Interview: The look of love – chatting with Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko – Part 1

This interview is with two of the Ballet of La Scala’s most familiar faces, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko. It was published in Dancing Times magazine in June 2022.

Two months later, in August 2022, after dancing the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet at (where else) Verona’s famous arena during a Bolle and Friends gala, Andrijashenko went down on one knee and proposed. A year later they married. When we were taking photos for the article in the piazza outside La Scala, Manni joked, “It’s like we’re doing our wedding photos!”

Earlier this year, Manni was nominated Étoile of the company.

Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko are principal dancers with the Ballet of La Scala, Milan. They often dance together and are also a couple offstage – curiously, one of three couples among La Scala’s eight principal dancers. “Nico” is from Galatina, a picturesque town south of Lecce towards the tip of Italy’s heel; “Tima” is from Riga, the capital of Latvia on the Baltic Sea.

“There are certainly differences in culture,” says Manni. “We notice it a lot, especially in our relationship with our families. In Italy we are more emotional, much more protective, they are…”

“We seem a little colder,” says Andrijashenko. They frequently complete each other’s sentences. “Yes,” says Manni, “but in reality, he has a southern soul.”

Manni started dancing as a toddler because she was taken most days to her mother’s dancing school, while Andrijashenko attended his first dancing school “as a punishment”. His father went to see the Bolshoi Ballet when he was a student in Moscow and thought that ballet might discipline his restless son.

In 2009, when he was 14, Andrijashenko came to Italy to study at Genoa’s Russian Ballet College. Was he homesick? “No. There was the sea, the mountains, good food, everything – I couldn’t wait to get there.” Manni also travelled a long way to continue her studies, moving to Milan in the north of Italy to study at La Scala’s ballet school in 2004 when she was 13. She graduated at 17, but in Italy the minimum age to join a dance company is 18: “I was obliged to go abroad, and I was at the Staatsballett Berlin for three and a half years. Makhar Vaziev, then the director of La Scala, noticed me in the school and when the right moment came, he asked me to join the company. I saw the opportunities Vaziev was giving young dancers and so, in 2013, I came back.” She spent a season in the corps de ballet before being promoted straight to principal dancer a year later.

After Andrijashenko graduated he spent six months with the Rome Opera Ballet before Vaziev invited him to audition for La Scala in 2014. “I honestly have no idea why he asked me,” he says. “I know,” says Manni, her eyes twinkling.” “You do?” “He was looking for a partner for me!”

Manni is five feet eight inches tall and Andrijashenko is six foot. So he was chosen just because he is tall? “No, no. Primarily because he’s fantastically talented,” Manni replies laughing.

In December 2014, Andrijashenko made his debut on La Scala’s stage in a minor role as one of four sailors in Nacho Duato’s Nutcracker and Manni was Clara, yet just four months later they were paired together as Giselle and Albrecht. Andrijashenko became a principal dancer in 2018.

In the recent Gala Fracci at La Scala the pair danced the notoriously difficult grand pas de deux from Rudolf Nureyev’s Nutcracker. They dutifully respected his every choreographic whim with impeccable coordination. Andrijashenko explains: “With lifts and the more complicated positions, we are already much better off because…” “We are in sync,” adds Manni. “It’s not a question of strength or lightness of the dancer, but…” “Simply the coordination, and we know each other’s dynamics so well by now.”

Their synchronisation in conversation aptly mirrors the precision of their onstage pas de deux. “Dancing together is something that makes our work a bit easier, because we start with a thorough knowledge of each other and don’t lose time,” Manni explains. “Sometimes we also talk through a choreography at home to agree on how we view it – we have meetings!”

Squabbles too? “In the beginning, a lot,” admits Manni, “but now we have found a balance.” “We’d go back home and keep on being angry with each other. You can’t do that,” adds Andrijashenko.

What about the emotion of dancing together? “The fact that we’re a couple certainly has an impact on how we feel and on our interpretation, maybe even more than the technique of dancing together,” says Andrijashenko. “Lady of the Camellias moved me greatly when we danced it together, and obviously Romeo and Juliet as well.”

“Also Manon,” adds Manni, “but I would like us to dance Onegin together. What I experienced in that ballet was very intense and I would like to share that with him.”

How much can you let yourselves go emotionally when performing together? “All these ballets have exceedingly difficult pas de deux in terms of lifts and technique,” says Manni. “It’s hard not to let yourself go too much for the success of the pas de deux yet enough for the success of the whole ballet. It’  a contrast between the emotions you feel in your heart and what you need to control in your body.”

The couple have danced together in Alexei Ratmansky‘s The Sleeping Beauty and Concerto DSCH, and the first production to push the couple into the media spotlight was when he chose them for the Milanese premiere of his reconstruction of Swan Lake in 2016.

“Ratmansky is special,” says Manni. “He immediately lets you know what he wants to see.” To give you an idea of the style? “Yes. Maybe with an image of the original performer to help us understand how the steps are the same but performed in a different way, like a cou-de-pied between the calf and the knee.

“The work in Swan Lake was very intense. He created a poetical, magical atmosphere, bringing out the human elements, so the arms are swan-like, but the look is human, and the relationship with Siegfried is sincere and alive.”

Ratmansky’s version has the orchestra respecting the original tempi, so the music is faster than a modern audience is used to. “There’s not time to go up en pointe,” she explains. Therefore the use of demi-pointe is necessary, not only stylistic. “Yes, and chainées are in sixth position not fifth, the legs are much lower, and the arms kept shorter. The spot en face is very fast for the turns. Everyone thinks it’s easier to keep the leg lower, but it’s not at all.”

Another favourite is Wayne McGregor. After the success of Woolf Works at La Scala three years ago,

McGregor is creating a new piece for the company, LORE, which will use Igor Stravinsky’s score for Les Noces. It will be seen together with AfteRite, McGregor’s take on Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring created for American Ballet Theatre, and Alessandra Ferri will reprise the role she originated.

“It was already interesting to work with him on Woolf Works, but it’s thrilling to have him create something for us,” says Manni. “It’s good when the choreographer can understand the personality of each of us and bring out the best, or even encourage us out of our comfort zone.”

“We’ll also have Miss Ferri back!” says Andrijashenko, happily. “She’s such a great artist. I felt it intensely dancing Septimus in Woolf Works. Before our pas de deux started we circled each other, just looking into each other’s eyes. It was spine-tingling.”

Read PART TWO – The look of love – chatting with Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko

Gramilano Editor

Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.