Сhoreographer of opera productions

Maria Bolshakova

Maria Bolshakova graduated from the Leningrad Institution of Culture in 1990 as a ballet mistress and from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in 1996 as a choreographer.

Since 1999, she has worked with the Mikhailovsky Theatre as an assistant to ballet master, artistic director of the Mikhailovsky Extras, and choreographer of the Mikhailovsky Opera. At the Mikhailovsky Theatre, she has staged the ballet productions Cinderella. The Crystal Shoes and The Nutcracker or Masha and the Mouse King, participated in staging of the ballet Demon and choreographed the movements for following opera productions: Asafiev’s Cinderella, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tsar’s Bride, Kalman’s Silva, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. She has also choreographed the children’s educational performance Getting to Know the Ballet.

In 1992–1999, she was a ballet mistress of the Buff Theatre. In 1999–2003, she was a ballet mistress of the Zazerkalie Theatre. In 2005–2016, she was a coach at the Department of the Stage Movements of the St Petersburg Academy of Performing Arts. In 2009–2012, she was the artistic director of the Music Hall Ballet. Since 2011, she has been a coach at the Stage Department of the St Petersburg Conservatoire Theatre. Since 2012, she has also been a coach of the Department of Modern Choreography of the Herzen Pedagogic University.

Maria Bolshakova has participated in staging of more than 90 productions of various genres: opera, ballet, musical, operetta, show, drama, sport show, and others. She has collaborated with Stanislav Gaudasinsky, Viktor Cramer, Alexander Petrov, and many other stage direcotrs. Maria Bolshakova has staged Prokofiev’s Cinderella, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Chulaki’s Servant of Two Masters, Herzman’s Lady Peasant, Zhukov’s Demon, and other ballets. She has created dances for Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, Slonimsky’s Hamlet, Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tsar’s Bride, Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat, Bizet’s Carmen, Kalman’s Silva and Mister X, Loewe’s My Fair Lady, Kolker’s The Marriage of Krechinsky, and other operas and operettas. She has staged dances for drama performances in many Russian cities and cooperated with many famous Russian actors. Maria Bolshakova has also been a personal choreographer of the Olympic figure-skating champion Alexey Urmanov and staged dances for the movie Anna Karenina directed by Mel Gibson. In 2017, she staged Khanuma at the Magnitogorsk Drama Theatre.

Award for the International Competition among Ballet Dancers and Choreographers (Moscow, 1991)
Award for the National Competition of Modern Choreography (Volgograd, 1994)
Award for the Open Lopukhov Competition among Choreographers (St Petersburg, 1998)
Award „For the Best Choreography in Drama Performance“ for the Zolotukhin Festival of Theaters for Youth (for the performance Romeo & Juliet; Tumen, 2016)