Viviana Durante

Viviana Durante
Born	Viviana Durante (1967-05-08) 8 May 1967 Rome, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Ballet dancer
Years active	1984-2013
Height	1.57 m (5 ft 2 in)
Awards	Prix de Lausanne Evening Standard Ballet Award Laurence Olivier Award
Website	Official Website

Viviana Durante (born 8 May 1967) is a currently retired English-trained Italian ballet dancer, who is widely acknowledged as being one of the finest and most dramatic prima ballerinas of her time. She was a Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Teatro alla Scala and K-Ballet.

Early career

Durante was born in Rome and started ballet at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma at six years old. Spotted by ballerina Galina Samsova at age ten, she joined the Lower School of the Royal Ballet School at White Lodge in Richmond Park, London. A year later she was the subject of a Thames Television documentary entitled I really want to dance. In 1983 she graduated to the Upper School, but within a year, aged 17, she was invited to join the Royal Ballet Company. At 19 she was promoted to Soloist and at 21 she became a Principal Dancer. At the time she was the Royal Ballet's youngest principal, and a year later, in 1990, she became the youngest ever artist to receive the Evening Standard Ballet Award.

Royal Ballet Company

At The Royal Ballet, Durante danced all the main roles in ballets by Sir Kenneth MacMillan (Manon, Romeo and Juliet, Mayerling, Different Drummer, My Brother, My Sisters, Requiem, Elite Syncopations, Gloria, The Prince of the Pagodas and Anastasia, for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award), Sir Frederick Ashton (Cinderella, La fille mal gardée, Rhapsody, Ondine, A Month in the Country, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Symphonic Variations, Les Patineurs, Birthday Offering, Scènes de ballet, Thaïs pas de deux) and from the classical repertory (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Les Biches, Raymonda, Diana and Actaeon, Sylvia pas de deux).

She created roles in MacMillan's The Judas Tree and Winter Dreams (based on Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters), in Wayne McGregor's Fleur de Peux, in Ashley Page's Pursuit, Piano, Bloodlines, ...now languorous, now wild... and Cheating, Lying, Stealing, in Will Tuckett's Present Histories, in David Bintley's Tombeaux and in Amedeo Amodio's Cabiria.

She also has appeared in Bintley's Cyrano de Bergerac, in George Balanchine's Apollo, Ballet Imperial, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Who Cares? and Symphony in C, in Rudolf Nureyev's Laurentia, in Tetley's La Ronde, in Uwe Scholz's The Red and the Black, in Roland Petit's Coppelia, Carmen and Duke Ellington Ballet and in André Prokovsky's Anna Karenina.

In 1992 Durante and her fellow principal Darcey Bussell were the subjects of a South Bank Show documentary Two Ballerinas at the Royal Ballet (UK: Two Royal Ballet Dancers) and, the following year, they were both invited by the New York City Ballet for the Balanchine Celebration at the New York State Theater.

In 1995, she appeared in the title role of a ninety-minute version of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, which was telecast on Great Performances by PBS during the Christmas season.

In 1998, Durante made a return to the Rome stage as a Guest Artist in Prokovsky's production of the Tchaikovsky ballet.

In 1999, a disagreement between Durante and The Royal Ballet, beginning when she was reportedly dropped by a fellow dancer, blew up into a national media storm. After what the media called a 'dazzling 12-year career' as one of the British ballet's major stars, Durante left the company two years later, in 2001.

Subsequent career

Durante joined American Ballet Theatre as a Principal Dancer for the 1999 spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City. She has subsequently appeared as a guest artist with many major international ballet companies including La Scala Milan, Tokyo Ballet and Semperoper Ballett Dresden. Since 2003 she has been the leading ballerina of Japan's K-Ballet, founded by fellow Royal Ballet alumnus Tetsuya Kumakawa.

She has taught masterclasses at the Royal Ballet School, in Prague, in Japan, and elsewhere. She is a patron of The Hammond School. In 2010 she was a coach and in 2011 a juror of the Prix de Lausanne. In 2010 a work choreographed by Durante premiered at Dance Base, Edinburgh and the same year she collaborated with Richard Eyre on a dance adaptation of the film Truly, Madly, Deeply.

She has appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan and Harpers and Queen magazines and has been the subject of profiles in Vogue, Elle, Hello and many other publications. She has modelled for photographic shoots for Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino and for catwalk shows by Maison Gattinoni, and has appeared in commercials for Toyota. She has also appeared in several plays and films.

Critical opinion

Critics have focussed on Durante's combination of immaculate technical skill and acting ability as a mercurial blend of Latin passion and British coolness. Her Anastasia was widely appreciated and her Manon (with Russian dancer Irek Mukhamedov as Des Grieux, in particular), has been labelled as the definitive interpretation. Her performances in The Sleeping Beauty have also been widely influential, and she has been called 'the most dramatic of dancers.' The Independent has called her an 'unsurpassable actress,' the Daily Telegraph 'one of the world's greatest dancers,' and the Mail on Sunday 'the future of ballet in Britain.'

Personal life

Durante is married to British author and journalist Nigel Cliff. They have a son and live in London.

Awards and honours (selected)

• Awarded Dancer of the Year in the UK, Japan, Italy, Chile
• 1984 Prix de Lausanne
• 1989 Time Out Award
• 1989 Evening Standard Award
• 1991 Premio Positano
• 1997 Premio Internazionale "Gino Tani" per le Arti dello Spettacolo, Rome
• 1997 Laurence Olivier Award – nominated for Anastasia
• 2002 Premio Positano
• 2003 Premio Vignale danza
• 2006 Premio Bucchi
• 2007 Premio Apulia

Theatre

• 2009 Lullaby Burn – monologue written by Simon Stephens, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London
• 2008 Fram – new play by Tony Harrison, Royal National Theatre, London
• 2007 Escaping Hamlet – play at Edinburgh Festival directed by Gianpiero Borgia

Films

• 1990 Die Fledermaus (Royal Opera House)
• 1991 Winter Dreams (Royal Ballet)
• 1993 George Balanchine Celebration (New York City Ballet)
• 1993 Gala Tribute To Tchaikovsky (Royal Opera House)
• 1994 The Sleeping Beauty (Royal Ballet)
• 1994 Mayerling (Royal Ballet)
• 2000 Carmen (K-Ballet)
• 2000 Royal Opera House Opening Celebration
• 2002 Giselle (K-Ballet)
• 2002 Ogni 27 Agosto (film directed by Antonio Serrano)
• 2003 Swan Lake (K-Ballet)
• 2003 The Sleeping Beauty (K-Ballet)

References

Notes