Wissenswertes

One of the greatest Russian dancers (from the Boris Eifman theatre).

After completing her career as a ballerina, Osipenko worked at the Mikhailovsky Theater as a teacher-tutor.

After graduating from school, Osipenko was accepted into the troupe of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater named after S.M. Kirova (now the Mariinsky Theater), where she was a prima ballerina in 1954-1971.

Osipenko is a laureate of a number of awards, including the Anna Pavlova Prize of the Paris Academy of Dance. In 1957 she was awarded the title of Honored, and in 1960 - People's Artist of the RSFSR.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, she was enrolled in the Leningrad Choreographic School, evacuated with it and returned to Leningrad after the lifting of the blockade in the spring of 1944.

She graduated from the school in 1950 and was one of the last students of the People's Artist of the RSFSR Agrippina Vaganova.

From 1971 to 1973, she was a soloist of the ballet troupe "Choreographic Miniatures" under the leadership of Jacobson.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she moved to the United States in 1995, working as a ballet coach with the Hartford Ballet in Connecticut. She returned to her hometown (now again Saint Petersburg) in 2000 where she coached the Mikhailovsky Ballet.

She left the Kirov in 1971, first dancing in Leningrad with the Yacobson Ballet until 1973, and then with the company of Boris Eifman as the first star to promote his work.

Her son Ivan Voropayev was arrested for "financial speculation" in 1986 and served 18 months in prison. He died in 1997.

She danced both classical ballets including Swan Lake and new creations such as the 1957 The Stone Flower, and was the preferred partner on stage of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Yuri Soloviev.

Her father worked as a police detective and her mother as a typist. He was arrested in 1937 for a drunken rant against the Soviet state, and was sentenced to five years in prison. Then her parents divorced.

Her first major role was the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty in 1952, choreographed by Konstantin Sergeyev.

She had a longtime artistic relationship with the famed Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov and appeared in a number of his films including the award-winning international success, Russian Ark.

She was accepted in 1941 to study ballet at the Leningrad Choreographic School (now Vaganova Academy) in the class of Agrippina Vaganova. When Nazi forces invaded that year, the school was evacuated to Perm,[2] returned to Leningrad in 1944, after the blockade of the city ended.

In 1957 she created the role of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in Prokofiev's The Stone Flower, choreographed by Yury Grigorovich. Her costume of a figure-revealing unitard created a sensation.

In Eifman's 1978 Two Voices, she danced with John Markovsky a duet to music by Pink Floyd. Further performances were in Interrupted Song, The Firebird, and Idiot.

Osipenko worked as a ballet coach with the Mikhailovsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg.

Osipenko appeared in Paris in 1956 with the Stanislavsky-Nemirovich Danchenko troupe and was awarded the city's Pavlova Prize, as one of the first new Kirov stars seen in Western Europe.

She danced as a soloist of the troupe Choreographic Miniatures directed by Yakobson in Leningrad until 1973. She also danced leading parts of classic and modern repertoire in stagings of well-known Soviet ballet-masters.

While still a student, she performed with two others in a piece that Vakhtang Chabukiani, beginning collaboration with contemporary choreographers. Leonid Yakobson created a pas de deux in which she performed the woman's part.

Osipenko appeared as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, Gamzatti in La Bayadère, Waltz and Mazurka in Chopiniana, Masha in The Nutcracker, Frigia in Spartak. She was the preferred partner on stage of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev and Yuri Soloviev.

Her final ballet in 1981 was Requiem. Violette Verdy, a leading dancer for George Balanchine, said that Osipenko employed "the classical technique in a completely personal way to create shapes and emotions that one didn't expect.".

After Nureyev defected to the West in 1961 while on a tour with the company including her, she was blocked from international touring.

Alla Osipenko was a Soviet ballerina and ballet teacher. One of the last pupils of Agrippina Vaganova, Osipenko became a prima ballerina of the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad in 1954.