FACES: Ulanova Was Shining Light In Dark Times

Russians have always revered their artists and few as deeply as Galina Ulanova, for she was not simply a great dancer, but an icon for a troubled age.


In the 1930s and '40s, decades of persecution, deprivation and war, Ulanova was a candle against the darkness. Her unaffected portrayals of vulnerable but courageous heroines touched a resonant emotional chord among both the intelligentsia and the common folk. It was the ballerina's picture, not some pin-up girl, that many Russian soldiers took to the trenches of World War II.


As a longtime fan, one of thousands of mourners who filed past Ulanova's coffin at the Bolshoi Theater on Wednesday, expressed it, "There was something so pure, so genuine about her. I feel a spiritual connection to her."


Ulanova was also famous for her humility, if such a phrase can be used.


At a time when individuality was a liability, Ulanova made an art of modesty and reticence. But in her signature roles the public sensed subtle protest: Juliet struggling against hatred, the White Swan enduring against an evil realm, Giselle conquering even the grave with love and forgiveness.


Ulanova's magnetism and dramatic power could be felt even without the backdrop of Soviet reality. Well into her 40s, she was still able to move foreign audiences with her youthful Juliet during the triumphant 1956 Bolshoi tour to the West.


While a gifted actress, Ulanova was not a virtuoso in terms of ballet technique. The films of her performances have a quaintness about them, for she danced before the era of emphasis on technical perfection. Her Giselle, for example, moves at a frenetic pace in a way that, thoughgraceful, would almost be considered sloppy by today's standards.


What Ulanova displayed in abundance was style and artistry, qualities that she worked to develop in generations of dancers that followed after her retirement from the stage in 1960. Until shortly before her death last week at age 88, the trim, white-haired prima often could be seen backstage at the Bolshoi. But her heart-shaped face rarely wore a smile.


Ulanova knew loneliness. Most of her friends and her longtime companion had died. And the exalted dancer had to live on a lowly state pension.


But always, she had her work.


Ulanova's last protege, Bolshoi principal Nikolai Tsiskaridze, recalled with awe the month that the nimble octogenarian spent rehearsing him for "La Sylphide." Tsiskaridze said he was surprised to discover that a ring Ulanova had been using to demonstrate one scene was not some stage prop, but Ulanova's own diamond. "She kept tossing it to the floor as if it were a trifle," he said. "When she was working, nothing else mattered."


Tsiskaridze said the ballerina, who left no memoirs, occasionally would share a recollection from her past. As Juliet, for example, Ulanova said she drew inspiration from the night of her graduation from ballet school. While classmates made merry, the young dancer stood at a window and watched the sun rise. "I understood that a new life was beginning for me," Tsiskaridze recalled her saying. This moment found its echo in Ulanova's portrayal of Juliet's passage from girlhood to womanhood.


The sun has now set on the life of one of the great artists of this century. But the memory of Galina Ulanova will never fade.


Helen Womack is on vacation.