Olga Preobrajenska

Olga Preobrajenskaya as Anne in the Petipa/Schenck Bluebeard. St. Petersburg, 1896

Olga Iosifovna Preobrajenska (Russian: Ольга Иосифовна Преображенская Ol'ga Iosifovna Preobrazhenskaya) (2 February [O.S. 21 January] 1871 – 27 December 1962) was probably the best loved ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet.

She was born in Saint Petersburg as Ol'ga Iosifovna Preobrazhenskaya (the final syllable of her surname was dropped for professional purposes, and she used the French transliteration Preobrajenska). In 1879, she joined the Imperial Ballet School, where her teachers were Nicholas Legat, Enrico Cecchetti, and Christian Johansson. After 10 years of intensive training, she moved to the Mariinsky Theatre, where she would work for the next quarter a century. In 1900, she earned the title prima ballerina.

After the Russian Revolution, Preobrajenska dedicated her life to teaching new generations of dancers, first in Petrograd, then in Paris. Every major mid-20th-century Western dancer visited Preobrajenska for lessons. Tamara Toumanova, Margot Fonteyn and Irina Baronova were among the many ballerinas she coached.

Olga Preobrajenska died in France in 1962 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.

External links

• The Ballerina Gallery - Olga Preobrajenska