Bolshoi star ballerina Alexandrova will be off the stage for a year

Bolshoi prima ballerina Maria Alexandrova, who injured her Achilles tendon on 2 August during a performance of La Bayadère in London, may not be back on stage for a year. Alexandrova received emergency medical treatment in London before being flown back to Moscow.

Svetlana Lunkina, in an interview with Izvestia, said that although healing is faster in women, it is an injury that requires a six month rehabilitation period, and full recovery takes about a year.

Bolshoi teacher Mikhail Lavrovsky, one of the company's star dancers in the 60s and 70s, said that many dancers continued their career without major problems after an Achilles tendon injury.

Yuri Vladimirov tore his Achilles tendon, and fortunately it happened in Australia, where he was treated by experts who had him dancing again in six months, and he continued to dance brilliantly.

The incident happened as Alexandrova was starting Gamzatti's second act pas de deux with Vladislav Lantratov as Solor, and they collided, something Lavrovsky says is not uncommon at rehearsals and during performances.

Alexandrova's noble Gamzatti hobbled off the stage, the Grand Pas was Gamzatti-less, her variation was cut, and corps member Daria Bochkova executed the fouettés during the coda. Exciting, maybe, for the audience; tragic for Alexandrova and balletomanes everywhere.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.