Bolshoi Ballet
| Bolshoi Ballet | |
|---|---|
 |
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| General information | |
| Name | Bolshoi Ballet |
| Local name | Балетная труппа Большого театра Baletnaya truppa Bol'shogo teatra |
| Year founded | 1776 |
| Principal venue | Bolshoi Theatre |
| Website | http://www.bolshoi.ru |
| Senior staff | |
| Director | Vladimir Urin |
| Ballet Director | Makhar Vaziev |
| Artistic staff | |
| Deputy Director | Galina Stepanenko |
| Music Director | Tugan Sokhiev |
| Ballet Master | Yuri Grigorovich |
| Other | |
| Parent company | Bolshoi Theatre |
| Orchestra | Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre |
| Official school | Moscow State Academy of Choreography |
| Formation | Principal Lead soloist First soloist Soloist Corps de ballet |
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russian Federation. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies. It only achieved worldwide acclaim, however, in the early 20th century when Moscow became the capital of Soviet Russia. Along with the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg, the Bolshoi is recognised as one of the foremost ballet companies in the world.
The earliest origins of the Bolshoi Ballet, can be found in the creation of a dance school for a Moscow orphanage in 1773. In 1776, dancers from the school were employed by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Ouroussoff and the English theatrical entrepreneur Michael Maddox, to form part of their new theatre company. Originally performing in privately owned venues, they later acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, which, as a result of fires and erratic redevelopment, would later be rebuilt as today's Bolshoi Theatre. The Bolshoi Ballet is a very hard place to get into. While some guest dancers come and go, from other very prestigious ballet companies—like from the Mariinky and American Ballet Theatre—many company dancers are carefully selected graduates of the academy. The first American ballet dancer to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and to join the Bolshoi Ballet company, was Michael Shannon, in 1989.
The early history of the Bolshoi Ballet is very sketchy and, despite staging many famous ballets, it struggled to compete with the reputation of the Imperial Russian Ballet, today's Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. It was not until the appointment of Alexander Gorsky as Ballet Master in 1900 that the company began to develop its own unique identity, with acclaimed productions of new or restaged ballets including, Don Quixote (1900), Coppélia (1901), Swan Lake (1901), La fille mal gardée (1903), Giselle (1911), Le Corsaire (1912) and La Bayadère (1917).
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