Viviana Durante (1967–). Italian ballerina, teacher and director

Viviana Durante trained at the Rome Opera Ballet School and The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1984. During her early years with the company she performed a number of soloist roles, and made her debut as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake at short notice in 1988. Promoted to principal dancer the following year, Durante also performed the ballerina roles in The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, La Bayadère, Don Quixote and The Nutcracker, and appeared in leading roles in Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody, Cinderella, Ondine, La Fille mal gardée, Birthday Offering, Scènes de ballet, Thaïs, The Dream and Symphonic Variations; Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Manon, My Brother, My Sisters, Requiem, Gloria, Prince of the Pagodas, Different Drummer, Mayerling and Anastasia; Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Biches; George Balanchine’s Rubies, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphony in C and Ballet Imperial; and David Bintley’s Cyrano. She was regularly partnered by Irek Mukhamedov and created roles in MacMillan’s Winter Dreams and The Judas Tree; Ashley Page’s Pursuit, Piano and Bloodlines; and David Bintley’s Tombeaux. Durante left The Royal Ballet in 1999 and appeared as guest artist with a number of companies, including American Ballet Theatre, K Ballet, and the Ballet of La Scala, Milan. Durante founded the Viviana Durante Company in 2017 and was artistic director of English National Ballet School from 2020 until 2024.