Royal Ballet failed me says defecting dancer

THE Royal Ballet has failed to develop the talent of promising young dancers, according to Xander Parish, who “defected” from Britain to Russia and became a star.

Parish is the first British dancer to join the renowned Mariinsky Ballet in St Petersburg. He returns to the Royal Opera House this week after seven years to dance the lead in Swan Lake.

The Hull-born dancer trained at the Royal Ballet School and had been languishing in the corps at Covent Garden for four years when Yuri Fateyev, then deputy director of the Mariinsky, came to London as a guest teacher in 2007. Two years later, Fateyev invited Parish to join his company.

“At the time, Royal Ballet had a mindset of leaving dancers to develop, like a good wine or something, to gain strength in their own time,” said Parish.

“In Russia, they have an idea of taking raw talent, maybe not ready for the big roles, and working on it until it’s ready to be set before the audience.”

He will perform in Swan Lake, Anna Karenina and Paquita during the Mariinsky’s summer season at Covent Garden. Asked on the Today programme on Radio 4 whether it was possible for him to have remained with the Royal Ballet and danced such great roles, Parish replied: “It could have done. I certainly hope if I had stuck it out there and kept working hard it would have done.

“But the thing is, it didn’t happen there, it happened at the Mariinsky. And I’m very grateful.”

He was plucked from obscurity by Fateyev when he was “young and gangly, like Bambi” and not “up to the job”.

But he said: “The Russians saw that they could take me, train me, turn me into a prince – which is what they’ve done. It’s kind of a Cinderella story.”

Being a British dancer in Russia was unusual, he added. “It’s like selling coal to Newcastle – you don’t sell ballet to Russia.”