The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow has experienced a fruitful period in recent years.
Multiple international choreographers collaborated to forge the legendary dance company, then receptive to foreign talent, without losing its heritage of the classical repertoire.
Last February, with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, everything changed.
There are no longer frequent calls from colleagues abroad, but isolation and rejection.
The war also led to the departure of what was her
cousin ballerina
since 2016, Olga Smirnova, who in March decided to go into exile from Russia with her husband after denying what President Vladimir Putin called a "special military operation."
"I don't regret leaving.
How could I continue living in Russia in these circumstances, when you have to keep quiet and pretend that you support the government, or support it officially?" the artist wondered last Friday in an interview with EL PAÍS in Amsterdam, the first that granted to a Spanish medium.
The Netherlands is now the home of her and the Het Nationale Ballet (Dutch National Ballet), her new ensemble.
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Smirnova, who is still a
prima ballerina
now at the Dutch company, made a reflection in early March on the Telegram messaging app.
She said the following: “I am against the war with every fiber of my soul.
It seems that we live in the 20th century even if it is the 21st.
In modern and civilized societies, political issues should be resolved exclusively through peaceful negotiations."
At first, there was no response to her comment.
The situation turned around when two days later on Facebook the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, former director of the Bolshoi Ballet and current resident choreographer of the American Ballet Theatre, did the same.
In a matter of hours, Smirnova, one of the Russian stars, had to rethink her life.
Fearing an airspace closure, she rushed with her husband to a flight that took them first to Dubai.
Then they headed for the Netherlands.
“He is not a dancer, and he is a great support that we are together and he can work here”, she admits, with a shy smile.
Regretfully, she then explains that her parents found out about her departure when the direction of the Dutch ballet announced on March 16 that the couple was already in Amsterdam.
“Even though I talk to my family frequently, it is still very difficult for them to understand.
They don't understand how I could have left the Bolshoi, which for them is the best company in the world.
So we talk about the dance, everyday things, but it's complicated, ”he admits.
Also, one of his grandparents is Ukrainian.
On the morning of the interview, it became known that the city of Kherson was back under Ukrainian control.
She endlessly wonders what she could do, and it seems to her that the most important thing now is that the war ends and Ukraine recovers.
"There must also be a process of repentance in Russia, and then the reputation of my country will have to be restored."
She says it hurts her to see Russia as an aggressor and "to think that Russia is now largely perceived as a country of tyranny, criminals and spies."
“Someday, perhaps the world will once again recognize it as a country of great cultural, scientific and sporting achievements.
It will be a very difficult task, but I want to contribute to it with other Russian artists”.
And the young people, the people of your generation?
He sighs softly and points out that "elders have a problem of loyalties and a moral conflict."
“Young people… it's hard.
There are Bolshoi colleagues who keep quiet and I don't understand it.
Perhaps at the beginning, when you don't quite understand what is happening or there is fear.
But enough time has passed to form an opinion.
Although with an opinion you have to act, and even if you are not interested in politics, it will end up being interested in you.
What is it referring to?
“The Bolshoi is a great company.
Maybe one day they can ask you, I don't know, to dance in what the authorities call new Russian territories in the Ukraine.
It was not easy to leave, but, if I had stayed, the decisions would have been even more difficult, ”he says.
New life
From the Het Nationale Ballet headquarters, you can see the Amstel River and its many bridges, and the afternoon seems to pass slowly in the Dutch capital.
It's something he noticed from the beginning and, for a moment, jokes about his new life.
“It may sound naive, but it seems that people smile more here and have more time to reflect.
Maybe because Moscow is huge compared to Amsterdam [12.6 million inhabitants in the former;
881,000 in the other] and life goes on and on there without stopping.
That creates tensions in the way people communicate.”
She likes to drive, an odyssey in a Dutch city with narrow streets and a multitude of canals.
And she does not ride a bike "to avoid possible injuries, but I love walking and you can get everywhere on foot."
At this point, she remembers her beginnings, from her graduation at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, in Saint Petersburg, where her mother enrolled her.
“I don't have a fairytale story about a girl who always wanted to be a ballerina.
In my family there is no one close to this world.
Everything was new to me and I discovered ballet as it progressed”, she recounts.
The academy schedule was very demanding, from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon, with dance and the rest of the regular classes.
“Sometimes, she also had rehearsals for the little ones with the works of the Mariinsky Theater [the Kirov Ballet, in Soviet times], so it was not a free childhood.
But I don't have the feeling of having lost it.
I loved what he did.
Maybe there was some leadership spirit in me that helped me not to give up,” she says.
He has danced in Vienna, Hamburg and Monte Carlo, and will do so next January in Seville, at the Teatro de la Maestranza, with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo.
The chosen work is
Romeo and Juliet
, choreographed by Jean-Christophe Maillot, which she interprets for the first time in its entirety.
Among her dream roles, however, there is a ballet yet to be created.
“It is Nastasia Filippovna, the protagonist of
The Idiot
, the work of Fedor Dostoyevsky.
She is a woman whose strong personality hides a broken soul, and I would like to investigate her psychological contradictions.
It seems to me that they are at the core of human nature, ”she explains.
“It is a personal project, a character dream, which perhaps could mean as much to me as
Carmen
meant to the dancer Maia Plisétskaya”.
The desolation of the hasty departure from Russia was tempered by the good reception of his new colleagues.
Ted Brandsen, director of the Het Nationale Ballet, has welcomed his arrival, recognizing the artistic value it brings, but also the sadness of the reasons.
Smirnova confirms that she feels supported, "in a company with excellent classical productions."
She has already danced
Raymonda
, she is rehearsing
Swan Lake
and this season he hopes to work with choreographers like William Forsythe and Christian Spuck.
Although there are 80 dancers in Amsterdam, while there are 250 in the Bolshoi, she assures that she has everything she needs.
Also, the attitude towards artists is different in the Netherlands.
“Here there is a support system, with a team of specialists in physical and mental health.
They plan for the long term so that I can properly manage my load and my time, and that contributes to raising the quality of the dance.
It goes together, and it has been a pleasant surprise.
At the Bolshoi, quality is achieved above all through competition between the dancers”, she asserts.
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