St Petersburg Ballet coming to The Venetian in Macau

The St Petersburg Ballet returns to this part of the world next month after their last performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in 2011. This time they’re bringing Swan Lake to The Venetian Macao as part of a tour that started in Singapore and will continue to Australia and New Zealand.

The fact that additional shows had to be added in the Singapore, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney stops confirms the troupe’s position as one of the most successful touring companies that rely on “Russian” ballet as a brand to attract international audiences.

Entrepreneur Konstantin Tachkin, who founded the troupe in 1994, says that “we are the only company in Russia with no state support or private sponsorship”. Instead, the company – which has 60 dancers and stages 200 to 250 performances a year worldwide – survives on box office receipts and in some cases, fees from venues – a remarkable achievement given the costs of international touring.

The success of the company has much to do with their prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova.

Born in Leningrad (St Petersburg), Kolesnikova was trained at the city’s renowned Vaganova Academy, one of the world’s oldest and most respected ballet schools. In 1998, aged 19, she turned her back on more famous companies and joined St Petersburg Ballet as a soloist. By the age of 21 she’d been promoted to principal and soared to stardom, so much so that the troupe’s tours are often advertised as “The Irina Kolesnikova Season”.