Maria Yermolova and Maria Savina were prominent in the title role of Nastasya ("Kuma"). Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky admired ''The Enchantress'' and one scene in particular. He pointed it out to his brother the composer, who proceeded to write a duet based on that scene. Pyotr saw the play himself in January 1885, after which he wrote to Shpazhinsky, asking him to convert the drama to an opera l ...
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Costumes
Costume is the distinctive style of clothing, dress and/or cosmetics, makeup of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch—in short, culture. The term also was traditionally used to describe typical appropriate clothing for certain activities, such as Riding habit, riding costume, Swimsuit, swimming costume, dance costume, and evening gown, evening costume. Appropriate and acceptable costume is subject to changes in fashion and local cultural norms. This general usage has gradually been replaced by the terms "dress", "attire", "robes" or "wear" and usage of "costume" has become more limited to unusual or out-of-date clothing and to attire intended to evoke a change in identity, such as theatrical, Halloween, and mascot costumes. Before the advent of ready-to-wear apparel, clothing was made by hand. When made for commercial sale it was made, as late as the beginning of the 20th century, by "costumiers", often wom ...
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Artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the show business, entertainment business to refer to Actor, actors, Musician, musicians, Singing, singers, Dance, dancers and other Performing arts#Performers, performers, in which they are known as ''Artiste'' instead. ''Artiste'' (French) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. The use of the term "artist" to describe Writer, writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts such as critics' reviews; "author" is generally used instead. Dictionary definitions The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines the older, broader meanings of the word "artist": * A learned person or Master of Arts * One who pursues a practical science, traditionally ...
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Essayist
An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc. Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in Poetry, verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Criticism'' and ''An Essay on Man''). While brevity usual ...
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Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Reading (process), reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwright" and is the first person in English literature to refer to playwrights as separate from Poet, poets. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks. William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English , from Old English ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word ''wikt:wwright'' is an archaic English term for a Artisan, craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or Wagon, cartwright). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form — a play. ...
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Libretto
A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass (liturgy), Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. The Italian language, Italian word (, ) is the diminutive of the word ''wiktionary:libro#Italian, libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language cognates, equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15- to 40-page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained ...
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets '' Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the '' 1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no public music education system. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist ...
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Composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and definition The term is descended from Latin, ''compōnō''; literally "one who puts together". The earliest use of the term in a musical context given by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is from Thomas Morley's 1597 ''A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music'', where he says "Some wil be good descanters ..and yet wil be but bad composers". "Composer" is a loose term that generally refers to any person who writes music. More specifically, it is often used to denote people who are composers by occupation, or those who work in the tradition of Western classical music. Writers of exclusively or primarily songs may be called composers, but since the 20th century the terms ' songwriter' or ' singer-songwriter' are more often used, p ...
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Sleeping Beauty
"Sleeping Beauty" (, or ''The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood''; , or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess curse, cursed by an evil fairy to suspended animation in fiction, sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to awaken when the princess does. The earliest known version of the tale is found in the French language, French narrative ''Perceforest'', written between 1330 and 1344. Another was the Catalan language, Catalan poem ''Frayre de Joy e Sor de Paser''. Giambattista Basile wrote another, "Sun, Moon, and Talia" for his collection ''Pentamerone'', published posthumously in 1634–36 and adapted by Charles Perrault in ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé'' in 1697. The version collected and printed by the ...
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Ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with Glossary of ballet, its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational ballet technique, techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways. A ''ballet'' as a unified work of art, work comprises the choreography (dance), choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery ...
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