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Pavel Andreyevich Gerdt
(
Russian
:
Па?вел Андре?евич Ге?рдт
), also known as
Paul Gerdt
(22 November 1844, near Saint Petersburg, Russia ? 12 August 1917, in
Vamaloki
, Finland), was the
Premier Danseur Noble
of the
Imperial Ballet
, the
Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre
, and the
Mariinsky Theatre
for 56 years, making his debut in 1860, and retiring in 1916.
[1]
His daughter
Elizaveta Gerdt
was also a prominent ballerina and teacher.
Gerdt studied under
Christian Johansson
,
Alexander Pimenov
(a pupil of the legendary
Charles Didelot
), and with
Jean-Antoine Petipa
(
Marius Petipa
's father, a master of the old pantomime and a student of
Auguste Vestris
). He was known as the "Blue Cavalier" of the Saint Petersburg stage, creating the roles of nearly every lead male character throughout the latter half of the 19th century, among them Prince Desire in
The Sleeping Beauty
and Prince Coqueluche in
The Nutcracker
. Nobody in the theatre knew his real age, and when asked, he would always say that he was 23.
Among his pupils at the Imperial Ballet School were
Michel Fokine
,
Vaslav Nijinsky
,
Tamara Karsavina
,
George Balanchine
, and
Anna Pavlova
, to whom he taught the soaring leap of
Marie Taglioni
and
Carlotta Grisi
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Gerdt Family, in: The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Oxford University Press, 1998/2005
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