The focus of this edition of the program is on the incomparable Matilda Kshesinskaya - the goddess of dance, renowned ballerina and a prima donna of the Russian Imperial stage.

Matilda Kshesinskaya was born in 1872 into an artistic family in Ligovo, a private area of residential villas on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Her grandfather was a famous violinist and her mother - an actress. Matilda's talent for dancing cropped up at the still tender age of three much to the amusement of her father who started taking the little girl to the Mariinsky Theater. In 1880, when Matilda turned eight years old she enrolled as a student of the ballet class at the St. Petersburg Imperial College of Performing Arts.

When, after the graduation exam which was attended by Tsar Alexander III, the Empress and the successor to the Russian throne, the future Emperor Nicholas II, teachers and graduates gathered around the festive table, the Emperor placed Matilda between himself and the crown prince. "Please don't flirt much," joked the Emperor. One day as Matilda was promenading in the park she saw a horse-drawn carriage passing by. Crown prince Nicholas Romanov who happened to be inside turned back and smiled at the young woman as if making her understand that he still remembered his father's joke. Soon after, Nicholas left the city on a trip around the world. Getting back he showed up unexpectedly at Kshesinskaya's home and revealed his feelings for the ballerina. One thing led to another and their chance acquaintance flared up into a passionate love affair. The first gift the future emperor gave Matilda was a gold sapphire and diamonds bracelet. Shortly after Matilda became the owner of a posh mansion in the city center.

Matilda was apparently unaware of the sad fact that she and Nicholas were just pawns in the game played by Nicholas' parents alarmed by their son's infantile ways. Well aware of Alexander's worries, his political mentor Konstantin Pobedonostsev suggested finding a lover for Nicholas. Fancied by the would-be emperor, Matilda Kshesinskaya was seen as a perfect match. The emperor dipped into the state coffers and before long Kshesinskaya was at his son's feet... And still both Nicholas and Matilda knew all too, well that their romance was doomed to end because, as a crown prince, Nicholas was supposed to marry a member of a royal family. Shortly after he was introduced to the German Princess Alice of Hessen and Darmstadt and fell in love with her. The engagement took place on April 7, 1894. Matilda was devastated by the news, a bitter pill the many letters Nicholas kept sending her could not sugar...

Once, during a party she regularly threw at her mansion, Kshesinskaya was introduced to Grand Duke Andrei who happened to be the Emperor's cousin.   Andrei was six years her junior but the two never once felt the age difference... Soon after Matilda gave birth to their son, Vladimir. In 1904 she started touring in Europe and her 20th stage anniversary performance was a real celebration winning her the title of Russia's premiere ballerina and even that of a Generalissimo of Russian ballet.
 
During World War One Matilda Kshesinskaya opened a 30-bed hospital paying out of her own pocket. The February revolution of 1917 deprived the actress of her house, the theatre, and the people she loved, above all Emperor Nicholas II... Early in 1920 Kshesinskaya left Russia, devastated by a series of political and social upheavals never to come back again. Initially settling down in Venice, she later moved on to France where she reunited with Grand Duke Andrei and wed him in a Russian church at Cannes...

Her social life fully restored to its onetime grandeur, Matilda Kshesinskata was rubbing shoulders with the biggest artistic celebrities of the time. They called her "Madam N17" because, gambling in Monte Carlo, she always bet on 17. To live a high life she needed a regular source of income though and, after some hesitation, she opened a ballet school in Paris training such luminaries as Ivette Chauvire, Margo Fonteyn and Pamela May. Already advanced in years, Kshesinskaya continued dancing. In 1936 the 64-year-old ballerina won kudos dancing the famous Russian Dance in the venerable Covent Garden Theater in London.

Matilda Kshesinskaya outlived all her highborn friends, but the death of her husband, Grand Duke Andrei, in 1956 was probably the most terrible loss she had ever suffered. The day she went to see a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet then on tour in France, she wrote down in her diary, “Even though I haven't been going out since my husband's death, this time I made an exception and went to see the Bolshoi's performance. I was so overjoyed that I couldn't hold back the tears... It was the kind of ballet I hadn't seen for more then 40 years...” 

Matilda Kshesinskaya died on December 6, 1971, nine months short of her centennial birthday. She was buried in Paris in the famous Saint Genevieve de Bois cemetery which is the final resting place for many Russian emigres.
 
 
 

02/27/2006