French ballet master Laurent Hilaire resigned on Sunday from his position as director of the Stanislavski Theatre Company in Moscow over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"I resigned yesterday," he said, after the Kremlin launched an all-out assault on Ukraine on Thursday.
"I am leaving Moscow tomorrow in view of the situation.
"I am departing with a heavy heart, but the context no longer allows me to work with peace of mind."
Hilaire was named director of dance at the Stanislavski Academic Musical Theatre five years ago, becoming only the second Frenchman to direct a ballet company in Russia in some 150 years.
He followed in the footsteps of Marius Petipa, a legendary ballet master and choreographer who directed the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet in the 19th century.
Considered as one of the most brilliant dancers of his generation, he has renewed the repertoire of the Russian company, the third after the Bolshoi of Moscow and the Mariinsky of Saint Petersburg.
From Paris to Milan
Born in 1962, Hilaire was "etoile" or principal dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet for more than two decades before heading to Moscow.
He was just 22 when, in 1985, Rudolf Nureyev, a Siberia-born ballet dancer and choreographer who had defected from the Soviet Union, gave him the highest rank possible within a professional dance company.
He has also worked with several ballets around the world, including La Scala in Milan before accepting the position of director of the Stanislavsky Theatre Ballet Company in Moscow in 2017.
(with AFP)
