Violetta Elvin (1923–2021). Russian-born ballerina and director

A dancer of rare beauty, Violetta Prokhorova was born in Russia in 1923. Trained at the Bolshoi School in Moscow, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 1942 following her graduation performance, for which she was coached by Galina Ulanova. When Moscow was evacuated during World War Two and the Bolshoi was scattered, she danced as a ballerina with the State Theatre of Tashkent. In 1944 she rejoined the Bolshoi in Kuibyshev, on the Volga, where she fell in love with a young Englishman, Harold Elvin. Returning to Moscow in early 1945, Prokhorova danced with the Stanislavsky Ballet company for a year, then married Elvin and obtained permission from Stalin to leave Russia. Once in London, she started training with Vera Volkova, where she was seen by Ninette de Valois and immediately offered a place in the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, where she made her debut as Princess Florine on the second night of the company’s production of The Sleeping Beauty. Soon after, she was to appear under the name of Violetta Elvin.

Elvin adored and was true to her Russian training, but with her intelligence and sensitivity was able to fit in beautifully with the British repertoire. From the Black Queen in De Valois’ Checkmate, through all the classical ballerina roles to Roland Petit’s Ballabile in 1950, she danced with exquisite vivacity, a hint of exoticism and always-impeccable port de bras. Frederick Ashton created several roles for her, notably Fairy Summer in Cinderella (1948), Lykanion in Daphnis and Chloë (1951), and one of the seven ballerinas in Birthday Offering (1956).

For a decade, Elvin was a unique and irreplaceable member of the developing Sadler’s Wells Ballet. Although she appeared as a guest artist abroad, including a period at La Scala, Milan, during 1952 and 1953 (where she danced in opera productions alongside the soprano Maria Callas), she retired from dancing in 1956 and went to live in Italy. It was there that she married her third husband, Fernando Savarese, in 1959. Later, in 1985, Elvin briefly acted as the director of the Ballet of the Teatro San Carlo, in Naples. Violetta Elvin died in 2021.