Sergei Vikharev

(1962–2017)

Born in Leningrad. He graduated from Leningrad State Choreographic School named after Vaganova (under Vladilen Semenov) and entered the troop of Kirov State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (now Mariinsky Theater). He performed leading men’s parts in The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, La Fille mal gardée, in August Bournonville’s ballets Napoli and La Sylphide. He was the first performer of Oleg Vinogradov’s ballets The Knight in the Panther's, Battleship Potemkin, Petrushka. He performed pas de deux from ballets Le papillon and La Vivandière in Pierre Lacotte’s play. He participated in Symphony in C Russian premier directed by George Balanchine (1998).

In season 1987-88 he was ballet-master in Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. In 1990s he performed the plays by Alla Sigalova Independent Troop. As a choreographer he debuted in 1995 with the ballet Leda and the Swan (music by Mahler) in Saint-Petersburg Hermitage Theater. In 1997 he directed dancing parts in Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda at Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova. In 1999 for 7 years he was the head of Novosibirsk Opera ballet troop.

He was the first Russian ballet-master to work with Nikolay Sergeev’s choreographic notations, that are kept in Harvard. Together with Pavel Gershenzon he reconstructed Marius Petipa’s ballets: The Sleeping Beauty (1999), La Bayadère (2002), The Awakening of Flora (2007) at the Mariinsky Theater, Coppélia at Novosibirsk Opera (2002) and at the Bolshoi Theater (2009), Raymonda at La Scala, Milan (2011). He also reconstructed Mikhail Fokin’s Petrushka (the Mariinsky Theater, 2000; the Bolshoi Theater, 2010) and Carnaval (the Mariinsky Theater, 2008). In 2004 he directed dancing parts in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s play Aida (Novosibirsk) and A Life for the Tsar (the Mariinsky Theater).

In 2007 he worked as the Mariinsky Theater ballet-master. In 2015 he continued his project reconstructing La Fille mal gardée at Ural Opera Ballet. In the spring 2017 he started to rehearse Paquita.

He died suddenly on the 2nd of June 2017.