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Rojo, 38, has been confirmed to return as a guest star at the Royal Ballet next February, performing the ballet originally made by Frederick Ashton for Fonteyn and Nureyev, Marguerite and Armand, a tragedy based on Dumas's novel La Dame aux camélias.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.
- The Royal Ballet opens its season with Swan Lake, performances at the Royal Opera House, London, 8 October-24 November
- English National Ballet performs Swan Lake at the London Coliseum 3-11 August
- English National Ballet opens its season with The Sleeping Beauty, performances nationwide 17 October-2 March 2013