Violetta Bovt

Bovt was born in Los Angeles, United States. In the 1930s, her father, a communist sympathizer, moved the family to the Soviet Union; he died in the early 1940s fighting at the World War II front near Leningrad.[1]

In 1944, Bovt graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and started dancing at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre. Her roles included[2][3]

• Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor by Viktor Oransky (1944)
• Natasha in Bereg Schast'ya by Antonio Spadavecchia (1948)
• Esmeralda in La Esmeralda by Cesare Pugni (1950)
• Odette-Odile in Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1953)
• Jeanne d’Arc in Jeanne d’Arc by Nikolay Peyko (1957)
• Lola in Lola by Sergei Vasilenko

Bovt never gave up her American citizenship. For this reason, she was not accepted as a permanent performer with the Bolshoi Ballet and Mariinsky Ballet, despite being a frequent guest star there. She was also not allowed to perform in the United States. She worked at the Stanislavski theatre for 42 years, 35 years as a dancer and 7 as a teacher. A biographical TV film Интервью, которого не было (Interview that never happened) about Bovt was produced in 1968.[4] In 1986, when the Soviet borders became softer, Bovt moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she was hired by BalletMet.[1]