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LEV IVANOVICH IVANOV (1834-1901)

    Ivanov was the illegitimate child born February 18th (Julian)/March 2nd(Gregorian) to Thio Adamova and a wealthy merchant, who acknowledged his parentage, and at least gave his son exposure to the theater in childhood. Young Lev was enchanted with ballet, and was sent into the Imperial Theater School in St. Petersburg to study, thus ending his years in orphanage schools.

    While in school, Ivanov and his classmates were permitted to observe rehearsals conducted by Jules Perrot. Ivanov was the student of Jean Petipa, the father of Marius. Upon being admitted to the St. Petersburg Grand (Bolshoi) Theater as a dancer, Ivanov was selected by leading ballerinas Elena Andreyanova and Tatiana Smirnova to dance leading roles in works in which they performed. At the age of 24, he also began teaching junior girls' classes at the Imperial Theater School. He married dancer Vera Liadova in 1858. The marriage was very unhappy, and after a separation, Liadova died. Ivanov remarried, this time to Varvara Malchugina.

    Lev Ivanov made a great name for himself as a pantomimist and "leading man" type dance-actor. His performances of Ernest in Petipa's ballet Florida, and later Conrad in Le Corsaire, and Solor in La Bayadere established his reputation. He ceased attending classes, however, and found himself replaced by Pavel Gerdt. Ivanov also acquired a reputation as a heavy drinker, a remarkable notoriety in a hard-drinking country in a hard-drinking time.

    The Polovtsian Dances in the Borodin opera Prince Igor were assigned to him in 1890, and his setting of this divertissement was later edited, sharpened and pointed by Michel Fokine for his famed 1909 staging.

    Petipa appointed Ivanov his regisseur in 1882 promoted him to balletmaster en seconde in 1885. His prodigious memory assisted his principal in staging revivals, and he attained a reputation as a sort of "walking reference book," to quote one critic. Ivanov's approach to choreography proceeded directly from music, and was a forerunner of the musical approaches of both Balanchine and Massine. He often rejected simple symmetry in his composition in order to add excitement and visual variety to his stage picture. His choreography to The Nutcracker will be examined under that heading.

    Ivanov was assigned to stage Act II Swan Lake for the Tchaikovsky Memorial Concert on February 17/29, 1894. Petipa had started some choreographic sketches, mostly for Acts I & III, but no sketches dating from this time for Acts II & IV exist. Petipa was heavily involved in reviving the ballet Le Reveil de Flore, and assigned the choreography of Act II to Ivanov, perhaps after talking and blocking out in private, or perhaps it is indeed all Ivanov's work. At any rate, the ballet was a success, and when the full work was presented, contemporary periodicals seem to have recognized that Ivanov had done considerable of his own work in the staging.

    Ivanov continued on in his unassuming way after the success of Swan Lake, and George Balanchine was later to recall an "urban legend" of the earlier balletmaster's staging of The Magic Flute. Ivanov had not insisted on sufficient rehearsal time to choreograph all of the ballet, and one scene was a ballabile where everyone was to dance uncontrollably to the title flute's music - provided by Drigo, by the way. They were at dress rehearsal, and the pas had not yet been set; Ivanov just went far downstage and said, "All right, now, everybody dance!" Then went about, dodging and weaving through the madly improvising dancers here, arranging there, suggesting a step in another place, and staged the most hilarious chaos - just as the plot demanded.

    Ivanov undertook a staging of Delibes' Sylvia for premiere in 1901, but grew ill, and continued to fail, leaving his assistant Pavel Gerdt to finish the ballet for him. He died December 1/24, 1901 in St. Petersburg.