Derpova

Natalia Osipova in Giselle mad scene, music by Adolphe Adam, choreography by Peter Wright after Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa, conductor Aivo Välja, artistic director Igor Zelensky. © Jack Devant for Bayerisches Staatsballett

Natalia Osipova, Riyochi Hirano, Valeri Hristov and Alexander Campbell in Kenneth MacMillan’s “Anastasia” - The Royal Ballet

Photo : Fonteini Christofilopoulou

Kenneth MacMillan, Anastasia

Yasmine Naghdi, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Olivia Cowley, Natalia Osipova and Christina Arestis

ph. Alastair Muir and Tristram Kenton

Natalia Osipova rehearses Anastasia (The Royal Ballet) 

Kenneth MacMillan created the one-act ballet Anastasia for Deutsche Oper Ballet in 1967. He was inspired by the true story of Anna Anderson, a woman who believed herself to be Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and the only survivor from the assassination of the Romanovs in 1918. Leaving the audience to decide the legitimacy of Anna’s claims, MacMillan created a haunting, expressionist work to Martinů’s Sixth Symphony, in which Anna is visited by confused nightmares of her life from the time of the massacre to her discovery in Berlin in 1920. The ballet won widespread acclaim on its premiere, particularly for the central performance of Lynn Seymour in the anguished title role. As MacMillan said in 1971, ‘I found in [Anna’s] story a theme that has sometimes appeared in my work before: the Outsider figure. Anastasia seems to me to be a supreme example of this’. One of MacMillan’s first creative acts on becoming Director of The Royal Ballet was to adapt Anastasia into a three-act, full-length work, his first for the Company since Romeo and Juliet. He created two preceding acts to the Berlin act, using music by Tchaikovsky to explore Anna’s ‘memory’ of events in the Imperial family leading up to the Russian Revolution – providing a powerful context for the disturbed Anna’s nightmares of the final act. The full ballet, first performed in 1971, was a declaration of intent: it showcased MacMillan’s dual influences, of classical, Royal Ballet tradition in the first two acts, and of German expressionism – a style then entirely new to British audiences – in the final. The ballet remains one of MacMillan’s most experimental and poignant works.

Natalia Osipova dances. Pointe Magazine, December 2012/January 2013. Photo by Nathan Sayers.

“Ballerina! What a term! I suppose I’m a ballerina. I dance all the time. I sew my shoes in the evening. It doesn’t matter what they call me. It’s the same with reviews. I don’t worry about them—good, bad—it’s the same to me. I get pleasure from dancing. I feel myself happy. I was born to give people happiness on the stage.”