He fled Russia in 1919 and spent the rest of his life in the West, producing ballets for many of the leading western companies of the time.
[4] Not for nothing did Soviet Russia describe the British and other nations that interfered in the Russian Civil War as the “foreign interventionists” Sergeyev brought with him the records of the Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov choreographies of some 20 classical ballets in the Stepanov notation, what is now known as the Sergeyev Collection, fearing that these invaluable records would be lost to posterity in the upheaval of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War that followed.
He used these records in his subsequent employment by many of the leading Western ballet companies of the time,[1] and after his death they finished up housed at the Harvard University Library Theatre Collection.
[2] In 1924 the émigré Russian Prima Ballerina Olga Spessivtseva hired him to produce Giselle for her at the Paris Opera.
He produced Giselle first for the Camargo Society and then for the Vic-Wells Company, with Spessivtseva, Markova and Dolin dancing lead roles at some of the performances.
[7] He stayed with the Vic-Wells to produce Swan Lake, Coppelia, and Casse Noisette, and then the 1939 production of Sleeping Princess.
Inglesby had the only person in the world outside Soviet Russia who could produce the classical ballets in their original Petipa/Ivanov forms, which is what she wanted her company to do.