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Monique Simonoff
On Volodia's religious services
Volodia had a very beautiful religious service at the Ortodox Cathedral St.Alexandre Nevski, Paris,on April 12 at 1 pm.
The last survivors of De Cuevas company were there: Pardina, Giuliano, Jacqueline Moreau very moved, Damase, Mayer represented by his wife; Elisabeth Platel – who was in the midst
of the rehearsals for the Opera’s 300 years’ Celebration and
couldn’t come – send a big bouquet of white lilies; Cyril
Atanasoff; Fabienne Delorme (from the Studios Skouratoff);
Serge Perrault, who was immobilized by a sciatica sent a bouquet
of orange roses; his ancient dancers from the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux had done a homage on his “lit de mort” in Pessac and
sent a big bouquet of white lilies. Several ancient dancers, ballet
teachers, friends from everywhere who knew him were presents
at the cathedral. Mikhail Logvinov, the official photographer from
the Bolshoi, who admired Volodia very much and whom I noticed Volodia’s death, was also at the funeral.
It was a very beautiful moving ceremony, with the
choir singing those admirable and grieving mournful Slavian canticles, the language in which all the service was celebrated. I knew how much these canticles evoking the Old Sacred
Russia had a very special resonance upon his soul, remembering
him his roots.
He rests now at he Russian cemetery Ste. Geneviève des Bois on
the most ancient part called Memorial Site of the Russian Cadets
in France, next to his stepbrother and his “mama”. At left, the
graveyard of the Russian filmmaker Tarkhovski.
Father Eugène was there all the time and proceded to the Ortodox burying rite.
Monique Simonoff
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