Marius Ivanovich Petipa (Russian: Мариус Иванович Петипа; born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa; 11 March 1818 – 14 July [O.S. 1 July] 1910) was a French and Russian ballet dancer, pedagogue and choreographer. He is considered one of the most influential ballet masters and choreographers in ballet history.
Petipa is noted for his long career as Premier maître de ballet (First Ballet Master) of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, making him Ballet Master and principal choreographer of the Imperial Ballet (today known as the Mariinsky Ballet), a position he held from 1871 until 1903. Petipa created over fifty ballets, some of which have survived in versions either faithful to, inspired by, or reconstructed from his originals. He is most noted for The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862); Don Quixote (1869); La Bayadère (1877); Le Talisman (1889); The Sleeping Beauty (1890); The Nutcracker (choreographed jointly with Lev Ivanov) (1892); Le Réveil de Flore (1894); La Halte de cavalerie (1896); Raymonda (1898); Les Saisons (1900), and Les Millions d'Arlequin (a.k.a. Harlequinade) (1900).
Petipa also revived a substantial number of works created by other choreographers. Many of his revivals have become the basis of the majority of subsequent productions of those works. The most famous of Petipa's revivals are Le Corsaire, Giselle, La Esmeralda, Coppélia, La Fille Mal Gardée (with Lev Ivanov), The Little Humpbacked Horse and Swan Lake (with Lev Ivanov).
Many individual numbers taken from Petipa's work (both from original works and from revivals) continued to be performed independently, in spite of the fact that the full-length ballets that spawned them had disappeared from the Imperial Ballet's repertoire. Many of these pieces have endured in versions either based on the original or choreographed anew by others – the Grand Pas classique, Pas de trois and Mazurka des enfants from Paquita; Le Carnaval de Venise Pas de deux; The Talisman Pas de deux; La Esmeralda Pas de deux; the Diana and Actéon Pas de deux; La Halte de Cavalerie Pas de deux; the Don Quixote Pas de deux; La Fille Mal Gardée Pas de deux; and the Harlequinade Pas de deux.
Marius Petipa was born Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa in Marseille, France on 11 March 1818. His mother, Victorine Grasseau, was a tragic actress and teacher of drama, while his father, Jean-Antoine Petipa, was among the most renowned Ballet Masters and pedagogues in Europe. At the time of Marius's birth, Jean Petipa was engaged as Premier danseur (Principal Male Dancer) to the Salle Bauveau (known today as the Opéra de Marseille), and in 1819 he was appointed Maître de ballet to that theatre.
Marius Petipa spent his early childhood traveling throughout Europe with his family, as his parents' professional engagements took them from city to city. By the time Marius was six years old, his family had settled in Brussels in what was then the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where his father was appointed Maître de ballet and Premier danseur to the Théâtre de la Monnaie. The young Marius received his general education at the Grand College in Brussels, while also attending the Brussels Conservatory where he studied music and learned to play the violin.
Just as he had done with his other children, Jean Petipa began giving the young Marius lessons in ballet at the age of seven. At first the young boy resisted, caring very little for dance. Nevertheless, he soon came to love this art form that was so much the life and identity of his family, and he excelled quickly. At the age of nine Marius performed for the first time in a ballet production as a Savoyard in his father's staging of Pierre Gardel's 1800 ballet La Dansomanie in 1827.
On 25 August 1830, the Belgian Revolution erupted after a performance of Daniel Auber's opera La muette de Portici at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, where Marius' father now served as Premier maître de ballet. The violent street fighting that followed caused all theatres to be shut down for a time, and consequently Jean Petipa found himself without a position. The Petipa family was left in dire straits for some years.
The Petipa family relocated to Bordeaux, France, in 1834 where Marius' father had secured the position of Premier maître de ballet to the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. While in Bordeaux, Marius completed his ballet training under the great Auguste Vestris. By 1838 he was appointed Premier danseur to the Ballet de Nantes in Nantes, France. During his time in Nantes the young Petipa began to try his hand at choreography by creating a number of one-act ballets and divertissements.
The 21-year-old Marius Petipa accompanied his father on a tour of the United States with a group of French dancers in July 1839. Among the many engagements was a performance of Jean Coralli's La Tarentule at the National Theatre on Broadway, being the first ballet performance ever seen in New York City. The tour proved to be a disaster, as many in the uncultured American audiences of that time had never before seen ballet. To add to the fiasco, the American impresario who arranged the engagements stole a large portion of the troupe's receipts and quickly disappeared without a trace. Upon leaving for France, Petipa's ticket only allowed him passage to Nantes, but instead of returning to that city he stowed away in the cabin of a woman he had seduced so that he could secure passage to Paris.
By 1840, Petipa had made his début with the ballet company of the Comédie Française in Paris. His first performance with this troupe was given as a benefit performance for the actress Rachel where he partnered the legendary ballerina Carlotta Grisi. Petipa also took part in performances at the Paris Opéra where his brother Lucien Petipa was engaged as Premier danseur.
Petipa was offered the position of Premier danseur to the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux in 1841. There, he studied further with the great Vestris, all the while dancing the leads in such ballets as La Fille Mal Gardée, La Péri and Giselle. While performing with the company his skills as not only a dancer but as a partner were much celebrated. His partnering of Carlotta Grisi during a performance of La Péri was much celebrated, particularly his almost acrobatic lifts and catches of the ballerina that dazzled the audience. While in Bordeaux, Petipa began mounting his own original full-length productions. Among these works were La Jolie Bordelaise (The Beauty of Bordeaux), La Vendange (The Grape Picker), L'Intrigue Amoureuse (The Intrigues of Love) and Le Langage des Fleurs (The Voice of the Flowers).
In 1843, Petipa was offered the position premier danseur at the Teatro del Circo in Madrid, Spain. For the next three years he would acquire an acute knowledge of traditional Spanish Dancing while producing new works based on Spanish themes – Carmen et son toréro (Carmen and the Bullfighter), La Perle de Séville (The Pearl of Seville), L’Aventure d’une fille de Madrid (The Adventures of a Madrileña), La Fleur de Grenade (The Flower of Granada) and Départ pour la course des taureaux (Leaving for the Bull Fights). In 1846, he began a love affair with the wife of the Marquis de Chateaubriand, a prominent member of the French Embassy. Learning of the affair, the Marquis challenged Petipa to a duel. Rather than keep his fateful appointment, Petipa quickly left Spain, never to return. He then travelled to Paris where he stayed for a brief period. While in the city he took part in a performance at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique where he partnered the ballerina Thérèse Elssler, sister of Fanny Elssler.
In 1847 Marius seduced yet another man's wife, and the husband called for a duel, yet again. Duels were banned, and the threat of court repercussions loomed over Marius, so the family decided it was best for him to leave France. Marius' brother, Lucien Petipa, was familiar with working in Russia and sent an inquiry to Antoine Titus in St. Petersburg.
This coincided with a need to find a strong male lead for the Russian ballet prima ballerina Yelena Andreyanova, (who was the mistress of the Director of the Imperial Theaters, Alexandr Gedeonov). Antoine Titus resolved dilemmas for both parties and introduced the two sides, after which Petipa and his father were invited to Russia.