Lubov Tchernicheva (1890–1976). Russian ballerina and ballet mistress

Lubov Tchernicheva trained at the Russian Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg and joined the Russian Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1908. She married Serge Grigoriev, régisseur of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, in 1909, and joined the company’s corps de ballet in 1911. She became a leading dancer with the Ballets Russes until it disbanded in 1929 following Diaghilev’s death and was its ballet mistress from 1926.

A noted beauty, Tchernicheva led many ballets in the Diaghilev repertoire, particularly Mikhail Fokine’s Cléopâtre, Thamar, Les Sylphides, The Firebird, and Scheherazade, and Léonide Massine’s The Good Humoured Ladies, Pulcinella and Le Pas d’acier. She created roles in Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces, Les Biches and Les Tentations de la bergère, and George Balanchine’s Jack-in-the-Box, The Triumph of Neptune, Apollo and The Gods go a-Begging. Although she retired from performing after becoming ballet mistress for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe in 1932, Tchernicheva continued to appear in some of her former Diaghilev roles with the company, as well as the Miller’s Wife in Massine’s Le Tricorne and the title role in David Lichine’s Francesca da Rimini. Tchernicheva made her last appearance on stage as Lady Capulet in John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet at La Scala, Milan. Later, she, along with Grigoriev, staged a number of Diaghilev works on companies around the world, including Fokine’s The Firebird, Petrushka, Les Sylphides and the ‘Polovtsian Dances’ from Prince Igor for The Royal Ballet.