Léonide Massine

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See also: Category:Ballets by Léonide Massine

Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (Russian: Леонид Фёдорович Мясин), better known in the French transliteration Léonide Massine (August 9, 1896 Moscow – March 15, 1979 Cologne) was a Russian choreographer and ballet dancer. He studied at the Bolshoi Theatre school in Moscow. From 1915 to 1921 he was the principal choreographer of the Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Following the departure of Vaslav Nijinsky, the company's first male star, Massine became the preeminent male star and took over Nijinsky's roles.

After the death of Diaghilev, and the supposed death of the Ballets Russes, Massine helped revitalize the world of ballet by his involvement with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Massine created the world's first symphonic ballet, Les Présages, in 1933 using Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. This caused a furore amongst musical purists, who objected to a serious symphonic work being used as the basis of a ballet. Undeterred, Massine also adapted Hector Berlioz's 1830 Symphonie fantastique and danced the role of the Young Musician with Tamara Toumanova as the Beloved at its premiere at Covent Garden, London, on 24 July 1936 with the Ballets Russes.[1]

Massine appeared in the two Powell and Pressburger ballet films: The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951); and in Powell's later Luna de Miel (1959). He also starred in several ballet short subjects, including a color film version of Gaîté Parisienne retitled The Gay Parisian in 1942.

He died at the age of 82 in Cologne, West Germany.

[edit] References

• Leonide Massine, My Life in Ballet (London: Macmillian, 1968)
• Kathrine Sorley Walker, De Basil's Ballets Russes (London: Hutchinson, 1982)
• Vicente Garcia-Marquez, The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo 1932-1952 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990)

[edit] External links

• Léonide Massine at the Internet Movie Database