Valery Panov

Galina Panova and Valery Panov in 1977 in the afternoon of a Faun

Valery Panov (Валерий Панов [Шульман]; born March 12, 1938 in Vitebsk , Belarusian SSR , USSR ) is a former Russian ballet dancer and is now a choreographer . He has been an Israeli citizen since the 1970s . Panov's original name was Schulman.

Panov studied at the Academy of Agrippina Vaganova in Leningrad (today the Russian Ballet Academy) . After a first engagement at the Leningrad Maly Theater of the Opera, he became a soloist at the Kirov Theater (now the Mariinsky Theater ) in 1960 , where he embodied around 60 roles and became one of the most important dancers for the development of the Russian ballet of his time.

Since he often met with foreigners, the KGB noticed him. Participation in foreign tours was approved less and less and ultimately completely banned.

He had a son from his first wife. Together with his second wife, the ballerina Galina Panova , after two failed attempts to escape, he applied to leave Israel in March 1972 . He and his wife were then subjected to severe psychological pressure. He was dismissed from the Leningrad Kirov Ballet . However, the attention he enjoyed in the western world prevented him and his wife from being deported to a labor camp.

Valery Panov managed to leave for Israel in 1974. But he was now too old to continue his dance career.

He began a career as a choreographer, including with numerous productions in West Germany, for example at the Deutsche Oper Berlin , but also in other European metropolises of classical ballet such as Vienna , Stockholm and Antwerp .

From 1992 to 1997 Panov was ballet director of the Bonn Opera Ballet . In 1993 he founded the Art Center in Ashdod , Israel , a ballet company with an attached ballet academy.

Valery Panov is an honorary citizen of New York City and San Francisco.

In 1998 she created the ballet Liebestod .

literature

• Valery Panov, George Feifer: Valery Panov. Ballet, my life . Belser, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-7630-9038-X .