Vera Komissarzhevskaya
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Vera Komissarzhevskaya |
Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya (,
1864,
St. Petersburg -
1910,
Tashkent) was the most celebrated
Russian actress at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Vera Komissarzhevskaya was the daughter of
Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, a high-profile tenor of the
Mariinsky Theatre, and sister of
Theodore Komisarjevsky, a famous theatrical director. At the age of 19 she married Count Muravyov but preferred to keep her stage name after the marriage. Since
1896, she worked in the
Alexandrine Theatre of
St Petersburg. Her greatest triumph was the role of Nina Zarechnaya in the premiere of
Chekhov's
The Seagull in
1896.
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Komissarzhevskaya's sculpture on her grave on Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint Petersburg |
In
1904, Komissarzhevskaya established her own theatre, which proved immensely popular with the
Russian aristocracy in promoting the ideas of
Russian Symbolism. The theatre was directed by
Vsevolod Meyerhold in 1906, but his idiosyncratic approach led to Komissarzhevskaya's rupture with him the following year.
Vera's death of
smallpox during a tour in
Central Asia shocked many of her admirers and occasioned some poignant lyrics from
Alexander Blok. One of major St Petersburg theatres still bears her name.
There was a biographical film about her,
Ya - aktrisa ("I am an actress"), released in the
USSR in 1980, starring
Natalia Saiko as Komissarzhevskaya.
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