Author(s): Mackrell, Judith

Biography

Born in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova lived a long and remarkable life. Just five feet tall and a natural comedian, her vivacious personality and the sheer force of her charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes.

Through a combination of luck, determination and talent, Lydia became a star in Paris, a vaudeville favourite in America, the toast of Britain and then, most unexpectedly, she married the world-renowned economist, and formerly homosexual, John Maynard Keynes.

Lydia's story is an extraordinary one, linking ballet and the Bloomsbury group, war, revolution and the economic policies of the super-powers. She was the Russian ballerina who flitted intriguingly through the lives of so many remarkable individuals, including Nijinsky, Picasso, Stravinsky and Virginia Woolf. Above all, she was an immensely captivating, eccentric and irreverent personality: a bolter, a true bohemian and, eventually, an utterly devoted wife.

Judith Mackrell brings Lopokova gloriously to life, and claims Lydia's place as a major character - not only in the history of ballet, but also in the history of the Twentieth Century.