But in 1899 everything was changed. An excellent ballet master, and conductor and fine dancers and designers were found for the company. Muscovites began attending ballet performances with considerable pleasure.
The life of the Moscow ballet troupe was truly patriarchal. The company contained a number of married ladies and members of the corps de ballet on meagre salaries, who supplemented their
income by taking up a variety of domestic pursuits, including even the keeping of cows and the selling of milk. On one occasion I asked after an absent dancer, and was told that she could not
attend the rehearsal through illness. When I asked what precisely was the illness, it transpired that she was not ill herself, but it was her cow who was on the point of giving birth and could not be left.
"Memoirs" by V. A. Telyakovsky, Nina Dimitrievitch, and Clement Crisp in Dance Research, Vol 8, No 1, Page 40.
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