19 November 2013, Tuesday

November, 19th is the birthday of Asaf M. Messerer (born 110 years ago) - the ballet artist, ballet master, pedagogue and the representative of the Messerer-Plisetskiye dynasty. Asaf Messerer is one of the Soviet ballet luminaries. He was a student of the most prominent Moscow ballet master A. A. Gorsky and the wonderful dancer and pedagogue V.D. Tikhomirov.
His outstanding talent allowed Messerer to study classical dance over a short period of time. In 1921, when he was a third year student, he was brought to the Bolshoi Theatre stage and danced the part of Prince Siegfried in "Swan Lake" and Colas in "La Fille Mal Gardee". Over the years of his creative career Messerer performed almost all leading roles in the classical and the Soviet ballet performances. Fillip in "The Flames of Paris", Basilio in "Don Quixote", the Prince in "Cinderella", Franz in "Coppélia" - he gave all these characters a brilliant and expressive plastique. Messerer was one of the first Soviet artists whose mastery was acknowledged abroad: he performed in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Turkey and the USA.
In 1924 he started to work as a ballet master. He constantly cooperated with Vs. E. Meyerhold and staged dance numbers for his productions. He made his debut at the Bolshoi Theatre as a ballet master having staged "Sleeping Beauty" in 1936. He also staged two versions of "Swan Lake" - in 1937 and 1956. In 1943, during the time of the evacuation in Kuybyshev he staged "La Fille Mal Gardee". Besides the ballet productions he created dance numbers for opera performances, as well as separate concert numbers that he often performed himself. During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1944) when the Bolshoi Theatre was evacuated to Kuybyshev he was the ballet company artistic director; during the time of evacuation he started conducting regular classes for the artists. Messerer started teaching in 1924; he educated many young ballet artists and shared his knowledge and great experience with them. It is impossible to enumerate all the artistic generations that were educated by this unique maestro, pedagogue and adviser. These are the dancers and the ballerinas that starred at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s: M. Gabovich, A. Rudenko, A. Ermolaev, V. Preobrazhensky, Y. and L. Zhdanovy, B. Khokhlov, N. Fadeechev, M. Liepa, G. Ulanova, M. Plisetskaya, I. Tikhomirnova, O. Lepeshinskaya, E. Chikvaidze, E. Maximova, V. Vasiliev, S. Adyrkhaeva, M. Lavrovsky, V. Gordeev, Y. Vladimirov, A. Boratyrev, M. Tsivin, A. Liepa, V. Anisimov, V. Barykin and others.
In 1961 together with his second wife, the ballet company soloist I.B.Tikhomirova he was sent to Brussels to establish the ballet school; he taught in the M. Bejart company "Ballet of the 20th Century". In 1977 he worked with the Australian Ballet and its school. In 1988 A. Messerer was invited to teach at the Paris Opera Ballet.

He acted in the films-concerts "Concert-Waltz" (1940) and "The Big Concert" (1951). The TV documentary "Asaf Messerer" (1989) and "The Golden Age of Asaf Messerer" (2003) tell about his life and artistic career.
Asaf Messerer received the State Stalin Prize of the 2nd degree (1941), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1937, 1951 and 1973) and the Order of People's Friendship (1984).