Natalia Osipova 2025

Natalia Osipova

Principal, The Royal Ballet

Interviewed by David Bain
American International Church, Tue 22nd April, 2025

Following David’s welcome Natalia told us she was currently rehearsing Romeo and Juliet for her first performance in two weeks’ time, and also Onegin and Alicewhich come up in June. She met her Romeo only on Friday as Marcelino Sambé, who should have done the role, is injured. So she’ll now dance with Patricio Revé, whom she described as an amazing, beautiful dancer, so is very happy he has come to partner her. They have been working with Alexander Agadzhanov who gives so many corrections about spacing and technical points because MacMillan has a special, beautiful style which is why they do it. It’s intimate but isn’t the easiest ballet to get close to your partner, you touch and dance together and it’s beautiful but there’s not always a connection between you and it’s not like some works when you come into the studio, do a couple of steps and you click. She and Marcelino had just started rehearsing and had really special and beautiful connections and were so excited to be dancing together but it was not to be. It’s really sad but that is life.

Natalia will be dancing in Onegin with Lukas B Brændsrød whom she described as having an amazing, special talent and it’s his first big role. You feel so feminine around him, and she enjoys dancing with the younger generation - she is 38 while he’s about12 years her junior – when she can offer help and advice and hope they have a wonderful career. Then in mid-June she will be the Red Queen in Alicefor the first time. It’s a really fun role and she loves to be funny so can’t wait to do it. Asked what her reaction was when Kevin asked her to do Alice, Natalia said she immediately said yes as it was a brilliant role with so much humour and room for interpretation which she knew she’d enjoy.

At the end of the season Natalia will go on the Royal Ballet tour to Korea dancing Giselle and Corsaire. If Marcelino is recovered, she will be performing with him.

Her recent Linbury show is due to return next season. She chose the Martha Graham piece Errand into the Mazefor the first time. It’s such a difficult work for a classical dancer as it’s very contemporary so you have to learn a different style, position and how to use your body but for Natalia it’s very interesting as she loves something different and learning new things otherwise it becomes boring. She’d watched Graham’s work which she found amazing and was very pleased to perform it with Marcelino. She is strong and a very emotional person and wanted something to suit her physicality and emotional personality and Kevin said why not. It was the first time the Royal had done one of Graham’s works and she and Marcelino were pleased to receive nice compliments from Mikaela Polley, who worked with them, on the way they performed the piece. The second item was a movie of Ashton’s Five Brahms Waltzes, created for Lyn Seymour who was phenomenal in it. Natalia wondered if she would be able to do it but was encouraged to try and really enjoyed it. Kevin was keen to have a recording of the piece, and she agreed as they thought it would look good on screen. It was recorded at Alexandra Palace, a big space and very beautiful place. The third ballet was, David said, possibly one of the funniest things he had seen at the Opera House. Natalia said she wanted to do a piece by Jo Strømgren, a Norwegian, who’d worked with Rambert and really liked the idea of a dramatic role which she could play with. She’d seen it was very theatrical and her husband, a contemporary dancer, knows him well. They spoke on the phone, and he said he’d be very happy to create a work with her. It was a bit difficult as Kevin and Emma Southworth didn’t know his work, but she felt it could be done. They talked so much in English and Russian and had a really fun time. Asked by David if the idea was his or hers, Natalia said she gave him freedom to do what he felt and he had the idea of being at an exhibition speaking in different languages. It will come back next season with her original partner, Chris Akrill, and will be extended by about 10 minutes. They may swap the Martha Graham piece, which will be performed next year by English National Ballet, for a work by Alexei Ratmansky. She felt there might be a slight conflict and because she will be doing Fille at the same time it would be harder on the body with the contrast of styles. Alexei is a favourite choreographer of hers – they have had discussions, and he’ll probably create a new piece.

Natalia has worked with choreographer Arthur Pita many times. Her first was Facada . She was at the Opera House and was looking for someone she could collaborate with. She met Arthur who was working with Edward Watson on Metamorphosis, a beautiful work which really made her want to work with him. He created a quite strange piece for her and Ivan Vasiliev which worked for them. She’s now collaborated with him many times, including The Wind for Royal Ballet, and The Mother with Jonathan Goddard, her favourite of his works. It’s a dark, mystical Hans Andersen story, not really for children. It’s one of the most dramatic works she’s done, he tries to kill her and there’s so much blood, but it is beautiful as well and that’s what she likes about Arthur, the way he produces drama and conveys what he thinks to the audience. In The Wind there were so many wind turbines and she was trying to do a pirouette and almost fell, wondering how she’d achieve it. It would be interesting to try it again. People commented on the violence but there’s also so much drama in MacMillan works such as Mayerling.

Natalia hadn’t done too much earlier this season as she had a problem with her injured ankle which had troubled her for a few years. She felt she couldn’t dance because of feeling unwell from all the medication she was taking. Last year she went to San Francisco to perform Swan Lake but had to cancel before the show as she didn’t feel able to carry on. Stopping dancing for a while helped it and now, she’s back jumping and doing fouettés which feels good and makes her believe she can continue dancing for several more years. Natalia came back for Cinderellabefore doing her own show and now it’s Romeo and Juliet, Oneginand Alice. Cinderella was not so easy as it doesn’t suit her physicality and the Ashton style is so different from her training, but it is very beautiful and musical, and she loves the first act when she’s playing like a little girl, and the second act which is brilliant, so musical with lovely steps. Darcey Bussell helped her a lot and although it wasn’t easy she’s so pleased she did it. She’s done several other Ashton works – Fille, The Dream, Marguerite and Armand, Rhapsody, and Sylvia. The last we haven’t seen for a long time and it’s a most difficult work with lots of jumps, but she really enjoyed it. If it’s hard but you keep improving, it’s a good feeling. Titania is a phenomenal work, suits Natalia well and is a favourite role. Rhapsody, she found difficult, so fast with different port de bras but it’s so exciting to perform in a beautiful dress. Her heart starts pumping when she hears the beautiful Rachmaninov score! Marguerite she performed a few times but only once four or five years ago with Vladimir Shklyarov, who very sadly passed away last year.

In the past few years Natalia has danced quite often with Reece Clarke. She should have done Onegin with Vadim Muntagirov but he was unable to do it. It’s a very dramatic role with difficult partnering and she wondered if Reece, whose first role it was, could do it but he did really well and now they have done Manon, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Giselle and watching him now, she sees what an amazing and beautiful dancer he is. She’s so happy she’s been able to help him, and they’ve had such good times on the stage but after five years of dancing together it’s good to give him space to be with different partners and maybe next year they’ll be together again. The difference between Reece and Marcelino as partners is quite significant! Reece is tall and beautiful, and an amazing partner and Marcelino has so much energy and many emotions and for Natalia that’s amazing and completely different partnering which is good and important for her.

Every performance of Natalia is different. She has an energy on stage and feels a miracle comes when she’s dancing with someone like Reece but doesn’t know how or why she does something - it just happens. The choreography doesn’t change but the interpretation does, and she wants the audience to know how she feels.

She performed Different Drummer with Reece. It hadn’t been on for a long time, and she felt the wow factor when she first saw it. It’s so dramatic but there’s something magical there. Everyone’s taste in art and dance is different but for her it’s an amazing piece. For partnering it’s one of the most difficult she’s done, she fell a few times and almost cracked her head. It’s also so real that she felt very stressed afterwards. She worked with Ed Watson and also Alessandra Ferri who created the role. Natalia has known her for many years as they were both at ABT and she also was her first teacher for Kenneth’s Juliet. She was one of her favourite dancers and her favourite Juliet - dramatic, feminine on stage. She watched her in the studio and thought how wonderful she was, and she played the role so beautifully.

Moving to Kenneth’s full-length ballets, Natalia said Manon is a magical role for her though not easy as she’s nice yet not nice, sometime she loves one man and sometimes she loves another more at that time. It’s so emotional when she’s dying on an empty stage with her man. But she tells herself to calm down as if you have too much emotion you shake which makes the difficult lifts even more tricky. After a few improving performances, she feels she’s now done a good job. She danced with Carlos Acosta in Moscow for his last Manon and it was very emotional. She loves the role of Mary Vetsera in Mayerling, emotional and a bit crazy, and she first danced with Ed so it’s sad that he’s no longer dancing as he was one of her best partners, she learned from him but they only had a few opportunities to dance together. They shared the same emotions as a real couple. Later she danced with Ryoichi Hirano which wasn’t quite the same as they are so different as dancers but he is a phenomenal partner and a good dramatic actor, so she felt she had to ‘come down’ a little for him and not be quite so emotional!

What makes Ryo a good partner, asked David? He makes you feel he’s partnering you, not the other way round, and everything moves along easily. There’s a humanity and you can talk normally together so there’s a good atmosphere. Sometimes you can work together for months and nothing’s there, while at other times you just look in his eyes and it’s all there and quite magical.

Chris Wheeldon’s first creation on Natalia many years ago was Strapless, about Singer Sargent’s portrait and the scandal involved. He made beautiful choreography and there were beautiful costumes. Everything was good between the dancers and dramatically but perhaps the work could be made a bit longer. She’d love it to come back.

Before Natalia arrived at the Royal Ballet, we thought of her as Kitri and Giselle. As a guest with the company Kevin invited her to do Swan Lake with Carlos. She was then offered a contract and returned to do Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, Swan Lake and Manon but her first big success here was Giselle. Every time you dance this role you feel different, and she puts her whole heart and soul into it so it feels very special. She’s very happy it comes back next year. The Bolshoi and Carlos’ productions of Don Q are quite different. For her the Bolshoi version is in her blood and it’s the most popular ballet. Carlos’ is a very different style and choreography but is very beautiful. Apparently, Carlos would like the music faster and Natalia loves speed and it’s fiery like the character and choreography.

When she guested here in Swan Lake with Carlos she did the Anthony Dowell version and later Liam Scarlett’s version. She’d never danced Swan Lake at the Bolshoi because there she was considered too short for the role though that has now changed. She was so happy to be offered the role by Kevin, working two months with Sasha and Carlos and Anthony Dowell. It’s really difficult as you need something special for the White Swan and then change to the Black Swan, but she was very happy to do it here as she felt this version suited her physicality so much better than the Russian version.

She decided to leave the Bolshoi as she was being offered a lot of guesting abroad, but the new director wasn’t happy for her to go and this created conflict. She was about 27 which is the best age for a dancer and wanted to spread her wings so left to try something different, first with Mikhailovsky Ballet and then ABT. She also worked a lot with La Scala. She was very happy to work with so many different choreographers and dancers. After she had done Swan Lake here, she wondered what to do next as she loved London so much but immediately after the last performance Kevin offered her a contract so she said yes please!

Natalia began her training in Moscow at the Bolshoi Ballet School where she spent eight years. She did gymnastics and didn’t like ballet at first as repeating the same exercises every day was so boring for her but thought she’d do it for a couple of years for her parents’ sake. Then she might do gymnastics or become a doctor. Finally at 14 or 15 she told her parents she didn’t want to do it and left the school though the teachers were shocked as they could see her potential. So, she went to normal school for two months which was quite scary being with crazy people and thought she’d be better off at the ballet school so went back and did classical and modern dance and acting which changed her mind and she knew that’s what she wanted. People said so many nice things about her and then when she did Swan Lake they were very unkind and said nasty things which at 17 was very painful for her. But she was lucky that Alexei Ratmansky came as director and liked her a lot and gave her Don Qfor her first-year performance. He made so many creations there, the most famous was probably Flames of Paris, which she and Ivan performed and was her favourite work of his time at the Bolshoi. He made Corsaireand The Bright Stream amongst many others. She worked with him a few years ago for her programme at Sadlers Wells when he created a piece for her and David Hallberg which is very beautiful.

Because of the problem with her ankle, she’s not felt happy to guest much recently and just did her programme and danced for Royal. Next year she hopes to be back guesting as well now that her foot is fine. She knows that at the beginning of next season she will dance Fille but doesn’t yet know who her partner will be, her own programme will come back, and she’ll also do Nutcracker, Giselleand Mayerling,as well as a McGregor work. If she goes guesting it now needs to be something which really interests her with an interesting partner. She prefers to dance less but in top quality works.

She has five dogs. She loves animals so much and it’s a different sort of love which gives her energy and makes her happy and this helps with her dancing. She’d loved to have a great space with dogs and horses. For the moment she plans really well for her five big dogs, and her husband helps so much as they both understand the responsibility as you would for a child.

Questions: an audience member said she loved Natalia in Gisellebut there are so many different productions, which does she like best? She said that she’s open and will try any version but it’s not possible to compare with the classical version. The second act is beautiful, deeper, about love, forgiveness and it’s her favourite. Alexei Ratmansky has done a version similar to the original which she’s not performed but would be so happy to do it.

Who are the ballerinas she admires? Plisetskaya, Maximova so many dancers. So many here. But she always loved Alessandra Ferri and Sylvie Guillem who changed the classical world and of course Natalia Makarova. Everyone gives something special.

Seeing her in Anastasia was so powerful. Natalia said she’s very emotional, energetic, perhaps too much but this is natural to her. And how she feels is how she dances. Her intuition informs how to play and dance a role. She has hot gypsy blood from her mother’s side.

She does miss the Bolshoi which is her school and theatre but it’s not possible to go back as things are difficult. Her teacher died last year and although she misses friends and talking Russian and the atmosphere of home, she’s not missing the ballets.

David thanked Natalia so much for coming to speak to us. It’s been wonderful to have her, and we look forward to her Juliet, Tatiana and Red Queen. Patricio had danced Romeo in Queensland a few weeks ago working with Laura Morera. We mustn’t let it be another 10 years before Natalia comes to talk to us next time.

Report written by Liz Bouttell, corrected by Natalia Osipova and David Bain.

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Natalia Osipova 2025

Natalia Osipova

Principal, The Royal Ballet

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