Nikolai Legat

Born Nikolai Gustavovich Legat in 1869, Legat joined the ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre on graduation from the Imperial Theatre School in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1888. He was soon performing the principal roles in Coppelia, La Fille Mal Gardee and Sleeping Beauty, partnering the great ballerinas of the day, Mathilde Kshessinska and Olga Preobrazhenska. He also taught at the Imperial Theatre School, where his pupils included Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine and Vaslav Nijinsky, all of whom, in their turn, became stars both in Russia and abroad as Diaghilev brought the Russian ballet to the west. Legat was appointed ballet master to the Mariinsky Theatre, succeeding Marius Petipa. the choreographer of Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadere, among many others. He was a choreographer in his own right and his Fairy Doll remains in the repertoire of the Mariinsky ballet company.

As a teacher, Legat was the link between the pre-revolutionary Russian ballet, between Johansson, Petipa and Cecchetti, and his own pupils, Agrippina Vaganova, who never left Russia but who developed the foundation of the Russian classical style recognized the world over, and Alexander Puskin, the beloved teacher of Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Although Mikhail Fokine railed against Legat's adherence to the strict classical tradition, Legat did develop his own choreographic style in works such as Les Sylphides, Firebird and Petroushka.

Having lived through the revolutions and upheaval of the first two decades of the 20th century in Russia, Legat finally severed his ties with the Mariinsky Theatre and the Imperial School in 1923. He spent some time in Europe and was ballet master for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the mid 1920s before finally settling In London in 1930.

His home and studio were at Colet House, then 46 Colet Gardens but now151 Talgarth Road. Legat lived on the ground floor. The large room on the first floor, where Burne-Jones once painted, served as his dance studio. Large, light and airy with big arched windows, the walls were lined with photographs of dancers, with Serov’s full-length portrait of Pavlova in Les Sylphides taking pride of place. Legat was probably one of the very last ballet masters to play the accompaniment to his classes on the piano. His own ballet master, Christian Johansson, played a violin which he left to Legat but which was destroyed in the aftermath of the revolution in 1917. Legat's caricatures of Johansson and Cachets show them as ballet masters with their violins.

Legat's 'class of perfection' was attended by the founding figures of English ballet, including Ninette de Valois, Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova, as well as by the young Margot Fonteyn. His former pupils and colleagues, stars of the Mariinsky and Diaghilev companies, also attended his class whenever they appeared in London.

A short figure, completely bald, with intense blue eyes, Fonteyn remembered him as 'enchanting in his benevolent good humour'. This, and his sharp wit, can be appreciated in the many caricatures of his contemporaries and pupils that he drew throughout his life. These, alone, provide a unique record of the artists of his day over some 50 years. Collections are held at the National Arts Education Archive at the University of Leeds and at the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum in Moscow.

Legat died of pneumonia in January 1937. A photograph shows him lying in his coffin in the studio, surrounded by flowers, beneath the portrait of Pavlova. His studio was taken over by his widow, Nadine Nikolaieva, who went on to establish the Legat School, now located at St. Bede's School, Hailsham.

Top Right: Legat with Anna Pavlova in La Fille Mal Gardee, Mariinsky Theatre c 1910

Bottom Right: Self Caricature c1924

Text by Jane Gall Spooner

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