At the time the imperial ballet moved to the Mariinsky Theatre, Marius Petipa was at the height of his creative powers, and ballets continued to flow from his imagination and give pleasure to the theater's audiences: The Tulip of Haarlem (1887), La Vestale (1888), Le Talisman and Le Caprice du Papillon (1889). This crescendo of dance pieces climaxed on 3 January 1890 with the premiere of Tchaikovsk's Sleeping Beauty. This marked the birth of what has been termed "symphonic Ballet". For the first time emphasis rested equally on music and dance. These years coincided with a splendid and exciting dance era that began with Vsevolozhsky's appointment as Director of Ballet. Following the huge success of Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky was commissioned for another ballet. Vsevolozhsky proposed E.T.A Hoffmann's tale of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky accepted although not particularly delighted with the Story. As early as 1886, Vsevolozhsky and Petipa began to plan a revival of Tchaikovsky's Swann Lake, which had failed at its premiere in Moscow in 1877. It took the composer's death in 1893 for the idea to be realised. Tchaikovsky's brother, Modestly revised the plot, and added the Ballet blanc in Act 2, which remains the basis of Swan Lake's prodigious success. Tchaikovsky altered the course of ballet music in Russia. In a time and country where the success of a native composer was measured first of all in the opera house, in the concert room and only after that in the ballet theatre, he made ballet composition a fit occupation. He set the stage for the next significant, enduring symphonic ballet to be produced by Petipa-Raymonda, to a score by Alexander Gluzunov. The new century brought a new Director to the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg. Prince Sergei Mikhailovitch Volkonsky assumed the post in the last half of 1899. Among his early appointees was Sergei Diaghilev. The hiring of Diaghilev and his firing six and a half months later must have seemed a minor matter at the time, but in retrospect it proved to be a pivotal moment in Volonsky's short reign (he left his post in 1901). In 1908, Anna Pavlova became the first Russian dancer to undertake a foreign tour, which extended her name and fame to throughout the Baltic region, and later on to Berlin and Vienna. Born in St Petersburg in 1881, the illegitimate daughter of a Jewish Laundress and a soldier, she came to epitomise the Russian ballerina in the world. She graduated from the Imperial Ballet school in 1899, was accepted in to the Mariinsky without an apprenticeship in the Corps de Ballet the same year Diaghilev joined the Theatre staff, and her rise to the rank of Prima Ballerina was swift. She quickly became a favourite of Petipa who gave her the roles of Nikyia in Bayadere and Giselle, parts she made her own. It was with Pavlova and Nijinsky in Fokine's Chopiniana that Diaghilev opened his first ballet season in Paris in 1909. She left Russia in 1914 and from then until her death in 1931 in the Netherlands, he life was one of incessant global tours. Her name, like Nijinsky's came to be synonymous with Dance. Anna Pavlova as Fokine's Dying Swan. photo: Vili Onikul. Vaslav Nijinsky in Fokine's Le pavillion d'Armide. photo: Vili Onikul. The next important figure in Russian Choreography after Petipa to emerge from the Mariinsky was Mikhail Fokine. He had joined the troupe in 1898 and the age of 18 and was soon promoted to leading roles. He became a frequent partner to Pavlova and Karvarsina. He began his teaching career in 1902 and proceeded to institute major reforms both in the classroom and, as a choreographer, on stage. Balanchine once commented that with "Petipa, everything was drafted along straight lines, the soloists in front, the corps in the back. But Fokine invented crooked lines... For me, he really invented the ensemble in ballet". Fokine created Eunice, Chopiniana, le Pavillon d' Armide and Une nuit d' Egypte for the Mariinsky, but conflicts at the theatre would lead him to begin a separate, extraordinary and more fruitful life in the West, where he created his most memorable works expressly for Diaghilev, including Firebird, Petrushka, le Spectre de la Rose, and Daphnis et Chloé. In a short period of time, at the turn of the Century, the Mariinsky Theatre produced and nurtured an incredible amount of legendary dancers, ballerinas and choreographers, whose influence changed the face ballet dancing not only in Russia but throughout the world. The Imperial Ballet was the backbone of the Ballets Russes in Paris, which attracted many of its best dancers after the 1917 Revolution. Many stars from the Mariinsky, such as Kshessinskaya, Nijinsky, Karsavina went on to a glorious career in Russia and all over the world. Karsavina formed a memorable partnership with Vaslav Nijinsky. He came to the Mariinsky in 1907. He immediately caught the interest of the main ballerinas and was spared entering the company as a corps de ballet. Nijinsky quickly became a celebrity in St Petersburg. It is only later in America and in Europe that he became a god. The great ballerina Khessinskaya wrote in her memoirs "Before his time, the male classical dancer, considered far inferior to the ballerina, was limited to supporting her, and to dancing a few steps to give her partner a rest. Thanks to Nijinsky, he was raised to the highest level and became the ballerina's equal". He was idolised not only for his prodigious technique, but for the enormous dramatic truth he brought to his roles and the wide range of emotions and moods they embodied, from ethereal to animalistic, from otherworldliness to sexual. His break with the Mariinsky occurred in 1911 and he joined Diaghilev, who had now formed his own company in Paris, and they both went on to create dance history in the West while Nicholas II and Russia set off on a disastrous course. The last important choreographic figure at the Mariinsky during its twilight as an imperial Theatre was Boris Romanov. Although Romanov created new dance works for the Mariinsky as early as 1912, his most significant work would be done after the Revolution and Lenin's rise to power. By that time, world War I had nearly run its course, the monarchy has fallen, peace had been made with Germany, Czar Nicholas II and his family had been assassinated, and life in the country and in the Mariinsky was shaken to its very core.