Boris Lipnitzki :: Olga Spessiva in Giselle, probably 1930s. | src barcarole

Olga
Spessivtzeva (billed Spessiva for phonic simplicity or maybe to make
the name more the same length as “Pavlova”.

She was most famous for dancing Giselle, a ballet in which a young girl goes mad from grief when she discovers her lover is betrothed to another. When she first danced the role of Giselle she researched the role by visiting asylums and watching the way the patients moved and behaved.  According to her dance partner Pierre Vladimirov “Her Giselle… breathed a genuine insanity, not theatrical illusion. Giselle seemed to be an extension of her own existence“.

She toured the world with the Ballet Russes and later joined the Paris Opera Ballet, but sadly her fears followed her wherever she went and she eventually broke down on stage in Sydney Australia in 1937.

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