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The first two things that strike you when meeting Maria Kochetkova, one of English National Ballet’s rising young stars, are how small and how serious she is. Yet just as the slightness of her frame gives way to a largeness in her dance, so too does her seriousness slip slowly into charming laughter and good humour. We are meeting in the auditorium of the Regent Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, during a thirty-minute break between rehearsals and preparing her hair for the evening performance. ENB maintains a regular touring programme and wherever she performs, up and down the country, Kochetkova has been delighting audiences and critics alike.

Of her performances in Kenneth Macmillan’s production of Sleeping Beauty during January 2006, John Percival wrote “she is sheer delight in everything she does…this young Russian is tiny, but dances big, and she brings such zest, polish and joy to the stage”. I too was impressed; her Songbird Fairy was of ravishing musicality and filigree precision and her Princess Florine, (in the tale of the young girl trapped in the tower in love with Bluebird), for all of its five minutes, contained a wonderful inner-drama and spoke with crystalline poetry. It was, I thought, one of her finest roles so far. “I do know the story”, she explains, “and I get a thrill from it, but I think when you get to a certain stage, you cannot think about the story. It’s about how you feel, and how it shows. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I did the role. I did the Bluebird Pas de Deux first when I was at school.”

For Kochetkova, school is the Moscow Choreographic Academy, the Bolshoi’s ballet school, where she studied in the same year as Polina Semionova, now Principal dancer with the Staatsballett in Berlin. Like Semionova, however, Kochetkova’s career has taken her away from Russia and Moscow: in 2002 she was a prize winner in the Prix de Lausanne (the same year as Yuhui Choe) and awarded an apprenticeship with the Royal Ballet; “I thought if I was offered this scholarship over a hundred other girls I had to try it, and if I didn’t like it I could go back to Moscow.”

She did not, in the end, return to Moscow and in 2003 she transferred to English National Ballet, where earlier this year she was promoted from Artist to Soloist level, a rank she admits may not necessarily offer her many more important roles, but a promotion nevertheless that proves Wayne Eagling and the company’s administration have confidence in her abilities. And confidence they must certainly have, for since joining the company she has been steadily working her way through and making her mark on its repertoire.
 

Her roles in Sleeping Beauty were just some of many that she has taken on – Clara in Christopher Hampson’s Nutcracker and in the 2005 London season she made her debut as the Sugar Plum Fairy, under the guidance of her mentor, ENB’s wonderful Senior Principal, Elena Glurdjidze. In October last year, to open the company’s winter season in Manchester, she debuted as the heroine in Derek Deane’s 1995 production of Alice in Wonderland. Does she, I wonder, empathize with these “little girl” roles or is she beginning to feel that she is growing out of them? “Yes. I don’t really have to think much when I do Alice or Clara, they’re both my kind of personality. I would like to have roles that I can think about and work on more. I would like to dance Juliet, in the Nureyev production.” I tell her that I think she would make a perfect Aurora. “I would love to dance that role with this company, we are hopefully doing the production again soon.” She has already danced the role, along with Giselle, outside of the company with the National Ballet of Belarus, with whom, she tells me she is to dance the complete Don Quixote in April.

But if it is “thinking” roles she is after, would she ever consider the title part of a ballet such as Manon? “Yes…”, she hesitates, “yes, but it’s hard to tell. If I don’t start doing that kind of role now, by the time I actually get to do it, I won’t be ready for it. Doing all the “little girl” roles is not going to make me a great dancer, so I think I have to start doing these roles now, so I can grow into them.”

I tell her that the reason I mentioned Manon was because it was in the tiniest of cameo roles, during performances of the ballet at Covent Garden, that she first sprang to many people’s attention. In the Act 2 Brothel Scene, it was the young Kochetkova who had the responsibility for relieving Manon of her coat. At just the right moment, with the most brilliant strokes of comic timing, she would collapse under its weight. It was not something that anyone had done before, but now, I tell her, everybody seems to do it. She giggles delightedly. “Oh! I did not do it on purpose. I think it was in the dress rehearsal that I did it for the first time. When she threw the coat, it was so heavy! I didn’t expect it because I hadn’t tried it with the costumes and I just fell. Afterwards I went to Monica [Mason] and said ‘Oh I am very sorry, I didn’t mean to do it’, and she said, ‘I think I like that. I think you should keep it’. And there it remains, as Kochetkova’s lasting imprint on the ballet.

Another completely different work, in which - to those who saw Kochetkova’s performances - she made an indelible impression, was in Thomas Edur’s 2006 piece Anima, premiered at the Britten Theatre in London last September. “I enjoy new ballet”, she enthuses, “I love contemporary work.” One of six dancers, it presented Kochetkova, the classicist, in an entirely different light. Was it an experience she enjoyed? “Yes, but we had problems with the music.” The score was composed by Charlie Piper and consisted, as she proceeds to demonstrate to me in dulcet tone, of “boom-lalalala-boom-lalalala-boom”, in which the boom, she explains, represents the beat. “I do like that kind of music”, she affirms, “but we rehearsed with the CD and when the orchestra had to play it was completely different and I said to Tom – ‘Help, I do not understand the music!’”
 

She is also currently dancing in Christopher Hampson’s Sinfonietta Giocosa to Martinu’s similarly complex score for piano and orchestra. Has she had the same problem? “Yes. When the orchestra and pianist started playing I heard the same melody for my variation, but in completely different time and I didn’t know what to do. So I thought I would stick with the slower tempo, because if it goes too fast I would go wrong.” It turned out to be the mistake of the pianist. After the rehearsal, Kochetkova approached the pianist to ask why it hadn’t been the same as in class. ‘Ah yes’, the pianist admitted wryly, ‘I think next time I had better watch the conductor!’

Music and musicality is something that defines a Kochetkova performance. In preparing for the interview I found a clip of her on “YouTube”, dancing the Esmeralda variation at a competition in Seoul. (“Yes! There are many clips now,” she excitedly interjects, “you just have to click on my name.”) I had to watch it without the sound, I explain, because my speakers were broken, but even without any sound, you could almost hear the music coming from her performance. She admits that music is her driving force: “I think, for me, music is ninety per cent; it gives me an energy. Even music I haven’t heard so many times, such as the Triple Bill we are doing now, I enjoy doing it so much because it gives me such an energy. I would rather watch something to new music than SwanLake, which is beautiful but I have heard it so many times.”

She has admitted in previous interviews that she likes to listen to her iPod before going on stage as it helps her to focus. But, she retorts, “I listen to my iPod even when I don’t have to go on stage!” What then, is she listening to at the moment? “The last thing I got was the Bach Violin Concerto, because I think I have to dance to it in Richmond and I have to get used to the music, and it is quite complicated. I also recently got two CD’s of Arvo Pärt.” That’s quite complex, I suggest. “Yes, it’s not easy listening for me, but when I need to concentrate, sometimes it helps. Did you watch ABT in London?” I am about to say I did when she scampers on, “Oh that Philip Glass. I love this music! All the time I was going…” and she demonstrates the rhythmic pulse of In The Upper Room with a series of animated head-butting gestures.

What did she think of ABT? “To be honest, when I watched the first performance [Thursday evening] from the Stalls, I was really disappointed, because I had kind of expected a lot, and I had heard so much about them, and I had seen some movie clips, but then I watched it really close and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s not really a Classical company’. But then I watched them a second time from the Second Circle [on Sunday evening] and I said, ‘Mmm, not too bad’ and soloists I didn’t like the first time I thought ‘Oh, they’re not all that bad’. But I did not think ‘Oh wow’, and ‘That’s amazing!’”

I agree with her that the Bayadere extract was disappointing, but surely Fancy Free had shown ABT at its best? “Yes, that was I good, I enjoyed it, but it is not really classical ballet. You know the last thing that I have really enjoyed in the last two years was Sylvie [Guillem] in Push at Sadler’s Wells. That was amazing! I think she is such an inspiration. I don’t really get the same feeling when watching classical ballet, though yesterday I watched a DVD of Zakharova doing SwanLake with Bolle and that was beautiful.” Is she a fan of Zakharova? “Yes…”, she thinks to herself, “but I don’t really like her at the moment. I think she shouldn’t have gone to the Bolshoi. It is not the place for her, but I like her.”

Would she return to the Bolshoi? “No,” she exclaims emphatically, “I don’t want to go back now.” Not even if the Bolshoi came and offered her a contract here and now? “No. I don’t think it is about ballet anymore. It is about a lot of different things and I would like just to dance and be more in the world of the ballet, rather than having to deal with other problems. I know it from before. I know what it is like. I have taken classes there, I have worked with teachers, I have a lot of friends there and it is not a company I want to join.” Would she ever consider returning to Russia? “If I had to join something, I would like to study at the Vaganova Academy, but I think it is too late now. But I think I am good enough for the company.”

So she is happy at ENB? “Yes. I think Wayne Eagling is trying to bring different pieces into the company.” Is he re-focusing its image? “I don’t think he is going to make it a more classical company, but like other companies he is doing more contemporary work, which I do not mind doing - I love contemporary work.” What about the travelling? “It can be so tiring sometimes. We just got here in Stoke last night and everywhere was closed and we couldn’t even get food. Today we have rehearsals all day and tomorrow night, after the performance, we leave.” So how then, in the midst of all this work and travel, does she unwind? “I like watching documentaries and trying to visit exhibitions. I also love walking.” She also, I presume, listens to her iPod. Our time is up. Orchestral musicians are beginning to tune up for another rehearsal. As we are getting up, she asks me who I am writing for. Ballet.co, I explain. “Oh yes, I always read that”, she says. “You must watch me on YouTube, there are sixteen clips now”. I will, I promise. My speakers are still not working, but with Kochetkova it does not matter.