Anna Nikulina

First soloist of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre ballet company (b. 1985) is an honours graduate of the Moscow Ballet Academy (where she studied with Elena Vatulya), a training followed immediately by an engagement with the Bolshoi ballet. As a member of the company, she has worked with, successively, the leading Russian ballet educator, Ekaterina Maximova, and her current tutor, Boris Akimov. At the age of 19, she made her debut in the part of Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. To this day, she has to her credit creations in ballet classics including Swan Lake, The Golden Age, Don Quijote, Spartacus, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Raymonda, The Flames of Paris, Esmeralda, La Bayadère, and others. Figuring in her gallery of roles in the contemporary repertoire are principal parts in Herman Sherman, The Russian Seasons, and Jeu de cartes. In 2004 she won the Triumph Grand Prix for young artists, and in 2010 the Golden Lyre award for her account of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. On tour with the Moscow company, she has appeared in Japan (Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo), the USA (Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.), the United Kingdom (Royal Opera Covent Garden), and other venues.