• People's Artist of Russia (2008)
• Prize-winner and recipient of the Grand prix at the International Ballet Competition (Paris, 1990)
• Recipient of the Baltika prize (2001)
Born in Labinsk.
Graduated
from the Tbilisi School of Ballet (class of Vakhtang Chabukiani) and
trained at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (class of Gennady
Selutsky).
Igor Zelensky joined the Mariinsky Ballet Company in
1988, and three years later became a soloist. He has performed every
major role in the ballet repertoire and taken part in all of the
Theatre's touring projects. He has appeared at the world's leading
ballet venues, performing in the UK, the USA, Europe and South America.
Since
1990 Igor Zelensky has been a Guest Soloist with the Deutsche Oper
(Berlin), where he has performed classical ballets as well as
productions by Maurice Béjart, Roland Petit and George Balanchine.
Principal
Dancer between 1992 and 1997 with New York City Ballet, where his
repertoire included over twenty-five ballets by Balanchine, among them Theme
and Variations, Apollo, The Four Temperaments,
Brahms-Schoenberg-Quartet, Raymonda Variations, Western Symphony,
Allegro Brillante and The Nutcracker as well as works by Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins.
Guest soloist with London's Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, from 1996, where he performed in the ballets Manon and Romeo and Juliet (choreography by Kenneth MacMillan), The Sleeping Beauty (Anthony Dowell version), La Bayadère (Natalia Makarova version), Giselle (Peter Wright version) and Apollo (choreography by George Balanchine).
Soloist with London's Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, from 1997-2001.
As
a principal guest soloist he has performed at La Scala (Milan), the
Bayerische Staatsoper, the Colón (Buenos Aires) and theatres in Boston,
San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro.
In 2000 he was Principal Guest Soloist at Russia's Bolshoi Theatre, where he performed lead roles in La Bayadère and Swan Lake.
From 2001 to 2006 he was Assistant Director of the Athens Opera House and choreographer and staging master of Don Quixote, Raymonda, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and La Bayadère.
While
remaining a Mariinsky Theatre Principal Dancer, since 2006 Igor
Zelensky has been Artistic Director of the ballet company of the
Novosibirsk State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
Repertoire at the Mariinsky Theatre:
Giselle (Albrecht);
Le Corsaire (Ali);
La Bayadère (Solor);
Grand pas from the ballet Paquita (soloist);
The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Désiré);
The Nutcracker (Prince);
Swan Lake (Siegfried);
Don Quixote (Basilio);
Michel Fokine's Schéhérazade (Zobeide's Slave);
Romeo and Juliet (Romeo);
Spartacus (Spartacus) – choreography by Leonid Yakobson;
Boyarsky's The Young Lady and The Hooligan (Hooligan);
Balanchine's Apollo, Theme and Variations, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Jewels (Part II, Diamonds, soloist);
Roland Petit's Le Jeune homme et la mort (Young Man);
Kenneth MacMillan's Manon (Des Grieux).
