Irma Nioradze

• People’s Artist of Russia (2011)
• Recipient of the State Prize of Georgia (1997)
• Recipient of the annual prize Per l’arte della danza (Positano, Italy, 2003)
• Recipient of the Baltika prize (2000)
• Prize-winner at the International Ballet Competition (Jackson, USA, 1991)
• Chevalier of the Order of Honour
• Recipient of the Olympia Russian women’s public acclaim award in the category “For maintaining the traditions and developing the Russian ballet school”
• Recipient of the prize Woman of St Petersburg 2007 (founded by Women’s St Petersburg magazine)

Born in Tbilisi (Georgia).
Graduated from the Tbilisi School of Dance in 1987 (classes of Serafima Vekua and Vakhtang Chabukiani). In 1987 and 1988 she trained at the Vaganova Ballet School in Leningrad (class of Lyudmila Safronova).
From 1988–1990 she was a soloist with the Paliashvili Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Tbilisi, where she performed lead roles in the ballets Giselle, Laurencia, The Demon and The Sleeping Beauty (Lilac Fairy).
In 1991 she trained with the Danish Royal Ballet (Copenhagen).
Since 1992 she has been a prima ballerina with the Mariinsky Ballet Company (coached by Olga Moiseyeva and Ninella Kurgapkina).

Repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre includes:
Giselle (Giselle),
Paquita (Grand pas),
Le Corsaire (Medora),
The Sleeping Beauty (Aurora),
Swan Lake (Odette-Odile),
La Bayadère (Nikia, Gamzatti),
Raymonda (Raymonda),
Don Quixote (Kitri),
Michel Fokine’s ballets Schéhérazade (Zobeide), The Firebird (the Firebird) and The Dying Swan,
The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (Zarema),
Romeo and Juliet (Juliet),
The Legend of Love (Mekhmeneh-Bahnu),
George Balanchine’s ballets Apollo, Symphony in C (1^st movement) and Jewels (Rubies),
Carmen Suite (Carmen); choreography by Alberto Alonso,
Roland Petit’s ballets Carmen (Carmen), Le Jeune homme at la mort,
Goya Divertissement (the Maja); choreography by José Antonio to music by Mikhail Glinka,
Manon (Manon); choreography by Kenneth MacMillan,
Alexei Ratmansky’s ballets Le Poème de l’extase, Le Baiser de la fée (the Fairy) and Cinderella (Stepmother)
and The Magic Nut (Temptress); production, set designs and costumes by Mihail Chemiakin, choreography by Donvena Pandoursky.

Irma Nioradze has had ballets staged especially for her including Monologue about a Woman (choreography by Kirill Simonov to music by Ennio Morricone), Madame Lionelli (choreography by Kirill Simonov to music by John Adams and Gavin Bryars), Sapphires (choreography by Georgy Alexidze and Yegor Druzhinin to music by David Evgenidze and Felix Mendelssohn), Tamar (choreography by Jurijus Smoriginas after motifs from the composition by Michel Fokine to music by Mily Balakirev; concept by Andris Liepa) and The Demon (choreography by Georgy Alexidze to music by Giya Kancheli).

Together with the Mariinsky Ballet Company and as a guest soloist Irma Nioradze has performed at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia in Moscow, the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) and the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris.

2003 saw Irma Nioradze host an artistic soirée as part of St Petersburg’s tercentenary celebrations. The programme for the evening included the premiere of the one-act ballet Madame Lionelli (choreography by Kirill Simonov to music by John Adams and Gavin Bryars), in which Irma Nioradze performed the lead role. This production was also presented at the Stars of Russian and World Ballet gala concert. This was followed by a tour during which the ballet was presented at the Royal Albert Hall in London as well as at the Abai Kazakh State Opera and Ballet Theatre.

In 2004 Irma Nioradze took part in the gala concert Balanchine and His Jewels marking one century since the birth of George Balanchine. The same year, a charity concert was organised in Los Angeles on the initiative of Irma Nioradze to raise funds for homeless children and orphans. In subsequent years she has appeared in charity galas in Moscow (at the Grand Concert Hall and at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre).

She has appeared in the Russian Seasons concerts co-organised by the Andris Liepa Foundation (the role of the Firebird in the ballet The Firebird and the lead role in the ballet Tamar). These concerts were held in Moscow, Paris and London as will as in Russian towns and cities including Perm, Krasnodar, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Between 2004 and 2009 she was a guest soloist with the Opera di Roma where she appeared in the ballets The Firebird (the Firebird), Schéhérazade (Zobeide) and Le Corsaire (Medora).

In 2010 the ballet Carmen Suite (choreography by Alberto Alonso to music by Georges Bizet and Rodion Shchedrin) appeared in Irma Nioradze’s repertoire; she first performed in this ballet at the Mariinsky international ballet festival. The ballerina rehearsed the role of Carmen with Maya Plisetskaya for whom the role was originally created.

Irma Nioradze has held artistic soirées at Moscow’s Novaya Opera, the Moscow Operetta and the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre.

Over the years Irma Nioradze has been partnered by such dancers as Carlos Acosta, Julio Bocca, Mario Marozzi, Igor Yebra, Andris Liepa, Viktor Baranov, Farukh Ruzimatov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Igor Zelensky, Ilya Kuznetsov, Andrei Merkuriev, Yevgeny Ivanchenko, Andrian Fadeyev, Sergei Filin, Konstantin Zaklinsky, Igor Kolb, Danila Korsuntsev, Vyacheslav Samodurov, Yuri Posokhov, Sergei Volchkov, Andrei Batalov, Alexei Fadeyechev, Anton Korsakov, Dmitry Belogolovtsev and Mikhail Lavrovsky.

For more information, please go to the www.irmanioradze.ru