Tatjana Gsovsky

Tatjana Gsovsky (/Tatjana Wassiljewna Gsowskaja, born Issatschenko ; 18 March 1901 – 29 September 1993) was an internationally known ballet dancer and choreographer who was ballet mistress of the Berlin State Opera, Teatro Colón, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Oper Frankfurt. An influential teacher, she is remembered for first choreographies of works by contemporary composers including Boris Blacher, Werner Egk, Hans Werner Henze, Giselher Klebe, Luigi Nono and Carl Orff.

Career Tatjana Issatschenko was born in Moscow and studied there, first art history. She studied ballet in the studio of Isadora Duncan in St. Petersburg. After the October Revolution, she worked as a ballet trainer in Krasnodar, where she met her colleague Victor Gsovsky. They got married and emigrated to Berlin in 1924. From 1928 they ran a private ballet school. to 1966 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (then in West Berlin) and from 1959 to 1966 also at the Oper Frankfurt. In 1955, Gsovsky founded the Berliner Ballett, a troupe touring in Europe with modern Tanztheater on a classical base.

Work Gsovsky created choreographies that dominated the dance scene in Germany for 20 years, in a synthesis of classical ballet with elements of Ausdruckstanz, including findings of psychology. She was the first to create choreographies of Hans Werner Henze's Der Idiot (Berlin, 1952), Carl Orff's Trionfo di Afrodite (Milan, 1953), Werner Egk's Die chinesische Nachtigall (Munich, 1953), Luigi Nono's Der rote Mantel (The Red Cloak, Berlin, 1954), Henri Sauguet's Die Kameliendame (Berlin, 1957), Giselher Klebe's Menagerie (Berlin, 1958), Remi Gassmann and Oskar Sala's Paean (Berlin, 1960), and Boris Blacher's Tristan (Berlin, 1965). She staged the German premieres of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (Berlin, 1948) and Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins (Frankfurt, 1960). Gsovsky wrote the book Ballett in Deutschland (Berlin, 1954).

Awards

Berliner Kunstpreis of the Akademie der Künste (1954) Member of the Akademie der Künste (1955) Bundesverdienstkreuz (1969) Honorary Professor (20 May 1976) Deutscher Tanzpreis (1983) Honorary member of the Deutsche Akademie des Tanzes, Köln (1987) Order of Merit of Berlin (16 December 1992)

Literature