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La Esmeralda. Scene from the ballet. Olga Iordan (Esmeralda) and Nikolai Shekhmatov (Claude Frollo). Photograph from 1942–1943
Natalia Sakhnovskaya, who danced as one of the friends of Fleur de Lys, wrote in her diary: “We have to do our make-up still wearing our coats, the temperature is low, though the electricity is working, and yet we still have to wear tights and ballet costumes... Our sweet costumiers M. D. Merkulova and A. Ya. Sheinis (Anna Dmitrievna Merkulova, a seamstress and dresser of the women’s wardrobe department, and Khaya Yankelevna Sheinis, a seamstress and knitter of the men’s wardrobe department – Ed.), whose hands have lovingly ironed and sorted all the costumes, keep an eye on everyone, hemming something, lining something else... The girls are so slim and refined in their ballet tunics, shivering from the cold and anxiety. Any warm-ups are in vain, the legs just stay cold... 24 December. We danced the second performance without any fear and with enjoyment. We have made this little stage our own and have come to love our tiny Siege Theatre.”
Olga Iordan recalled that after a performance she received some presents – an onion from an unknown sailor, half a loaf of bread from a serviceman and a bottle of dark cooking oil from the performer Ivan Nechaev.
Dmitry Lazarev, who was present at the premiere, recalled that “during the interval my wife and I went backstage. Olga Genrikhovna met us with a happy laugh – ‘I looked through the peephole, the people had even taken off their mittens so they could clap louder.’”
From 12 December to the end of the war La Esmeralda was performed thirty-one times.
N. Sakhnovskaya. From Siege Diaries // Remembering again… Anthology. St Petersburg: The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, 2004. P. 45
Soviet Ballet. 1988, No 3. P. 28

The chronicle features photographs from the Mariinsky Theatre Archive, performers' family collections and the collection of the Central State Archive of Film and Photo Documents of St Petersburg.