Sergei Lifar
(1905 - 1986) Ukraine
Dancer and choreographer
Born in Kiev, he studied under Nijinsky, joined the Diagilev company in 1923 becoming his lover. He was maître de ballet at the Paris Opéra (1930-44 and 1947-59). A noted experimenter, he produced his first ballet without music, Icare (1935), and published the same year the controversial Le Manifeste du choréographe. He developed the importance of the male dancer in his Prometheus (1929), and Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev, 1955).
Lifar had a fixation on Diagilev and hoped to attract his attention. He was only one of the corps de ballet and was unaware that the man had already his eye on him. Lifar worked hard out of hours to improve his dancing, but when Diagilev spoke to him he was petrified... he was already in love with the master.
Slim and beautiful, an easy temperament, Lifar became the favourite of the man, as he always hoped to be. The boy gave himself body and soul to the maestro, and remained with Diagilev up to the same day of the great man's death. Lifar died in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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