“Rehearsals in the Soviet style”: at a ballet school at the Vienna opera, children were beaten, humiliated and inclined to smoking for weight control

Teachers of the ballet Academy at the Vienna State Opera advised children to smoke in order to maintain a slender figure, applied strength to them and insulted them in the learning process. This was found out by the investigative commission created after the first publications on cruelty with the children, published in April 2019. The opera said that some conclusions of the commission were “misleading”, and assured that they were already taking measures to correct the prevailing orders.

The case began with the publication in the Austrian magazine Falter

On April 9, the Austrian edition of Falter published a lot of material about the abuse of teachers at a ballet school at the Vienna State Opera - one of the most prestigious dance academies in Europe, founded in 1771.

According to Falter, the teachers beat students and regularly commented on their weight. The school did not provide the necessary psychological and nutritional support, which is why some pupils developed bulimia and anorexia. Former director of the Iolanta Seyfrid school said that the students were perceived as “a product that will perform in the opera”, developing a “slave mentality” in them.

More often than other pupils complained about teachers from St. Petersburg

Bella Rachinskaya, a teacher, who, according to several sources, scratched the students to blood, was repeatedly mentioned in the FALTER text and wringed their arms and legs at rehearsals. The former Prima-ballerina of the Viennese opera Gabriela Huslinger informed the publication that Rachinskaya was introduced at the Academy of “Rehearsal in the Soviet style”. Judging by the page of Rachinskaya on Facebook , in childhood she studied at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg and, according to some information , later taught there.

The publication of Falter also spoke of a man who was sexually harassed by a 16-year-old boy. The journalists did not name the name of this teacher.

Shortly after the publication in Falter, the newspaper The New York Times wrote about the orders adopted at the ballet school. Her journalists took additional comments from two former students of the Academy-20-year-old Louise Solovieva, who left the school two weeks before graduation exams, and 19-year-old Nina HIV. Both confirmed that they were humiliated by Rachinskaya and other teachers.

Solovyova said, for example, that when she was 14 years old, Rachinskaya knocked her down on the ground with a blow of her legs, which was why she damaged her ligaments and could not attend classes for two months. According to HIV, due to regular comments on the weight during her studies, she began bulimia. “They [teachers] could say something like:“ You are too thick, you need to limit yourself to water and pineapple on the weekend, ”said the former student of the academy.

Solovyov and HIV added that they repeatedly complained about Rachinskaya and other teachers to the managing director of the school, but she did not take proper actions. According to HIV, Rachinskaya herself was present at one of the discussions of the conflict, which is why she could not talk about what had happened openly. The former school teacher Sharon Bus also told The New York Times that she once saw how Rachinskaya hit her 11-year-old girl. When the complaints of pupils and their parents began to accumulate on Rachinskaya, she was transferred to classes with graduation classes. Bus believes that it was more like an increase.

The Academy itself told Falter journalists that they removed the teacher accused of sexual harassment from work, transferring information about what happened to the police, and Rachinskaya was dismissed back in January 2019 after several warnings.

The ballet school also provided a statement by Rachinskaya. In it, the teacher claimed that physical contact is an integral part of rehearsals. “In order to correct [students], it is necessary to touch them - they do this around the world,” said Rachinskaya, “I sincerely apologize to the students that I offended. I have never injured anyone intentionally or maliciously. ”

Vienna Opera promised to carry out reforms - but could not cope with systematic violence at school

Shortly after the publication in Falter, the Vienna State Opera promised to conduct “deep reforms”. “There were unacceptable things,” said Dominic Meyer, director of the opera. He added that “definitely, the teacher behaved very badly,” without specifying who it was talking about. The opera also spoke about her own investigation, which revealed “very unpleasant cases”.

The Austrian government created a special commission , instructing it to investigate the orders adopted at the Academy. The prosecutor's office also took up the case.

On December 17, the chairman of the special commission, Professor Suzanne Rindle Cracoscope, submitted a final report based on conversations with 24 participants in the events. It follows from it that the pupils of the school were subjected to brutal teaching methods and excessive loads, and the director of the Vienna Opera Dominic Meyer, who will soon be headed by the La Scala Opera Theater in Milan, could not cope with his duties.

During the investigation, the commission found out that they shouted and pulled them by the hair, and one of the teachers asked his students to start smoking, explaining that "this would help to calm down hunger and would be useful for the figure." Another teacher called his students named and the size of their clothes - for example, “Maria XS”, “Paula M”, “March S” and so on.

“It is obvious that children and adolescents [in the Vienna ballet school] are not sufficiently protected from discrimination, neglect and negative health consequences,” the report concludes. The document does not have legal force, and the prosecutor’s office continues its own investigation, Medusa told the press service of the commission.

In response to a report in the Vienna State Opera, they said that they had already reduced the loads on students, reducing the number of their performances, hired psychologists and introduced an additional nutrition course. Representatives of the opera also stated that certain parts of the report are “misleading” or “do not correspond to the current state of affairs”. They promised to provide a more detailed comment after a thorough study of the document.

Stepan Nilov