Yulia Makhalina

Makhalina's teachers at the academy reportedly told her she would be only a corps de ballet dancer and after graduation she had signed on with a company in Lvov, but she was accepted into the Kirov after attracting the notice of then artistic director Oleg Vinogradov.

She was approached by Gennady Schreiber to learn the lead role in Swan Lake during her first year with the company, which was an unusual offer for an inexperienced dancer.

[4] A member of the Mariinsky Ballet since 1986, she has performed the leading roles in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire and Anna Karenina.

[2] She has also performed as a soloist at the Royal Danish Ballet, Berlin's Deutsche Oper, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and at the Paris Opera.

[11] During the Kirov Ballet's 1992 performance of Swan Lake at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, a reviewer for The New Leader wrote: "Although Makhalina is impressive standing still, when she moves one can see what she is missing: liberty.