Outstanding Russian choreographer, long-time director of the ballet company of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. He was born on 2 January 1927 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). His premiere of The Sleeping Beauty at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw coincided with his 70th birthday. He graduated from the Leningrad Ballet School, where his teachers included B. Shavrov, A. Pisarev, A. Pushkin, and A. Vaganova. In 1946, he joined the S. Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad as a dancer. He started working as a choreographer in the 1940’s, at the children’s studio of the Palace of Culture in Leningrad, and with young people from the ballet school.

   His first major choreographic production at the Kirov Theatre, Prokofiev’s The Stone Flower (1957), was very successful, and was produced at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow two years later. His Leningrad production of Melikov’s Legend of Love (1961) was also a success, and gave him the position of the Kirov Theatre’s ballet master. These two productions were recognized as breakthrough artistic events in contemporary Russian ballet, and in 1964 Grigorovich was appointed to the prestigious position of chief ballet master, or artistic director of the world-famous Bolshoi Ballet Company in Moscow. He held this post uninterruptedly until 1995, developing his choreographic work very intensely throughout that time. Today he is a professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Moscow Ballet Academy.

   His famous, original ballet productions include Khachaturian’s Spartacus (1968), Ivan the Terrible to music by Prokofiev (1975), Eshpai’s Angara (1976), Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (1979), and Shostakovich’s The Golden Age (1982). On the Moscow stage, he also produced the greatest classical ballets, including The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Bayadère, Don Quixote, Giselle, Le Corsaire, and Raymonda. For many years, he was recognized as his country’s pre-eminent ballet artist, which brought him the highest state distinctions and professional recognition, including the title of People’s Artist. He has won innumerable prizes and awards, not only in Russia but in many other countries as well. He was the initiator and honorary editor-in-chief of the first Russian ballet encyclopaedia (1981).

   He also achieved a prominent position internationally, being invited to chair the panels of many ballet competitions. He was also the co-founder and long-time chairman of the Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). His productions are widely known around the world, both from the Bolshoi Ballet’s numerous tours and from premieres at the leading theatres of Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and Turkey. Most of Grigorovich’s productions have been filmed or recorded on video.

   After the death of his wife, the great ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova, on February 2008, he has been offered the opportunity to return to the Bolshoi again in the capacity of the honorary ballet master.

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