© Ludmilla Semenyaka as Kitri. From a 1988 calendar in the collection of Natasha Dissanayake. Original image credited to V.Pcholkin. Svetlana Zakharova interviews by Natasha Dissanayake by Kevin Ng Bolshoi reviews

Ludmilla Semenyaka, a graduate of the Vaganova Academy, she joined the Bolshoi in 1972, after working for 2 years with the Kirov-Mariinsky. An impeccable classical dancer she also possessed a bright dramatic talent. Among her best roles were: Aurora (“The Sleeping Beauty”), Raymonda, Odette-Odile (“Swan Lake”), Giselle, Phrygia (“Spartacus”), Shirin (“The Legend of Love”), Anastasia (“Ivan the Terrible”), Rita “(The Golden Age”), Kitri (“Don Quixote”), Katerina (“The Stone Flower”).

She works now as a repetiteur at the Bolshoi with Svetlana Zakharova and Anastasia Meskova. This interview (one of three) was conducted at the Palais Garnier in Paris during the Bolshoi's tour in January 2004.

For many people you remained an absolutely incomparable Aurora. You don’t dance anymore, you are a teacher now. However, your Aurora can hardly be bettered. What is important for you as a teacher?

Of course every performer is unique. New dancers create new images. It is excellent that art gets refreshed and revived. What is important for me? First of all, I feel enormous responsibility. Does that sound too grand? But I am serious about my responsibility. I have to pass on to my pupils everything good that I learnt myself. I see myself as a representative of the most earnest, the best ballet school in the world. Our school is more versatile, substantial, harmonious and expressive both technically and emotionally than any other school.

Leningrad will always be my alma mater, everything started for me there although I am very much a Muscovite now and a fully fledged feeling of the theatre came to me on the Moscow stage, the Bolshoi’s stage. The two traditions which I was lucky to combine are very important for me. I had teachers who were not only remarkable artists but created a whole era in ballet. It is my task now to pass everything that I felt and lived through on stage on to my pupils. It is not easy because ballet is a developing art; dancers have to come to light early. Dancers’ stage life is shorter than anyone else’s in art. And in this short period they need maximum help, maximum support for their development. I can not just impose my personality on them but pass on to them what I feel very strongly about – the traditions of two great theatres. Since I was steeped in those traditions since my childhood I feel them deeply and am very keen to teach them to my pupils.

Some teachers, willingly or unwillingly, exert a straightforward influence on their pupils: do it as I did, as we did it before. Since you are a strong-willed and persuasive person, do you find it difficult to preserve your pupils’ personalities and not to dominate them with your own image and personality?

I have been working as a repetiteur for two years. I check myself constantly and don’t want to loose my time on any delusions. I understood well from the beginning that not every dancer needs to see a precise demonstration. It depends on a particular dancer’s talent, his art-consciousness – some reveal it earlier than others. It depends on the quality

Ludmilla Semenyaka as Kitri in Don Quiote. From a 1988 calendar in the collection of Natasha Dissanayake. Original image credited to V.Pcholkin.

of training, readiness for the stage, their life experience. Sometimes young dancers need to see a very detailed demonstration and also a description of the role – non-obtrusively, of course, so that they can prepare the role themselves. Every dancer works at his own pace: some can not grasp the role initially, others start well but later come to a standstill. I have to find the way of coming back to what they had already found. Some dancers are more responsive. My first pupil at the Bolshoi was Nastya Meskova, I could see that she is quick in the uptake; therefore, I could give her more freedom.

It is important to give more artistic freedom in the same way as I was given when joined the Bolshoi. My teachers were mainly helping me to preserve our style, training and traditions but they gave full freedom to my artistic expression. It depends on the degree of talent: the more talented your pupil is the earlier you give him freedom. So, I have to interact with them carefully, without imposing my own views. At the same time I have to insist on them keeping those traditions which we wish to preserve. If I opt to teach them how I did it and how we used to do it before, well, it will result in a very slow development. When giving them freedom I have to know where to stop, so that they develop their personalities within the framework of best traditions. Galina Sergeyevna [Ulanova] helped to develop and reveal my own personality on stage that is why my relationship with my own pupils is important for me; I have to talk to them a lot, to feel them as human beings. All work comes to nothing if you don’t talk and discuss things one to one.

Which of your teachers do you remember with the greatest gratitude?

All without exception. The same vast gratitude towards them all. [At this moment a loud announcement in French started on the tannoy and we had to wait till it finished. It lasted for quite a long time. Semenyaka sighed: “Everyone loves to be listened to.”] So, I had many mentors, real, talented artists, I learnt from them all. Do you want to hear a list? It is long. Will you listen? Anyway you will probably edit it later.

Definitely not. How could I dare to edit you? So who was an inspiration for you?

Let’s start from school. At every stage I met people without whom I wouldn’t have been made. I was inspired by the dancers whom I saw on stage then. The generation which preceded me in the Kirov Ballet was fantastic, absolutely brilliant: Sizova, Kolpakova, Osipenko, Makarova, and Fedicheva – these ballerinas were divine. And the men: Solovyev, Baryshnikov, Gridin, Gribov. And so many outstanding character dancers! I came there when the ‘older guard’ was still working; they introduced me to our stage. Lydia Mikhailovna Tyuntina, for example, who worked with undergraduates of Vaganova Academy when they performed on the Kirov stage? No one better than her could initiate me into the stage manner, behaviour, the feeling for the environment, music, the general understanding of what Theatre is about. She knew how to explain it to me, still a young child then. The teachers I had: Tchernova, Bazarova, Belikova, - they are the history of the Vaganova Academy. If I start describing all my teachers of classical and character dance and of stage art, we will be talking with you for a week.

[At this moment an announcement in French is again made on the tannoy. Ludmilla remarked: “Oh no, nobody shouts like that in our theatre. Theatre requires calm.”]

So, we were talking about the Kirov where I danced with those who were like gods on Olympus for me. I was supervised then by Kolpakova, the best ballerina at that time, the last pupil of Vaganova. After the Moscow Competition, Grigorovich invited me to join the Bolshoi. Well, my teachers there were Ulanova, Semyonova and Asaf Messerer. What more can one wish?

Ludmilla Semenyaka as Kitri and Irek Mukhamedov as Basil. From a 1990 calendar in the collection of Natasha Dissanayake. Original image uncredited

My partners were Nikolai Fadeyechev, Maris Liepa, Vassilyev, and Vladimirov! And my husband then, Misha Lavrovsky, he gave me so much! As well as his mother, a brilliant actress Yelena Chikvaidze.

But person number one for me was the great artist, a real master – Yuri Grigorovich: he brought me up as a ballerina, as a part of that generation, of his theatre, of his ideas. And I learnt from those whose roles I shared: Plissetskaya, Struchkova, Maximova, Bessmertnova. I had to absorb the new spirit of the Bolshoi at that time. I wanted to thank my lucky stars every day.

Now a young but established ballerina of unique physique and abilities asked you to be her coach. Are you happy to get such a pupil as Svetlana Zakharova?

You ask me about her and I already feel excited. It is a great responsibility. When such a person comes to the theatre, with such gifts from the gods, you can not help but pull all your resources to make every single rehearsal very precious. However, nothing in life is accidental.

We met when I popped into her rehearsal for her guest appearance in “Giselle”. I started quietly, step by step, making my suggestions. She is sensitive, catches the meaning at once. In fact, we felt that, apparently, we need each other for our work. Every rehearsal for us is literally a discovery. I have the same feeling as I had when I started dancing at the Bolshoi: every day in the theatre must be lived at full value. The hours when I work with Svetlana give me understanding and justification of what I am doing at the Bolshoi now.

This is our second season together. Svetlana came to the Bolshoi already a star, and she is still developing. Out work is communication between two ballerinas. I haven’t cooled down as an actress yet, I haven’t become an old mentor. My roles are still alive in me. We met at an important stage, when Svetlana was just 24 and was open for new life experiences.

How does Svetlana work?

Svetlana works meticulously, with great subtlety. She does not spare herself, does not rest much. She is a master who tries to see the roles in their diversity, she asks for advice, she doubts but she can be very persistent in what she believes in because she has a very strong character. I like her; I find some similarity with myself.

She is good with people and responsive to their kindness. She appreciated the reception she got from her Bolshoi’s colleagues. And the success which she enjoys here. There will be more success, I am sure. Just see how the French audience greeted her, this is a colossal success. She is an international ballerina now.

So your lucky stars continue to shine again for you, now as a teacher.

Yes, I was terribly lucky to meet such a person. But it was not accidental. I think nothing is accidental in life. Most important is to be ready for the moment, which was waiting for you, ready for your lucky star. I am ready to give myself to my pupils. I spend all day with them, till 10 pm. This is my life now.