Nikitina

Biography

Alice Nikitina was born in 1904 in St. Petersburg, Russia. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg with Preobrajenska but left Russia after the October Revolution and never graduated. In 1920, she made her professional debut in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, and from 1921, she performed with Boris Romanov's Romantic Ballet in Berlin. In 1923 she joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She created roles in Massine's 'Zéphyr et Flore' (Flore, 1925), Balanchine's 'Apollon musagète' (Terpsichore, 1928) and 'Le Bal' (The Lady, 1929). After Diaghilev's death she danced in the London Cochran revues and with Anatole Vilzak in recitals in Brussels and Paris. At the New Oxford Theatre in London, Nikitina acted in John Hastings Turner's play, 'Mayfair and Montmartre', with Alice Delysia and A.W. Baskomb. In 1932, Nikitina appeared in two films. The first was a supporting role in the French musical comedy Ma femme... homme d'affaires/My Wife as a Businessman (Max de Vaucorbeil, 1932), starring Renée Devillers and Robert Arnoux. She also appeared in the British romance film The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), starring Brigitte Helm, Joseph Schildkraut and Desmond Jeans. The film was made in both English and German-language versions. In 1933 she danced with Ballets Serge Lifar in London and appeared with de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at Covent Garden in 1937, where she created the role of the Queen in Lichine's 'Le Lion amoureux'. After retiring as a dancer she turned to singing and from 1938 performed as a coloratura soprano in Italy. Eleven years later she opened a ballet school in Paris. She was also the author of 'Nikitina by Herself' (London, 1959). Nikitina died in Monte Carlo in 1978.