Mikhail Dudko

Mikhail Dudko
Mikhail Dudko and Galina Ulanova in "Eros" ballet, 1923
Native name	Михаил Андреевич Дудко
Born	Mikhail Andreyevich Dudko Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	September 11, 1981(1981-09-11) (aged 78) Saint Petersburg, Russia
Occupation	Ballet dancer
Years active	1920-1940, 1953-1981

Mikhail Andreyevich Dudko (Russian: Михаил Андреевич Дудко; 31 December [O.S. 18 December] 1902, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire - 11 September 1981, Leningrad, USSR, now Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Russian Soviet ballet dancer.

Training

He was accepted to the Imperial theatre school at the St. Petersburg Imperial troupe, his teachers were Samuil Andrianov, Viktor Semyonov (teacher and first husband of Marina Semyonova), Leonid Leontyev. He clearly showed his talent and was considered a future star of ballet. One day he was dancing on the exam with the other disciple – Lidya Ivanova, and their success was such that all teachers prophesied to them both great ballet career.^[1] But lives of both were tragic.

Lidia Ivanova became famous with the first small ballet roles: her portraits were painted by famous artists (several of her portraits were created by Zinaida Serebriakova), poets (including Mikhail Kuzmin) devoted poems to her,^[2] the Russian writer Konstantin Vaginov made her the prototype of his heroine.^[3][4] Young ballerina Lidia Ivanova drowned in the Gulf of Finland on June 16, 1924.^[1][2]

Life of Mikhail Dudko was tragic, too.

Mikhail Dudko met revolution of 1917 as a student. The Imperial theatre school became the Soviet school . But 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 (former Mariinsky Ballet).

For twenty years he performed many ballet roles including:^[5]

• Khan’s Servant — The Little Humpbacked Horse
• Jean de Brienne and Abderahman — Raymonda
• Young Marquis and Actor – Flames of Paris
• Eros — Eros
• Prince — Swan Lake
• Prince — The Nutcracker
• Basilio — Don Quixote
• Prince Désiré — The Sleeping Beauty
• Young man — Les Sylphides
• Claude Frollo and Phoebus — La Esmeralda
• Albert — Giselle
• Conrad — Le Corsaire
• Khan Girey — The Fountain of Bakhchisarai
• Paris — Romeo and Juliet
• Soviet Captain — The Red Poppy
• Ivan Tsarévitch — The Firebird
• Gyges — Tsar Kandavl or Le Roi Candaule
• Ta-Hor — The Pharaoh's Daughter
• Damis — Les Ruses d'Amour
• Solor — La Bayadère
• Lucien d'Hervilly — Paquita
• Taras Bulba — Taras Bulba
• Commander — Laurencia

Then the Second World war began.

In the summer of 1941 M. Dudko was evacuated from Leningrad to the countryside. At the same time the Nazis came to this territory. So M. Dudko found himself on the territory occupied by fascists. In the same area was another famous actor - opera singer Nikolay Pechkovskiy (ru: Николай Константинович Печковский) and several other actors. The Germans decided to gather them in the theatre company of Gatchina town. The actors agreed, they had nowhere to go. They were playing and earned for their living.^[6]

Five years went through. The war ended. It would seem, all the bad things gone. But the Soviet government issued a decree: to consider all those who collaborated with the fascists, traitors. A lot of people were executed under this law. These people were not to blame, they killed no one, they tried to live and work. But they were considered criminals.

Mikhail Dudko and Nikolay Pechkovskiy were not shot, but they were imprisoned in GULAG camps for 8 years.^[7]

In connection with the arrest of Mikhail Dudko all his achievements in Soviet ballet were immediately pronounced fictitious; Soviet dictionaries and encyclopaedias stated that Mikhail Dudko had been a bad dancer and had performed the main roles solely because of his beautiful appearance. That were mean lies: beautiful eyes cannot replace ballet professionalism. Even at the modern time encyclopaedia «Russian ballet» declares: An acute shortage of soloists in the 1920s helped to Dudko quickly occupy the position of the stars of ballet, performer of the leading parties of almost all classical and contemporary repertoire. Dudko was not remarkable virtuoso dance technique, but he possessed an extremely effective scenic appearance and nobility of style, played a worthy partner of the ballerinas (ru: «Острая нехватка солистов в 1920-е гг. помогла Д. быстро занять положение премьера, исполнителя ведущих партий практически всего классич. и совр. репертуара. Д. не отличался виртуозной танц. техникой, но обладал чрезвычайно эффектной сценич. внешностью, благородством манер, выступал достойным партнером балерин»^[3][8]). Less biased sources consider Dudko to be among the first ballet dancers of his time, mentioning his lyricism, sculptureness of his poses, noble manner of his dance - all those characteristics of the so-called French school of dance.^[9] Famous Russian choreographer and ballet dancer Rostislav Zakharov highly praised the virtuoso technique of Mikhail Dudko.^[10][11]

Mikhail Dudko was released in 1953. But he did not receive permission to return to Leningrad and worked in provincial theatres of Ufa, Novosibirsk, Tbilisi, played small roles.^[3][9]

During that period he had only one serious role: Vakhtang Chabukiani invited M.Dudko in 1960 to participate in his film Othello – the role of Brabantio.^[7] It was a feat of Vakhtang Chabukiani.

Only at the end of his life did Mikhail Dudko was allowed to move to his native city. But he could not return to the profession of a ballet dancer because of his age.

Mikhail Andreyevich Dudko died on 11 September 1981 in Leningrad, at the age of 78.

References

External links

• Михаил Андреевич Дудко Cyclopedia