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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 an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
and artist. She is better known as the second wife of composer Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
, whom she married in 1940 after having been in an adulterous affair with him since July 1921.
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 ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...
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. 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 pneumonia 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 at Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...
. 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 14,161 at th2022 United States census
History
''The following compilation comes from Ellen Abrams (1999) based on information from Abram Engl ...
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 (, ; ) is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, Veneto, northern Italy. The island contains San Michele in Isola, a Roman Catholic church, as well as the San Michele Cemetery, Venice’s principal cemetery. It is associate ...
.
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.