Elena Zaitseva

Born in Leningrad. In 1991, graduated from the Theatrical-Production Faculty of the Cherkasov State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography in Leningrad (now Russian State Institute of Scenic Arts). Collaborated with the Lenfilm Studios as assistant costume designer. In the period between 1995–2001, worked as a costume design specialist at the Mariinsky Theatre.

In 2001, came to work at the Novaya Opera Theatre in Moscow; and in 2003, was invited to the Bolshoi Theatre to fill the newly established position of Chief Specialist for design, manufacture and use of theatrical costumes. In the Bolshoi performances, her costumes are worn by the operatic characters (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 2004), as well as dancers, as in the Grand Pas classique from Paquita (2008), the ballets La Esmeralda (2009), Jewels (2011), A Hero of Our Time (2015), Don Quixote (2016), and Nureyev (2017).

She is the specialist often invited to work with old sketches. Her first experience in this field were replicas of 1890 costumes for revival of The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre (1999) — that was her first joint work with Sergey Vikharev. Hers are the replicas of costumes for the ballets Le Corsaire (2007) and Petrushka (2011, the performance revived by Vikharev), and the opera The Tsar’s Bride (2014) at the Bolshoi Theatre. Classical ballets with Zaitseva’s costumes were staged in Perm, Astrakhan, Vilnius, and Berlin.

She has been chosen as a permanent co-author in costume design by the operatic stage director Dmitry Chernyakov: their tandem accounts for about thirty productions in all large theatres around the world. Among them are the performances well known to the Russian audience: Wozzeck (2009), Don Giovanni (2010), Ruslan and Lyudmila (2011) at the Bolshoi Theatre, and Il Trovatore (2014) at the Mikhailovsky Theatre.

Beginning from 2011, the new productions of the Ural Ballet are being arrayed in the costumes by Zaitseva: the characters of La Bayadère, Conservatoire, The Nutcracker, the ballets by Samodurov Cantus Arcticus, The Salieri Variations, and Curtain. (Collaboration with Samodurov continued with the ballet Undine, 2016, at the Bolshoi Theatre.) She renewed her collaboration with Sergey Vikharev in Ekaterinburg in mounting La Fille mal gardée (2015) and Paquita (2018).