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Marius Petipa

Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa, known in Russia as Marius Ivanovich Petipa (Мариус Иванович Петипа), was a French ballet dancer, teacher, and choreographer, born at Marseille on 11 March 1818.

His early years were spent touring Europe with his parents, Jean Antoine Petipa, a balletmaster and teacher, and Victorine (b. Grasseau), an actress and drama teacher, but from the age of six he was educated in Brussels, studying music and the violin at the city's conservatory. The following year he took up ballet lessons a year later, and made his stage debut in one of his father's productions in 1827. After engagemens in the Bordeaux, the United States and Madrid, Petipa was invited to become principal dancer at the Imperial Theatres in Saint Petersburg. By 1871 he had risen to the position of principal ballet master, and he remained at the Mariinskii until 1907, before retiring to the Crimea at the age of 89.

Petipa and Tchaikovsky probably met for the first time in 1886, in connection with a projected ballet on the subject of Undina, which was never realised. However, in subsequent years they worked closely together on the ballets The Sleeping Beauty (1888–89) and The Nutcracker (1891–92).

Marius Petipa died at Gurzuf, Crimea, on 1/14 July 1910, aged 92.