Kevin O’Hare, director of The Royal Ballet, announced that the Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova will join the Company as a Principal Dancer for the 2013/14 Season, becoming a full member of the Company in autumn.
Her first performances will be as Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, partnered by Principal Guest Artist Carlos Acosta. Earlier this Season Osipova guested with the Company as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake with Carlos Acosta.
The highly awarded twenty-six-year-old Natalia Osipova is currently a Principal with both the Mikhailovsky Ballet Company and American Ballet Theatre.
Natalia Osipova was born in Moscow and started her ballet training at the age of five. She entered the Bolshoi Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet and a year later, in 2005, was asked to dance the lead role of Kitri in Alexei Fadeyechev’s production of Don Quixote for which she was highly acclaimed. In 2010 Osipova was promoted to Principal Dancer with the Bolshoi. The following year she joined the Mikhailovsky Ballet Company as a Principal.
Terrific news today, and a coup for the Royal Ballet, but one question remains: what about Ivan Vasiliev, her dazzling stage and life partner?