Boris Kochno

Russian ballet dancer

Boris Evgenievich Kochno or Kokhno (Бори́с Евге́ньевич Кохно́; 3 January 1904 – 8 December 1990) was a Russian poet, dancer, and librettist.

Kochno was born in Moscow, Russia, on 3 January 1904. His father served as a colonel in the hussars. He studied at the Imperial Lyceum in Moscow before emigrating to Paris in 1920. Szymanowski also dedicated four poems to him. In 1920 he became Sergei Diaghilev's secretary, librettist, and eventually main collaborator. They were also briefly lovers. Kochno wrote the libretto of Stravinsky's Mavra (1921), George Auric's Les Fâcheux (1924), Henri Sauguet's La Chatte (1927), and of Sergei Prokofiev's ballet score The Prodigal Son (1929). He also wrote a libretto for Massin's ballet Jeux d'enfants (ballet) to Georges Bizet music (1932). Upon Diaghilev's death, Kochno and Serge Lifar tried but failed to hold the Ballets Russes together. The two inherited part of Diaghilev's archives and collections, which Kochno completed and part of which was acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In 1933 he co founded, together with George Balanchine, the short lived but history making company Les Ballets 1933, which made its debut that summer at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées. That same year, he and Edward James commissioned Brecht and Weill's last collaboration, The Seven Deadly Sins,

His later career included a position as ballet director with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where he became an influential figure in post World War II French ballet. Kochno authored several works, including Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, a record of the Diaghilev era, and Christian Bérard, a scrapbook of artwork by Bérard, Kochno's former lover and collaborator, along with reminiscences.

In 1925, Kochno had a "passionate affair" with American composer and songwriter Cole Porter, with whom he carried on a lengthy correspondence, as well as Porter's friend, the American diplomat and heir, Hermann Oelrichs Jr., a son of Hermann and Theresa Fair Oelrichs. which "leave no doubt that the two had a sexual relationship." He died on 8 December 1990 in Paris following a fall. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, next to Wladimir Augenblick (1911–2001).