Adrienne Sharp: The True Memoirs of Little K

For information on the Russian ballet and its figures, I am indebted to Roland John Wiley’s A Century of Russian Ballet , Tchaikovsky’s Ballets , and The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov ; V. A. Teliakovsky’s memoirs, part two, “St. Petersburg Ballet” Alexandre Benois’s Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet ; Tim Scholl’s “Sleeping Beauty,” A Legend in Progress ; Stanley Rabinowitz’s translation of Akim Volynsky’s Ballet’s Magic Kingdom ; Richard Buckle’s George Balanchine: Ballet Master and Diaghilev ; Bernard Taper’s Balanchine: A Biography ; Francis Mason and George Balanchine’s Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets ; Alexandra Danilova’s Choura ; Tamara Geva’s Split Seconds ; Mikhail Fokine’s Fokine: Memoirs of a Ballet Master ; Lynn Garafola’s Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes ; Tamara Karsavina’s Theatre Street ; Marius Petipa’s Russian Ballet Master ; Toni Bentley’s Costumes by Karinska ; Joshua Waletsky’s film Sacred Stage: The Mariinsky Theater ; and Bertrand Normand’s film Ballerina .

For particular information on Kschessinska, I am indebted to her own memoirs, Dancing in Petersburg: The Memoirs of Mathilde Kschessinska , from which I drew many details and appropriated (with a few embellishments) the compelling dream that inspired her to write about her life—or so she claims; Coryne Hall’s biography Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs , which tracks down the truths Kschessinska preferred to overlook; and three articles from Dance Magazine : Olga Maynard’s “Kschessinska at Ninety-Nine,” Helene Breazeale’s “Mathilde Kschessinska,” and Eileen O’Connor’s “Portrait of an Era.” Penelope Jowitt’s entry “Matilda Kshessinskaya” in the International Encyclopedia of Ballet and the entry “Kshessinsky Family” from the same source were also helpful. Tim Scholl’s conference paper “My Usual Triumph: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Artist’s Memoir” was an invaluable resource.

My great appreciation to the dance historians Lynn Garafola, professor of dance at Barnard College, and Tim Scholl, chair of Russian Language, Literature, and Culture at Oberlin College, for their time in reviewing the novel and for offering their insights and expertise on both the period and the person of Mathilde Kschessinska.

I would also like to thank my editor, Courtney Hodell, for her brilliant work on this manuscript; her able and courteous assistant, Mark Krotov; my agent, Sandy Dijkstra, in all ways fabulous; and the Dijkstra Agency’s most wonderful Elise Capron and Andrea Cavallaro.

And to my family, most especially my husband, my gratitude always.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2010 by Adrienne Sharp

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sharp, Adrienne.

The true memoirs of Little K / Adrienne Sharp.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-0-374-20730-4

1. Kshesinskaia, Matil’da Feliksovna, 1872–1971—Fiction. 2. Ballerinas—Fiction. 3. Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1868–1918—Fiction. 4. Russia—History—Nicholas II, 1894–1917—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.H3432T78 2010

813’.54—dc22

2010010289

www.fsgbooks.com