Alla Sizova: Soviet prima ballerina who partnered Rudolf Nureyev
1939-2014
SOVIET ballerina Alla Sizova, who has died in St Petersburg at the age of 75, sprang to instant fame at the age of 18 when performing with her classmate Rudolf Nureyev in a school graduation film.
Performing the Le Corsaire duet, the teenage Nureyev prowled and leapt like a hungry panther and she was dubbed “the flying Sizova” as she soared into jumps that seemed to hover midair. The two prodigies were immediately hired into the Kirov Ballet as soloists, skipping the usual corps de ballet start.
Nureyev thoroughly disliked his partner, dismissing her as “cold and dull”. When the Kirov administration allocated them an apartment together, he declared that if it was an attempt to marry him off to her, it would fail. Both dancers moved family members into the two rooms with them to ensure that they did not cross paths too often when they were off-duty, even as their on-stage miracles of lightness, grace and athletic dynamism together were assumed to reflect a mutual respect.
Sizova and her remarkable generation at the Kirov were first unveiled in the West on their celebrated tour of Europe in 1961. On June 16 that year, as the company flew on to London from their opening venue, Paris, Nureyev — who was being sent home for antisocial behaviour — defected.
Sizova, like Nureyev’s colleagues, had no idea what had happened, but as his partner she found herself under suspicion. Back in St Petersburg, her mother was confronted by KGB officers and put in such fear for her daughter that she had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
The young ballerina, although having to make her debut in The Sleeping Beauty on London’s Covent Garden stage without Nureyev, conquered her anxieties to give a glowing performance.
On return to the USSR, Sizova was asked to condemn Nureyev, but stated that on the contrary she admired his “strength of will and fearlessness” in pursuing “his artistic growth”, though she could not understand what he would find in the West with its inferior ballet training.
She went on to become one of the nation’s quartet of superstar ballerinas, her captivating charm and virtuosic brilliance being soon enriched with a touching expressiveness.
Sizova suffered long treatment for a spinal injury, reportedly linked to her landings from spectacular jumps.
Having lost Nureyev as her partner, she created an equally famous pairing with the brilliant Yuri Soloviev, whose jumps were more refined than the forceful Nureyev’s.
As well as these legendary partnerships, she brought all her technical brilliance and gaiety to performances with a young Mikhail Baryshnikov in Don Quixote that are said to have set the Kirov’s standard in that ballet.
She last performed in the Kirov’s version of Les Sylphides (called Chopiniana) at the age of 53, but latterly her life became unhappier.
Her husband, TV sports producer Mikhail Serebrennikov, had died while covering the Moscow Olympics of 1980, leaving her with their only son, who unexpectedly died while fishing in 2004. — © The Daily Telegraph, London