Classical ballet is the grand 19th-century russian ballet tradition associated above all with marius petipa at the imperial theatres of st petersburg.
Classical ballet refers most strictly to the late-19th-century Russian tradition crystallised under the French-born choreographer Marius Petipa, who served as principal ballet master of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg from 1869 to 1903. Working with the composers Tchaikovsky and Glazunov, Petipa created — and in some cases revised — the works that still define the form: 'The Sleeping Beauty' (1890), 'Swan Lake' (revised 1895 with Lev Ivanov), 'Raymonda' (1898), 'Don Quixote' (1869), 'La Bayadère' (1877). The classical ballet establishes a clear hierarchy — corps de ballet, soloists, principals — and a standard structural sequence of pas de deux comprising adagio, variations, and coda. Pierina Legnani's introduction of thirty-two fouettés in 1893 set a virtuosic standard the form has never relinquished. The Russian classical canon, exported through the diaspora of dancers like Anna Pavlova and through Soviet companies after the revolution, became the global standard against which ballet is still measured.