Valberkh I.I. (1766-1819), ballet dancer, choreographer

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
VALBERKH Ivan Ivanovich (1766-1819, St. Petersburg), dancer, ballet master, script writer, teacher. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Theatre School in 1786, where he studied under G. Canziani, he became a soloist for the Imperial Theatres ballet company. In 1794 he took on teaching at the St. Petersburg Theatre School. Among his students was E.I. Kolosova. Valberkh composed the first choreographic performance based on contemporary Russian life for S.N. Titov's ballet A New Verter (1799). Altogether he choreographed over 40 ballets. Valberkh's choreography represented a fine combination of the Enlightenment's aesthetic tendencies and those of sentimentalism. His ballets, such as Blanca, or the Mariage in Revenge by A.N. Titov, Count Castelli, or The Felonious Brother by V. Martin y Soler (1803), as well as others, were staged in the genre of the classic melodrama. Valberkh choreographed ballets to the music and subjects of popular operas, like The Little Sailor by P. Gaveaux (1808), and Paul and Virginie by R. Kreutzer (1810). He staged a number of patriotic ballets during the time of the Patriotic War of 1812, as well as ballets based on myths and fairy tales. His stagings starred N.P. Berilova, Kolosova, Y.K. Pleten, Y. Lyustikh, O. Poireau, J. Dutac, and I. Buzani. He was buried at Smolenskoe Orthodox Cemetery.

Works: From the Archives of a Ballet Master: Diaries, Correspondence, Scripts (Moscow, Leningrad; 1948).

References: Красовская В. М. Русский балетный театр от возникновения до середины XIX века. Л.; М., 1958. С. 90-94; Слонимский Ю. И. Балет "Новый Вертер" С. Титова // Учен. зап. Гос. НИИ театра, музыки и кинематографии. Л., 1958. Т. 2. С. 415-429.

G. N. Dobrovolskaya. Berilova Anastasia Parfentievna
Buzani I.
Canziani Giuseppe
Dyutak J.
Gaveaux Pierre
Kolosova Evgeniya Ivanovna
Kreutzer Rodolphe
Lustich Yakov
Martin y Soler Vicente
Pleten Yu.K.
Poireau O. (real name Auguste Poireau Auguste Leontievich)
Titov Alexey Nikolaevich
Valberkh Ivan Ivanovich
Красовская В. М. Русский балетный театр от возникновения до середины XIX века. Л.; М., 1958
Слонимский Ю. И. Балет "Новый Вертер" С. Титова // Учен. зап. Гос. НИИ театра, музыки и кинематографии. Л., 1958
Из архива балетмейстера: Дневники. Переписка. Сценарии. М.; Л., 1948 Theatre College
Imperial Theatres