Trefilova, Vera

Vera Trefilova Photos

Vera Trefilova Biography

Notable: 1875 – 1943; Mariinsky Ballet

Vera Trefilova was born in Vladikavkaz in 1875. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School with Ekaterina Vazem and graduated in 1894. Later she studied for Enrico Cecchetti, Catarina Beretta, Evgenia Sokolova and Nicolai Legat. She joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 1894 and was promoted to soloist in 1901. She became prima ballerina in 1906, but she resigned only four years later. She created roles in Ivanov’s Acis and Galatea (1896), N. and S. Legat’s The Fairy Doll (1903), N. Legat’s The Blood-Red Flower (1907) and Fokine’s The Night of Terpsichore (1907). She was a perfect classical ballerina and virtuoso. In 1917 she left Russia to open a ballet school in Paris. In 1921 Diaghilev persuaded her to make a comeback dancing Aurora in his famous London production of The Sleeping Princess. She danced Odette-Odile with Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo in 1924. She was then almost 50 years old but she still amazed the audiences with her foutté turns.