OLGA LEPESHINSKAYA, the Bolshoi Ballet's prima ballerina for three decades during the Soviet times, has died at the age of 92.
Nataliya Uvarova, a spokeswoman for Russia's Culture Ministry, said Lepeshinskaya died today of an unspecified illness. The ITAR-Tass news agency reported she died in her Moscow apartment in her sleep.
She was born to a noble family in Kiev in 1916. When she first tried to enter the Bolshoi choreographic school, she was rejected.
The school admitted her shortly afterward, in 1925, and she graduated in 1933, immediately joining the Bolshoi Ballet. She was rumoured to be the favourite ballerina of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and received the coveted Stalin Prize on four occasions.
Lepeshinskaya recalled in an interview published in the daily Rossiyskaya Gazetain 2006 that Stalin once affectionately called her "dragonfly".
As the Bolshoi's prima, she danced Kitri in Don Quixote, Tao Hoa in The Red Poppy, Jeanne in The Flame of Paris, Aurora in Sleeping Beautyand Masha in The Nutcrackeramong other parts.
She said that Don Quixote, first performed in 1940, was her first big success and she was so eager to dance that she asked her friends to hold her offstage so that she wouldn't enter ahead of time.
During the second World War,Lepeshinskaya participated in the Bolshoi's travelling company, which performed before Red Army soldiers on the front line.
She recalled in the 2006 interview that she broke her leg during the first performance of The Red Poppyin 1953, but managed to complete her part despite four fractures diagnosed later.
She married Soviet general Alexei Antonov in 1956.
In 1963, she left the Bolshoi Ballet and turned to teaching, spending several years in East Germany before returning to the Soviet Union.
Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev offered his condolences to her relatives, the Kremlin said.
Bolshoi prima Svetlana Zakharova said dancers of today would find it impossible to match Lepeshinskaya's fiery manner. "No one can repeat her tempo now," said Ms Zakharova on NTV television. - (AP)