fri 04/10/2024

Russian superstar Natalia Osipova to perform with Royal Ballet | reviews, news & interviews

Russian superstar Natalia Osipova to perform with Royal Ballet

Russian superstar Natalia Osipova to perform with Royal Ballet

Covent Garden invites Osipova to be Carlos Acosta's new Swan Queen

Super couple: Natalia Osipova and Carlos AcostaOsipova © Charlotte MacMillan

The virtuoso Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova will guest with the Royal Ballet this autumn with Carlos Acosta in the opening run of Swan Lake.

Osipova, whose partnership with the phenomenal Ivan Vasiliev has become the most talked-about in world ballet, will dance the double role of Odette/Odile (the White Swan and Black Swan) on 10, 13 and 25 October with the RB's Cuban star Carlos Acosta, in place of Tamara Rojo, the ballerina who becomes English National Ballet's artistic director from September.

Osipova and Vasiliev caused a sensation off-stage last winter when they quit the Bolshoi to join St Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Ballet. One reason they gave for their departure was that they felt artistically constricted by the Bolshoi's casting policy, which tended to fix them in bravura or contemporary roles.

The 20-performance run of the celebrated Tchaikovsky ballet will open and close with two other off-stage couples: premiering on 8 October with the husband-and-wife team of Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares, and ending on 24 November with Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg.

rojo polunin tristramkentonRojo, 38, has been confirmed to return as a guest star at the Royal Ballet next February, performing the ballet originally made by Frederick Ashton for Fonteyn and Nureyev, Marguerite and Armand, a tragedy based on Dumas's novel La Dame aux camélias. Her partner will be the young star who sensationally quit the company last spring, Sergei Polunin, 22, with whom she had a huge success in the ballet (the two pictured right by Tristram Kenton).

The performances are intended as Rojo's official farewell to the Royal Ballet, where she has been a leading ballerina since 2000.

 



Comments

Natalia Osipova is a fantastic dancer and I adore her. However, she is not a Swan Queen.

I agree... She is marvellous in the likes of Flames of Paris and Don Quixote, but a swan queen - no. And neither was she Juliet in the production I saw recently, even with Ivan as her partner!

ITA with first "anonymous" post author. Her debut at the Mikhailovsky with Marcelo Gomes was in a word terrible. The Bolshoi Theatre management was correct to withold Odette-Odile and Aurora from her. However, this fact doesn't detract from her bravura gifts as Kitri in "Don Q" and Jeanne in "Flames of Paris." She has a comedy gift for Kitri, and Swanilda. The Romantic repertoire's tragic heroines (Giselle and La Sylphide), are best served by her tremendous ballon and aerial abilites. However the Swan Queen and Aurora simply aren't for her.

In time, we will find out whether she has the "right stuff" for either Odette/Odile and Aurora. I cetainly think she should have the oppportunities to dance these leading roles. Misha, Natalia and Rudi were all "typecast" in their home ballet companies, and left to come to the West and becoming ballet world sensations in the process!

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