Ukrainian ballerina uprooted by war flies high again in Swan Lake

After the lights dim in Budapest’s magnificent opera house, Ukrainian ballerina Ganna Muromtseva flutters high with undulating arms as she performs the lead role in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. At the end, the audience bursts into applause.

One year ago, the 29-year-old dancer fled Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on a packed train with thousands of other refugees after the Russian invasion, wondering if she would ever be on stage again.

Muromtseva was at the peak of her career at the National Opera of Ukraine when the war rewrote all her plans.

She last performed in Kyiv on 22 February 2022.

Nine days later, on 3 March, she was on a train with a friend, taking turns to share one seat during a gruelling 12-hour journey to western Ukraine. She found a driver for her mother and grandmother and convinced them to leave Kyiv as Russian bombs started to rain down.

They all met up in Lviv and travelled to Belgium, where they were welcomed by a family in a place where Muromtseva had once stayed on holiday as a child.

Muromtseva even left her pointe shoes behind in Kyiv, as all she could pack was one bag.

“When I left Kyiv I even did not count that I will dance any day again. I said bye-bye to my career,” she says between rehearsals in Budapest, as she prepares to dance the demanding dual role of ethereal white swan Odette and deceptive black swan Odile.

Muromtseva had performed the role, considered a tour de force for the best ballerinas, for more than five years with her home company, in Ukraine, China and Japan.

Performing it at the Hungarian State Opera was a dream: back at the top after a year of surviving from one day to another, and rebuilding herself as a dancer physically and mentally.

At a public dress rehearsal, Muromtseva enchanted the audience with her passionate, almost hypnotic performance.

“I’m happy to make a story on stage again,” she says. “It is a totally different production [in Budapest]. For me it feels like I really have to prove [myself] ... You have to be ... very flexible in your head, not in your body.”

The Ukrainian works on her mental balance each day, going out for long walks, and has made new friends since she arrived in Budapest last summer.

Tough training and a tight schedule help her to get by, Muromtseva says, though back in her rented flat, she sometimes cries to let it all out.

“We call it war-life balance, not work-life balance any more. It was difficult, now it’s getting a little bit easier.”

“Do what you love and then you have power to do what you have to do.”

Muromtseva was registered as a refugee in Germany last year, where she was offered new pointe shoes and a place to practise, before she auditioned for the job at the Hungarian State Opera, which has Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian dancers among its soloists and international corps de ballet.

Her mother and grandmother returned to Kyiv last year, and she is happy to be close to them in a neighbouring country in case they need help. Her mother plans a visit to see her in Swan Lake at the end of March, which gives Muromtseva emotional strength.

“It means a lot for me, as she and grandfather were always my biggest support in ballet,” she says.

Muromtseva’s father also lives in Kyiv, and her godfather has just returned after several months after being injured on the frontline, she says.

Though the Hungarian State Opera has hired her for another year, and she is happy with her new opportunity, Muromtseva would naturally like to return home one day.

“I am waiting for this day, that one day I can dance on Kyiv stage again, but for now I have a contract here.”

Photography by Marton Monus

Reuters