Natalia Osipova, a principal of The Royal Ballet, danced a programme of duets by Ratmansky, Khan and Strømgren in the intimate Linbury Theatre.
Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova danced a programme of duets in the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Monday 10 to Saturday 15 November 2025.
Born in Moscow in 1986, Osipova trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and joined the Bolshoi at 18, rising to principal in 2010. She left in 2011 and danced with American Ballet Theatre and the Mikhailovsky Ballet.
She joined The Royal Ballet in 2013, making her company debut in Romeo and Juliet.
This was the second Linbury evening built around her, and it returned two pieces from the first. She danced Jo Strømgren’s The Exhibition, a duet for two strangers who meet in a gallery, with Christopher Akrill. A film of Frederick Ashton’s Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan played again.
Two duets were new for 2025. Akram Khan’s Mud of Sorrow comes from his Sacred Monsters with Sylvie Guillem, and Alexei Ratmansky’s Middle Duet appeared in a revised version.
Patricio Revé partnered Osipova in both. In Middle Duet, Katie Robertson and Blake Smith played a young couple, with Rain De Rye Barrett and Damien Lee Stirk as a white and a black angel.