Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae flirts with three new partners: Salenko, Obraztsova and Takada

After the planned retirement of Mara Galeazzi and Leanne Benjamin, and Alina Cojocaru surprising everyone after she downed pointe shoes in Tokyo and left, there were obviously some holes in the casting for the current season that new girl Natalia Osipova can't fill alone. Steven McRae is the Prince Siegfried of this story, dancing with three different girls in the season's first act.

Iana Salenko, a principal dancer with the Staatsoper Ballet Berlin will dance Kitri, with McRae as Basilio, in Carlos Acosta's new Don Quixote, on Saturday 5 and Tuesday 8 October. The Bolshoi's Evgenia Obraztsova, will be McRae's Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Tuesday 22 October and Thursday 14 November, and Royal Ballet soloist Akane Takada will make her debut as Kitri alongside our philandering prince on Friday 18 October.

Photo: from left, Evgenia Obraztsova, Steven McRae and Iana Salenko

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.