“I am shocked by this situation that has hit us overnight and honestly, for the moment, I find myself unable to continue my career in Moscow.” So Jacopo Tissi announced his decision to leave the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, where he was appointed principal dancer last December. The news comes a few hours after the resignation of the director of the Bolshoi Theater, Tugan Sokhiev, who in a statement yesterday announced that he also wanted to leave the position of music director of the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse. No war can be justified
Jacopo Tissi wrote a long post on Instagram adding that no war like the one being held today in Ukraine can be justified. “I can’t describe how sad it was for me to leave my teachers, my colleagues and friends; special people who made me grow as an artist and as a person to whom I am and will always be grateful ”added the dancer who graduated from the Accademia della Scala.
“As a human being, I empathize with all the people and their families who are suffering. No war can be justified. Never. and I will always be against any kind of violence ”he wrote adding that“ we cannot let hatred spread, indeed, our world should be full of harmony, peace, understanding and respect. I really hope and pray that all wars and suffering will cease as soon as possible ”.
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(@jacopotissi) Tissi, noble and courageous choice
“A noble and courageous choice”. Thus the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, comments on the decision of the Italian dancer, Jacopo Tissi, to resign from the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow where he had been appointed Principal dancer earlier this year. “Tissi, Italian pride of dance in the world, with this gesture proves that he is not only a great artist but also a great person and a great Italian” concluded the minister. Jacopo Tissi
Born in Landriano, in the Pavia area, 27 years ago, Jacopo Tissi studied dance at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, graduating in 2014. Immediately after graduating he joined the ballet company of the Wiener Staatsballett under the direction of Manuel Legris, for then return to the Teatro alla Scala in the 2015/2016 season. In Milan he danced important roles with the ballet company of the Teatro alla Scala, including Prince Desire in Sleeping Beauty, Prince Charming in Cinderella, Espada in Don Quixote by Rudol’f Nureev and Des Grieux in L’Histoire de Manon by Kenneth MacMillan. In this period he also made his debut on the small screen, dancing in an episode of the eleventh edition of Dancing with the stars.
In 2017 he joined the Bol’soj Ballet, in which he made his dancing debut the main role in Le Specter de la rose. As the lead soloist, Tissi has danced many of the leading roles in the company’s repertoire, including Siefgfried in Swan Lake, Paris and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, The Prince in The Nutcracker, Solor in La Bayadere, Jean de Brienne in Raymonda and Albrecht in Giselle. Tissi was the first Italian dancer to dance with the Bol’soj.
In December 2018 he made his debut as a guest in the Mariinsky Ballet in the role of Solor in La Bayadere and returned to dance briefly at La Scala in the same part. In the following May he made his Royal Opera House debut, dancing as Romeo in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet with Marianela Nunez as co-star. Back in Russia, in 2021 he expanded his repertoire with the role of Erik Bruhn in Ilya Demutsky Nureyev’s ballet and that of Elizabeth I in Orlando, based on the novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf. On December 31, 2021, after a performance of The Nutcracker, Bol’soj artistic director Makhar Vaziev announced his promotion to the company’s principal dancer. So in recent days the decision has come to leave the company following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Photocredits: Instagram
