people » Sophie Fedorovitch

David Wall in the role created for Michael Somes in Frederick Ashton’s supremely classical Symphonic Variations (1946), flanked by (left to right) Laura Connor, Jennifer Penny and (facing front in the role he created for Margot Fonteyn) Merle Park. © Anthony Crickmay/Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Sophie Fedorovitch (1893-1953). Russian artist and designer

Sophie Fedorovitch was born in 1893 in Minsk, and studied painting in Krakow, Moscow and St Petersburg. She emigrated to London in 1920, and became a British subject, working first as a painter. She then befriended Frederick Ashton, and designed his first ballet A Tragedy of Fashion in 1926. Thereafter they were artistic partners for the rest of her life, Fedorovitch working on sets and costumes for many of his ballets, including Dante Sonata (1940) and Symphonic Variations (1946). Apart from her work with Ashton, Fedorovitch also designed for Ninette de Valois, Antony Tudor and Andrée Howard. After the World War Two, Fedorovitch also designed Madam Butterfly for the Covent Garden Opera. She died in 1953 as the result of a gas leak in her Chelsea house.

Timeline Event » 1926 – Frederick Ashton choreographs A Tragedy of Fashion for the pupils of Marie Rambert

A Tragedy of Fashion was Frederick Ashton’s first work. Loosely based on a true story from the court of Louis XIV, it was performed at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1926, as part of a revue...

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Timeline Event » 1940 – Premiere of Andrée Howard’s La Fête étrange by the London Ballet

La Fête étrange is a one-act ballet by Andrée Howard that she created in 1940, initially for London Ballet, and then for Ballet Rambert. Howard was a well-regarded choreographer and created more...

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Timeline Event » 1946 – Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations for Sadler’s Wells Ballet

Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations was something of a blueprint for British ballet after the narrative-heavy works of the war years. It remains a touchstone for the lyrical and musical...

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