During an exam, he danced with a student, Lidya Ivanova, a performance that was so successful that all the teachers believed them both to have great ballet careers ahead of them.

Poets including Mikhail Kuzmin devoted poems to her,[2] the Russian writer Konstantin Vaginov, even making her the prototype of his heroine.

For twenty years, he performed in many ballet roles, including:[5] After the start of World War II, in the summer of 1941, Dudko fled Leningrad and Nazi occupation for the countryside.

In the same area, there was another famous actor and opera singer, Nikolay Pechkovskiy (ru: Николай Константинович Печковский).

[6] The war ended after five years, but the Soviet government issued a decree that all those who had collaborated with the fascists were to be considered traitors.

Soviet dictionaries and encyclopedias stated that Mikhail Dudko had been a bad dancer and had performed the main roles solely because of his beautiful appearance, not because of his ballet professionalism.

Dudko was not remarkable virtuoso dance technique, but he possessed an extremely effective scenic appearance and nobility of style, played a worthy partner of the ballerinas (ru: «Острая нехватка солистов в 1920-е гг.

[9] Famous Russian choreographer and ballet dancer Rostislav Zakharov also highly praised the virtuoso technique of Mikhail Dudko.