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Vera de Bosset Stravinsky (January 7, 1889 – September 17, 1982) was an American
Vera de Bosset Stravinsky (January 7, 1889 – September 17, 1982) was an American dancer
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...
and artist. She is better known as the second wife of composer Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, who married her in 1940.
Life
Vera de Bosset was born Vera Bosse, the daughter of Eduard Bosse (1854–1927) and Hedwig von Ruckteschel (1866–1938). Both parents wereBaltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
nobility. She was sent to boarding school in Moscow, where she learned how to play piano. Vera allegedly changed her name to the French "de Bosset" to hide her German ancestry. She was the only one of her family to do so.
Stravinsky met Vera in 1921. She was a dancer and the wife of the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin
Sergey Yurievich Sudeikin, also known as Serge Soudeikine (19 March 1882 in Smolensk – 12 August 1946 in Nyack, New York), was a Russian artist and set-designer associated with the Ballets Russes and the Metropolitan Opera.
Biography
Havin ...
. Stravinsky was then married to his cousin Yekaterina Nosenko and had four children. Stravinsky and Vera began an affair which led to her leaving her husband. From then until the death of Yekaterina from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...
in March 1939, Stravinsky led a double life, spending most of his time with his wife and children and the rest with Vera. Yekaterina reportedly bore her husband's infidelity "with a mixture of magnanimity, bitterness, and compassion".
In September 1939, Stravinsky arrived in America to give the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense" and named for the university's former professor of fine arts. Distinguished creative figure ...
at Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
. Vera followed in January 1940; they were married in Bedford, Massachusetts
Bedford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population of Bedford was 14,383 at the time of the 2020 United States Census.
History
''The following compilation comes from Ellen Abrams (1999) based on information ...
on March 9.White, Eric Walter in "Stravinsky, Igor (Fyodorovich)" in ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The.'' (London: Macmillan, 1985), vol. 18, p.254.
After Stravinsky's death in 1971, Vera continued to live in the New York apartment they had bought shortly before his death. She died in 1982 and is buried with Stravinsky in Venice's Isola di San Michele
The Island of San Michele ( it, isola di San Michele, ; vec, ìxoła de San Michièl) is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, Veneto, northern Italy. It is associated with the sestiere of Cannaregio, from which it lies a short distance northeas ...
.
See also
*List of Russian ballet dancers
This is a list of ballet dancers from the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation, including both ethnic Russians and people of other ethnicities. This list includes as well those who were born in these three states but later emigra ...
References
*''Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship'', Craft, Robert, Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press. 1994. *''von Ruckteschell Family papers'', taken care of by Georg Bosse, Kentucky, USA.