Alessandra Ferri

Described by the New York Times as “one of the greatest dramatic dancers of all time,” Alessandra Ferri was born in Milan in 1963. She trained first at the Scuola del Teatro alla Scala and then, at 15 years of age, moved to the Royal Ballet School in London, where she completed her last two years of training. She joined the Royal Ballet at the age of 17 and was appointed Principal Dancer of the company when still only 19 years old.

The choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan immediately entrusted her with all his most famous ballets and created several especially for her, one of which, Valley of Shadows, led to her winning her first Sir Lawrence Olivier Award at the tender age of 21. At the Royal Ballet she also worked with Sir Frederic Ashton and Dame Ninette de Valois. Invited in 1985 by Mikhail Baryshnikov to join the American Ballet Theatre as Principal Dancer, she would perform, often at his side, all the roles of the classical repertoire, while working with some of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century, including Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Agnes De Mille, Anthony Tudor and Jiri Kylian; it was in New York that MacMillan created Requiem for Baryshnikov and Ferri, with music by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Again alongside Baryshnikov, she also starred in the film Dancers in 1987. She remained with the American Ballet Theatre until 2007 but continued to work with the company until 2018 when Wayne McGregor created Afterite especially for her. In 1989, she also began a very long collaboration with Roland Petit, performing his ballets all over the world, as a guest of many international companies as well as the Ballet National de Marseille. Petit created the role of Le Diable Amoureux especially for her and directed her in Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan.

In 1992, she became a permanent guest at Teatro alla Scala, and it was the famous Milanese theatre that appointed her Prima Ballerina Assoluta, a title created by Marius Petipa in 1894 and given to only two Italian dancers, one of whom was Alessandra. Her collaboration with La Scala proved to be invigorating and continues to this day. There, in 1998, William Forsythe created the ballet Quartet for her. These were years of intense collaboration with Maestro Riccardo Muti, during which she performed several times in operas and ballets conducted by him.

In 2015, she also resumed her collaboration with the Royal Ballet in London, where Wayne McGregor created the role of Virginia Woolf for her in his ballet Woolf Works, for which she won her second Sir Lawrence Olivier Award. Alessandra also works frequently with John Neumeier, interpreting his choreography at the Stuttgart Ballet, La Scala and often dancing as a guest at the Hamburg Ballet. In 2016, Neumeier created the role of Eleonora Duse for her in his ballet Duse.

Throughout her career, Alessandra Ferri has also been a guest of many prestigious companies worldwide, including, to name but a few, the Opera National de Paris, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Ballet National de Cuba, the National Ballet of Canada, the Stuttgart Ballet, the Teatro Colon, the Tokyo Ballet, the English National Ballet, the New National Theater, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne. Alessandra Ferri, in addition to her two Sir Lawrence Olivier Awards, won thirty years apart, can boast many other awards such as the Prix de Lausanne, the Benois De la Danse, the Dance Magazine Award and the Dance Critics Award; in 2006 she was appointed Cavaliere Della Repubblica Italiana by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

From 2008 to 2014, she was director of the Dance section at the Spoleto Festival where she presented works by Ratmansky, McGregor, Wheeldon, Pina Bausch, Robbins, Kylian, Neumeier and in recent years has produced and performed shows that she has taken on long international tours. Two of these stand out: L’Heure Exquise by Maurice Béjart, a work created by the great French choreographer in 1998, which was lost, reconstructed, and brought back to life by Alessandra with enormous success, and Trio Concert Dance, with which in 2019 she inaugurated the Linbury Theater, the new theatre of the Royal Opera House. In 2013, at the Signature Theatre in New York, Martha Clarke created the role of Léa for her in Chéri, a show that ran for 100 performances. In recent years, she has also dedicated herself passionately to teaching, holding the rehearsals for the principal dancers of the Royal Ballet, La Scala, and the American Ballet Theatre. Alessandra Ferri has two daughters, Matilde and Emma.

Beginning September 2025, Alessandra Ferri will take over the helm at Vienna State Ballet.