The 2025/26 season has been a time of debuts for the Mariinsky Ballet. Now, in May 2026, with most of the season over, I would like to focus on Ryoma Hudzeleu, a soloist who moved from smaller roles to debut performances in ballets such as Le Corsaire, The Nutcracker, and Don Quixote during his first season with the company.
Photos: Julia Sumzina, @js_photo_eye
Ryoma Hudzeleu, born in Japan, studied in Minsk and graduated from the Belarusian Choreographic Gymnasium-College in 2023. He then graduated from the John Cranko School in Stuttgart in 2025, after which he joined the Mariinsky Ballet as a soloist and now rehearses under Leonid Sarafanov.
This is hardly surprising, as Hudzeleu is a laureate of the Youth America Grand Prix (Barcelona, 2023) and the XIV International Competition of Ballet Dancers and Choreographers in Moscow (2022, second prize).
After entering the repertoire with The Prince’s Friends (Swan Lake) at the beginning of the season, Hudzeleu received his first major role – Ali in Le Corsaire – on the Mariinsky’s tour to China. I had an opportunity to see not his debut performance, but a true test of his stage professionalism – Le Corsaire on January 16 at the Mariinsky Theatre, with Viktoria Tereshkina herself as Medora.
Photos: Julia Sumzina (Le Corsaire in Mariinsky Theatre)
Here, the young dancer demonstrated expressive use of the arms and hands, soaring jumps with precise landings, and the stately yet flexible presence as Ali, combined with his strong partnering skills. Ali is young, fiery, and clearly possesses an inner life of his own, allowing the audience to see a character rather than simply a dancer performing a role.
His Nutcracker Prince on December 21st, the follow-up to his debut, confirmed the same qualities in a more refined form. With the charming, always graceful, and technically precise May Nagahisa, Ryoma Hudzeleu demonstrated a confident technical base and a noble stage presence as a classical ballet prince. A light jump, clean posture, assured lifts, and an attentive sense of his partner’s presence on stage, combined with natural musicality, make his Nutcracker Prince classically charming.
Another Le Corsaire, on April 28, marked two debuts: Yana Peneva as Gulnare and Ryoma Hudzeleu as Lankedem. In Pyotr Gusev’s version, this role combines the demands of a soloist part — complex jumps, turns, and virtuoso control of the body — with those of a character role requiring sustained acting presence throughout the performance. Hudzeleu’s light footwork and natural stage charisma, together with his portrayal of Lankedem as a youthful and undeniably charming villain, made him one of the highlights of the evening. The pas de deux with Peneva, performed with remarkable ease and confidence for a double debut, left a particularly strong impression.
Photo: Julia Sumzina (Don Quixote in Mariinsky Theatre)
Hudzeleu’s debut as Basilio in Don Quixote on May 8 was, in many ways, a logical progression this season following Ali, the Nutcracker Prince, Lankedem, Le Spectre de la Rose, the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty, the Prince’s Friends in Swan Lake, the Troubadour in Romeo and Juliet, and a vibrant performance in Vyacheslav Samodurov’s contemporary Round Dances.
Photos: Julia Sumzina (Don Quixote in Mariinsky Theatre)
What stood out most in Ryoma Hudzeleu’s Basilio was his courage. His Basilio swaggered confidently across the stage, while the dancer himself seemed determined to test the full extent of both his technical and dramatic abilities. The role remains one of the great demonstrations of classical male virtuosity: double tours, cabrioles, grand jetés, pirouettes, and demanding lifts. Hudzeleu handled these challenges with seeming ease, never stepping outside the role of the young, flirtatious, high-spirited man devoted to his Kitri, danced by the ever-bright and energetic Elena Evseeva.
Photos: Julia Sumzina (Rehearsal in Mariinsky Theatre)
At once temperamental and noble, Ryoma Hudzeleu is a bold dancer with a distinct stage personality. Having received a strong classical education, trained at the John Cranko School, and now working under the guidance of Leonid Sarafanov, Hudzeleu combines Cranko’s dramaturgical clarity and musical intelligence with a finely controlled classical line and technical precision, resulting in a style that unites natural expressivity with clean classical form and marks him as a dancer of bright promise.
Text: Julia Sumzina
LA NOTTE MAGAZINE 
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