Russian dancer Natalia Osipova is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She joined the Company as a Principal in autumn 2013, after appearing as a Guest Artist the previous Season as Odette/Odile (Swan Lake) with Carlos Acosta. Her roles with the Company include Giselle, Cinderella, Kitri (Don Quixote), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Princess Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Lise (La Fille mal gardée), Titania (The Dream), Marguerite (Marguerite and Armand), Juliet, Tatiana (Onegin), Manon, Sylvia, Mary Vetsera (Mayerling), Natalia Petrovna (A Month in the Country), Anastasia and Anna Anderson, Gamzatti and Nikiya (La Bayadère) and roles in Rhapsody, Serenade, Raymonda Act III, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, woman with water and Tchaikovsky Pas de deux. She has created numerous roles – in The Weathering, Strapless, Woolf Works, Tetractys, Connectome, Medusa, Concerto pour deux, and works by Possokhov and Ratmansky, among others.
Osipova was born in Moscow and began dancing at the age of five. Aged eight she joined the Mikhail Lavrosky Ballet School. From 1995 to 2004 she trained at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography and on graduating entered the corps of the Bolshoi Ballet, where she was promoted to principal in 2010. Her repertory there included Kitri (Don Quixote), Giselle, Nikiya, and Gamzatti (La Bayadère), La Sylphide, Esmerelda, Princess Aurora, and Swanilda (Coppélia). In 2011 she left the Bolshoi to join the Mikhailovsky Ballet as a principal.
Osipova has appeared as a guest artist with companies around the world. In March 2012 she became a principal of American Ballet Theatre, where she created the title role in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Firebird. Her awards include Golden Masks for her performances in In the Upper Room (2008) and La Sylphide (2009), Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards (Best Female Dancer, 2007, 2010, and 2014, Outstanding Female Classical Performance, 2022), Positano Dance Awards (Best Female Dancer, 2008, and 2011) and a Benois de la Danse Award (Best Female Dancer, 2008).
