Violetta Bovt
Violetta Bovt | |
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![]() Violetta Bovt in the Netherlands, 1965 | |
Born | 9 May 1927 Los Angeles, United States |
Died | 22 April 1995 (aged 67) Columbus, Ohio, United States |
Violetta Trofimovna Bovt (also Boft, Russian: Виолетта Трофимовна Бовт, 9 May 1927 – 22 April 1995) was an American-Soviet ballet dancer.
Biography
[edit]Bovt was born in Los Angeles, United States. In the 1930s, her father, a communist sympathizer, moved the family to the Soviet Union; he died in the early 1940s fighting at the World War II front near Leningrad.[1]
In 1944, Bovt graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and started dancing at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre. Her roles included:[2][3]
- Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor by Viktor Oransky (1944)
- Natasha in The Coast of Happiness by Antonio Spadavecchia (1948)
- Esmeralda in La Esmeralda by Cesare Pugni (1950)
- Odette-Odile in Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1953)
- Jeanne d'Arc in Jeanne d'Arc by Nikolay Peyko (1957)
- Lola in Lola by Sergei Vasilenko
Bovt never gave up her American citizenship. For this reason, she was not accepted as a permanent performer with the Bolshoi Ballet and Mariinsky Ballet, despite being a frequent guest star there. She was also not allowed to perform in the United States. She worked at the Stanislavski theatre for 42 years, 35 years as a dancer and 7 as a teacher. A biographical TV film Интервью, которого не было (Interview that never happened) about Bovt was produced in 1968.[4] In 1986, when the Soviet borders became softer, Bovt moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she was hired by BalletMet.[1]
References
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- ^ a b Barbara Zuck (30 April 1995) "For Violetta Boft, to live was to dance", The Columbus Dispatch
- ^ Бовт Виолетта Трофимовна. Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- ^ Л. М. БОВТ, Виолетта Трофимовна. Encyclopedia of Theatre. gumer.info
- ^ Интервью, которого не было. kino-teatr.ru
- 1927 births
- 1995 deaths
- 20th-century American ballet dancers
- 20th-century American educators
- 20th-century American women educators
- Honored Artists of the RSFSR
- People's Artists of the RSFSR
- People's Artists of the USSR
- Recipients of the Order of the Badge of Honour
- Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- American emigrants to the Soviet Union
- American ballet teachers
- American ballerinas
- Soviet ballerinas