Lydia Lopokova
| Lydia Lopokova | |
|---|---|
Lydia Lopokova in 1922
|
|
| Born |
21 October 1892 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Died | 8 June 1981 (aged 88) Seaford, East Sussex, England, UK |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation | Ballerina |
| Title | Lady Keynes |
| Spouse(s) | John Maynard Keynes |
| Relatives | See Keynes family |
Lydia Lopokova, Baroness Keynes (born Lidia Vasilyevna Lopukhova) (Russian: Ли́дия Васи́льевна Лопухо́ва; 21 October 1892 – 8 June 1981) was a famous Russian ballerina during the early 20th century. She is known also as Lady Keynes, the wife of the economist John Maynard Keynes.
Lopokova was born into a Russian family in St. Petersburg. Her father worked as the chief usher at the Alexandrinsky Theatre; her mother was descended from a Scottish engineer. All the Lopukhov children became ballet dancers; one of them, Fyodor Lopukhov, was a chief choreographer for the Mariinsky Theatre from 1922 to 1935 and again from 1951 to 1956.
Lydia trained at the Imperial Ballet School, where she almost immediately became a star pupil. "She responded instinctively to the expressive choreography of Mikhail Fokine, his rebellion against the stiff academicism of the classical style, and her chance came when she was chosen to join the Ballets russes... on their European tour in 1910.... Diaghilev knocked a year off her age and promoted her as a child star." She stayed with the ballet only briefly, knowing that she had little future in Russia ("she was the wrong size and shape for the grand roles and there were already plenty of prima ballerinas in St. Petersburg"),
She accepted an American offer of ₤16,000 per month and after the summer tour left for the United States, where she remained for six years, enjoying tremendous success and legally changing her name to Lopokova in April 1914.
In 1915, while in New York, she had become engaged to the New York Morning Telegraph sportswriter Heywood Broun, later a member of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table coterie. In 1916 she broke off their engagement, or perhaps Broun did: according to Fred Lieb, another sportswriter and a friend of Broun's at the time, Broun "caught the enchanting Lydia Lapopka in the lap, so to speak, of her Russian director.... [Broun] walked east on one street, knocking over every garbage and trash can he passed. Then he walked west on the street giving it the same treatment. Just as he was getting really warmed up to the sport he ran into the hands of the law. Heywood spent the night in the hoosegow before friends bailed him out the next morning."
...
Wikipedia