Anna Johansson

Anna Johannson
Anna Johannson as the Fairy Canari (center) in The Sleeping Beauty
Born	1860 Saint Petersburg
Died	1917 Petrograd

Anna Christianovna Johansson (Russian: Анна Христиановна Иогансон) (1860-1917), was a Russian ballerina who danced with the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet.

Life and career

Anna Johansson was the daughter of Christian Johansson, the noted Swedish choreographer, teacher and Balletmaster at the Russian Imperial Ballet. She studied ballet with her father and rose to a position as a noted soloist in the Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre.

She created many of the most famous soloist roles in the Petipa/Ivanov repertoire. These roles include the following:^[1][2]

• The Fairy Canari and the Diamond Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty (1890)
• The leading soloist of the Waltz of the Flowers in The Nutcracker (1892)
• The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (1893)
• Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn in The Awakening of Flora (1894)
• The Black Pearl in La Perle (1896)
• The female variation of the Grand Pas Classique Hongrois in Raymonda (1898)

After retiring from the stage, following her father's footsteps, she became a celebrated teacher of the classe de perfectionnement at the Imperial Ballet School until her death in 1917.^[3]

References

1. Wiley, Roland John (1997). The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov.
2. Wiley, Roland John (2001). A Century of Russian Ballet.
3. Clarke, Mary; Crisp, Clement (1992). Ballet: An Illustrated History.