A life in the day of Natalia Osipova. Interview by Caroline Scott September 4 2016,The Sunday Times
A life in the day of Natalia Osipova.
Interview by Caroline Scott
September 4 2016,The Sunday Times
Photo is Natalia Osipova in Arthur Pita’s Run Mary Run. Photo: Alice Pennefather.
Born in Moscow, Osipova, 30, began training aged eight. She studied at the Mikhail Lavrosky Ballet School then Moscow State Academy of Choreography, joining the Bolshoi Ballet at 18. She became a principal at the Royal Ballet in 2013 after a guest appearance in Swan Lake. She lives in northwest London with her boyfriend, the “bad boy of ballet”, Sergei Polunin.
WORDS OF WISDOM* Best advice I was given: To have an interesting life, you need to learn something new every day
* Advice I’d give: Stick to your dreams and try to achieve them. it will work out in the end
* What I wish: I’d known to have been a bit more guarded
After a performance, I have no trouble sleeping through till 11am. I get so tired, I want to sleep all the time. But if I’m rehearsing, I have to force myself to wake up at 8.30. It’s hard, because I’m so stiff in the morning. Everything hurts.
My day only starts when I’ve had my coffee. It’s a ritual. It wakes me up, gets my body moving. Dancers have to eat something substantial first thing, but often I don’t have enough time, so I’ll buy a salmon sandwich on the way to the Royal Opera House.
Moscow, where I was born, is such a crowded city, I feel I spent my childhood getting squashed on the Metro, so my luxury is to take a taxi into Covent Garden every day. I never take that comfort and privacy for granted.
The older I get, the more care I take to look after myself. I get to the theatre at 9.30 to stretch every muscle at the barre for an hour. Classical practice starts at 10.30 and then I’m ready to start whatever we are rehearsing at 12. I have water or coffee, but tend not to eat.
Afterwards, I take an hour to absorb any corrections my teacher has given me. It’s a time of peace and quiet, and if I don’t have it, I can end up in a foul mood and will not be able to make the emotional connections the dance involves.
My mum still lives in Moscow, but we speak every day; she’s seen all my performances. I love my parents to bits; they’ve done so much for me. It was Mum’s idea to dance with Sergei. We met and it just felt right. I have been too open in the past, too trusting. I regret that a lot … because I have been disappointed [her ex-fiancé, Ivan Vasiliev, married the Bolshoi star Maria Vinogradova in 2015].
A lot of people gave me advice when Sergei and I became a couple. They said I’d gone off the rails, but I’ve always done what my heart tells me, and it works because we know what each of us is going through. I give him something, he gives me something. He will be performing with me this month.
On performance days I get so nervous, sometimes I want to run away. I arrive at the theatre by 1pm, so I have six hours to prepare myself and to adjust my costumes and pointes. I have a new pair for each show and getting them ready is an important ritual. I may have to move and restitch the ribbons and hammer and batter the fabric.
When you’re a child at ballet school, your feet hurt, but you toughen up. I spent my childhood and adolescence training for this life, so as well as salt and tears, I’ve invested my soul in it. Every dance affects me differently, so I need to prepare myself for it emotionally.
An hour before the show begins, I am already on stage. I need to feel secure on it: nothing should be a surprise. If one detail isn’t right it can spoil my performance. But when it goes well, I feel I am flying.
The time after the show is very emotional and very social. You want to unwind and you want to share your experience and find out how others felt. Sometimes, after a shower and a change of clothes, I go for dinner with family or my teachers. I like Japanese food and there’s a place near Richmond Park that Sergei and I love to go.
I can be quite hard on myself, but I’m so highly trained, it’s rarely a technical fault. Often it’s to do with my emotional state: the dance doesn’t feel right or I just feel it’s not happening for me.
When I get home, I oil and bathe my feet because they feel so tired and painful. If I’m happy with the show, I fall asleep. If something is bothering me, it isn’t unusual for me to be awake all night.
