Osipova rejoins Bolshoi as guest star

3 NOV 15

The Royal Ballet star and former Bolshoi wunderkind Natalia Osipova is rejoining her old Moscow company as a guest star, the theatre chief announced today. She is contracted to dance a list of familiar classical roles over the season, and will be with the Bolshoi tour to London next summer.

This autumn Osipova has had to disappoint UK fans by her absence through injury from her Royal Ballet dates, scheduled to dance in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, Carlos Acosta's new Carmen and Alastair Marriott's Connectome. The Royal Ballet website states that she will dance Rhapsody, the new Christopher Wheeldon in February and Giselle.

However she is appearing at La Scala Milan as a guest star in MacMillan's Manon on November 18 and 20. As La Scala's current artistic director is Makhar Vaziev, soon to take up the top job at the Bolshoi Ballet, there may be some connectivity here. He has also engaged the Bolshoi's resident prima Svetlana Zakharova in the Manon run.

It's unclear at the moment how many performances are contracted in each company, but there would appear to be plenty of room in Osipova's 2016 Royal Ballet schedule to fit in other shows.

The Bolshoi's tour programme isn't announced yet. While Vaziev will be director in post by then, Bolshoi chief Urin has already said that present director Sergei Filin will be in charge of the tour.

Here's the TASS report.

Osipova rejoins the Bolshoi as a guest star

TASS, November 3, 10:53, by Olga Svistunova

International ballet star Natalia Osipova is returning to the Bolshoi Ballet as a guest star, the theatre’s general director Vladimir Urin has told TASS.

"We’ve concluded a contract with Natasha under which she becomes guest star at the Bolshoi Ballet,” he said. Her next Bolshoi appearances are already scheduled, Giselle on 1 and 2 December.

She will perform in the revival of the Bolshoi’s Don Quixote on the historic stage, La Sylphide, La Bayadere, Le Corsaire and Onegin, said the general diretor, adding that Osipova will also participate in the Bolshoi Ballet tour to London in summer next year.

A graduate of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, Natalia Osipova was accepted into the Bolshoi Theatre ballet company in 2004. She performed most of the roles in both classical and contemporary productions. Of particular success with public and critics were the young dancer’s performances alongside the virtuoso dancer Ivan Vasiliev.

In 2011 Osipova left the Bolshoi Theatre and became prima ballerina of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Ballet. Since 2013 she has been a principal with London’s Royal Ballet of Covent Garden.