Mikhail Dudko
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Mikhail Dudko | |
|---|---|
Михаил Андреевич Дудко | |
 Mikhail Dudko and Galina Ulanova in "Eros" ballet, 1923 | |
| Born | Mikhail Andreyevich Dudko |
| Died | 11 September 1981 (aged 78) |
| Occupation | Ballet dancer |
| Years active | 1920–1940, 1953–1981 |
Mikhail Andreyevich Dudko (Russian: Михаил Андреевич Дудко; 31 December [O.S. 18 December] 1902 – 11 September 1981) was a Russian Soviet ballet dancer.
Mikhail Dudko was accepted into the Imperial theatre school at the St. Petersburg Imperial troupe. His teachers were Samuil Andrianov, Viktor Semyonov (teacher and first husband of Marina Semyonova), and Leonid Leontyev. He showed his outstanding talent and was considered a future star of ballet. During an exam, he danced with a student, Lidya Ivanova, a performance that was so successful that all the teachers believed them both to have great ballet careers ahead of them.[1] The lives of both, however, were tragic.
Lidya Ivanova first became famous for her roles in small ballet. Portraits of her would be painted by famous artists, including several by Zinaida Serebriakova. Poets including Mikhail Kuzmin devoted poems to her,[2] the Russian writer Konstantin Vaginov, even making her the prototype of his heroine.[3][4] She would later drown in the Gulf of Finland, on 16 June 1924.[1][2]
During the revolution in 1917, Mikhail Dudko was a student. The Imperial theatre school where he was studying became the Soviet school, although the rules and teachers still remained the same. In 1920 he finished his studies and was admitted to the Leningrad theater of opera and ballet, formerly known as the Mariinsky Ballet.