Leap to Death

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 376, 9 June 1928, Page 24

Leap to Death

Ballet Beauties End A Love Romance

Agnessa Koreleva and Natalie Aksenova, ballet beauties, both 20, gave a tragic touch in a Moscow theatre recently to the latest revolutionary ballet, “Red Poppy,” when they plunged to death from the uppermost flies of the stage in full view of the audience.

With bauds tied, the girls crashed in mid-stage just as the thunderous revolutionary hymn, “Internationale,” was struck up by the orchestra. Fellow-artists who knew the girls intimately expressed the belief that the ballet dancers had formed a suicide j>aet due to an unusual romance. Both girls were in love with a scenery painter, Kurilko, who lately became renowned for his art. Devoted to each other, and yet both desperately in love w-ith the painter, they chose death as the best way out of the situation.

The ballet is replete with revolutionary heroic exploits, and to the spectators at a distance, who had not heard the agonised cry of the dancers, the leap was mistaken for a novel stage feat effected with dummies. Then the curtain fell, hiding from the audience the panic and tears of the ballerianas.