Lopokova on Cecchetti

In my young days in the Imperial School, I was taught by his [Cecchetti] second in command, who used to come to the lesson with a piece of cheese in his hand, as if we were mice. But once a week, Cecchetti himself would visit our class with the look of a Mother Superior, with his baton and a fierce expression. The only accompaniment he allowed was his inimitable whistle and the tap of the baton on the floor. But a great deal of the fierce expression was probably put on to produce a Mussolini effect on the little ballerinas. Afterwards, those with promise would be taken completely into his hands, and since he followed the Diaghilev Ballet from Russia, all the principal dancers of what England knows as the Russian Ballet were brought up in the Cecchetti School. To Cecchetti, men were just men, but women flowers, and in the Imperial School of St Petersburg he only taught the girls. The pupils who had talents he loved and upbraided. His abuse was terrible. All of us he would reduce to tears. But it was a bad sign not to be abused, for that would show that one had no gifts, no possibilities.

Lydia Lopokova edited by Milo Keynes. 1983. Page 46.