Mikhail Messerer

Guest Principal Ballet Master

Today considered one of the world’s finest ballet teachers, Mr Messerer was born into a great dancing family, in 1948, in Moscow, where he had his training, first at the Bolshoi Ballet School as a dancer and later at the State College of Performing Arts as a ballet teacher. He has for many years lived and worked in the West, and his method of classical ballet teaching amalgamates the best pedagogical traditions of both Russian and Western ballet.

As an International Guest Teacher Mr Messerer is invited by ballet companies around the world, and he has given master classes to American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, Kirov—Mariinsky Ballet, Maurice Béjart Ballet, Monte Carlo Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Berlin Ballet, Munich Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Leipzig Ballet, Düsseldorf Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Ballet of Vienna State Opera, Ballet of Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Rome Opera Ballet, Ballet of Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Florence Opera Ballet, Ballet of Teatro Reggiî in Turin, Ballet of Teatro Arena in Verona, Ballet of Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet, English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Göteborg Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Chicago Ballet, Turkish National Ballet, Hungarian National Ballet, and National Ballet of Marseilles, as well as to such schools as the Royal Ballet School and English National Ballet School in London, the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne and the School of Teatro alla Scala.

For over twenty-five years Mikhail Messerer has been working as the Company Guest Teacher with the Covent Garden Royal Ballet. With The Royal Ballet he has toured the USA, Japan, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Israel, Argentina, Italy, China, Russia, Norway, Singapore, and Korea.

In May 2009, Mr Messerer was appointed Ballet Master in Chief of the Mikhailovsky Theatre. In 2018–2019, he held position of the Artistic Director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet. In 2019, he was appointed Guest Principal Ballet Master of the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

In 2009, he staged for the Company Swan Lake with choreography by Alexander Gorsky and Asaf Messerer. In 2010, at the Mikhailovsky Theatre he presented the world première of the revival of Laurencia, a ballet by Vakhtang Chabukiani, and in 2012 he staged his versions of La Bayadère and Don Quixote. The world première of his revival of Vasily Vainonen’s The Flames of Paris took place here in 2013. In 2014, Mr Messerer revived Asaf Messerer’s Class Concert for the Mikhailovsky Ballet, and in 2015, he staged for the Company Le Corsaire in Konstantin Sergeyev’s version. In 2016, he revived for the Company Bournonville’s La Sylphide (version by Elsa-Marianne von Rosen), in 2017 revived Rostislav Zakharov’s Cinderella. In 2020, his staging of Coppélia appeared in the repertoire of the Mikhailovsky Ballet.