Marina Timofeevna Semenova, a ballerina from God, was born in St. Petersburg on June 12, 1908. She danced from the time she got on her feet, first herself, then studied in a dance club. When she was ten years old, she was accepted to a choreographic school, where her teacher was the mother of the legend of the Soviet ballet Galina Ulanova - M.F. Romanova.
Star Teachers
It was hungry and cold in 1918. In St. Petersburg it was very uncomfortable, but in the classroom all this was forgotten. The teacher was very fond of the fun and malleable girl in training, and Marina simply adored her teacher. What was her amazement and grief when the young ballerina found out that she was being transferred through class and, therefore, she would now study with the indescribably strict A. Ya. Vaganova. However, the very first lesson showed that Agrippina Yakovlevna is able not only to praise the students, but also to openly admire. Relations have been established.
Galina Ulanova not only her mother was a ballerina, her whole family consisted of hereditary artists, even the beginning of this continuity was lost among generations. And Marina Semenova grew up in the simplest and largest family - her mother had six children. Father died early, and his mother got married again a few years later. Marina Semenova turned out to be lucky: a very gentle, kind and sympathetic, having seen a lot in life a sailor became for all six relatives and friends, the second father.
Way to ballet
A close friend of Marina’s mother, Ekaterina Evgenievna, was an amateur ballerina, she often performed with her own solo numbers at charity concerts, she also led a dance club, which was attended by two sisters, Valeria and Marina. In the process of training, the latter showed not only amazing plasticity and musicality, but also purposefulness, and a rare capacity for work at her age. Ekaterina Evgenievna, after listening to the reviews of her friend, decided that the girl should professionally teach ballet.
At the choreographic school, however, Marina Semenova at first did not make the proper impression. She was thin, short and very shy. And then she was lucky again. Among the examiners was Victor Semenov, one of the leading dancers of the Mariinsky Theater. Maybe he noticed a divine spark in the girl, but he did not object to the commission, he simply asked in a joking form to accept his namesake at the school.
First performances
Studying at the choreographic school, Marina Timofeevna Semenova first participated in small concert numbers, and for the release she also performed the main parts of ballets. Delibes Creek, her final exam at the Mariinsky Theater, became a sensation among connoisseurs and ballet lovers. Moreover, Marina Semenova made this performance a great event in the theatrical season of Leningrad.
Enthusiastic reviews appeared in newspapers in which Marina was compared with Anna Pavlova, and the excited and noisy delight of the audience was described. This unanimous admiration was caused by sixteen-year-old Marina Timofeevna Semenova, whose biography was just beginning to become legendary.
Beginning in the profession
Who would then know that the happiness of communicating with a magnificent ballerina, who has also raised equally talented dancers, will last as long as 86 years. Marina Timofeevna Semenova, a biography whose years of life were so fruitful, so long, lived for almost a hundred and two years. And then this young student Vaganova was immediately compared with all the legendary ballet dancers of past times. Even "Taglioni of the XX century" was called.
The Leningrad Theater was conquered by a graduate of the choreographic school so much that in this case all centuries-old ballet traditions were violated. Her dance technique was at such an inaccessible level for ordinary graduates that Marina Semenova immediately after the final exams became the leading ballerina in the troupe! No one objected, everyone saw her jumping high, how easily a half-stage distance flies in one jump.
Her ballets
Marina Timofeevna Semenova, whose photos demonstrate a variety of images created by her on stage, danced exclusively artistically. The multifaceted talent of reincarnation allowed her to penetrate and reliably embody any of her roles.
The Masha from The Nutcracker is bright and at the same time sad, real and at the same time fantastic; Kitri from the ballet "Don Quixote" - proud, bold, full of fire and excitement; Esmeralda, a young gypsy, mysterious, inaccessible, at the same time beckoning and radiant - so different, with the most opposite characters, the roles were equally good for her.
Giselle was also beautiful and brought Marina Semenova world fame on a tour in Paris, where she made her debut in Giselle. However, Giselle left the repertoire of Marina.
Ominous years
She by that time had become a real fatal beauty. And of course, she knew her worth. She was surrounded by high-ranking fans, admired by the beauty and talent that the ballerina Marina Semenova proudly carried through her life. Personal life brought more and more difficult trials.
Her husband, who worked as an ambassador in Turkey, was suddenly arrested in 1937, and Marina was under house arrest for a long time, first as the wife of an enemy of the people, and later as the wife of a traitor to the motherland. In the first case, it was possible to live, although it was not easy to work, in the second, she was granted the status of travel abroad and a prepared suitcase with linen.
So a secular lioness, a flower of the Soviet elite, who shone at diplomatic events, because she was fluent in languages, especially French, was forced to lie low and wait for the worst. However, her power in those years was generously encouraged twice: Marina Semenova received the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1937, became the winner of the Stalin Prize in 1941.
Celebrity Reviews
Ballerina Tatyana Vecheslova devoted a lot of cordial, warm words to Marina Semenova in her book. She wrote that the young dancer was already a professional, striking the imagination, her every movement was so polished, it was so harmonious.
“La Bayadere”, “Raymond”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Pharaoh’s Daughter”, “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, “Coppelia” - Marina learned any game in a couple of months. She danced tirelessly and with ever-increasing success with the public. A.V. Lunacharsky told S.P. Diaghilev in Paris how young Semyonova was exceptionally good in Leningrad. Stefan Zweig, seeing Marina on stage, predicted a great future for her.
"Swan Lake"
The classical repertoire was almost in full scope on the shoulder of this beautiful ballerina. Another debut in the real masterpiece of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky took place: Semenova danced the main part in the ballet Swan Lake. Marina was so imbued with the role that it seemed to the audience that it was not the timid girl who was enchanted who was listening to the confession, still not knowing anything about the real feeling, and the bird, strong, captive, was striving for freedom, where it was possible to spread white wings and fly away.
Siegfried danced by the same namesake - Viktor Alexandrovich Semenov, the theater’s premier and now the artistic director of the Leningrad School, to which she owed so much and who was twice her age. This difference did not prevent him from reaching the hands of a charming partner and becoming her first husband. The namesakes got married.
In the thirties, Marina and Victor were transferred to the Bolshoi Theater, they moved to Moscow, where for some time the life of a young ballerina shone with especially bright, and most importantly, new colors. Husband and wife, although they are used to working in pairs, since they danced most of the performances nearby, toured together, but fate still did not allow them to enjoy happiness for a long time. The couple broke up, and Marina Semenova, without legalizing her marriage, became the wife of a statesman and prominent diplomat L. M. Karakhan.
Despite the fact that Semenova was very bored about her native city, about her only beloved theater, about her best mentor, she easily mastered role after role. Technical difficulties for her almost did not exist, and she especially liked the new productions of modern performances. However, the role of Odette from Swan Lake remained the most beloved, reverently preserved memory of the heart.
Pedagogy
The time has come when I had to give myself entirely to the future generation of dance. In the fifties, Marina Timofeevna Semenova began her equally legendary teaching activity. And she remembered, remembered ... And she returned the memory to others. When Glinka’s opera returned to the Bolshoi in 1997, which, along with Swan Lake, once served as the hallmark of the country's best theater, Marina Timofeevna was seated in the hall of honor because many remembered how brilliantly it was in the victorious, distant 1945 danced in the opera "Ivan Susanin" this amazing waltz.
Hero of Socialist Labor, professor of the Russian National Technical University, People's Artist of the USSR glorified the Soviet ballet not only with artistic activity, but also with pedagogical one. The names of her unsurpassed students testify better than any epithets. Here they are, the wonderful ballet masters brought up by her, the star class of Marina Semenova - “Semenovsky Regiment”, as the following joked: Maya Plisetskaya, Natalya Bessmertnova, Nadezhda Pavlova, Nina Timofeeva, Nataliya Kasatkina, Lyudmila Semenyaka and many, many other Russian ballet dancers .
The entire anniversary of the ballerina in 2008, all of Moscow celebrated in a big way. The Bolshoi Theater showed exactly those ballets in which Marina Semenova shone: Swan Lake, Raymonda, La Bayadere. She survived all our revolutions, all our wars, but she did not change classical art even in the most difficult times. She also survived the centenary and celebrated. She died in the one hundred and second year of her magnificent life, in 2010. They buried Marina Semenova at the Novodevichy cemetery.