Despite turmoil, star ballerina strikes note of optimism

Cuba's favourite ballerina, Viengsay Valdés, will run on to the stage of the island's National Theatre on 2 November, fairly certain that it won't collapse beneath her.

- Ruaridh Nicoll

Reprising the role of Giselle she first performed 25 years ago, she can't use Havana's more glamorous auditorium, the rococo Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso, because that is being devoured by woodworm.

"It is a pity, because I wish to have the International Ballet festival there," she said. "It is the home theatre of [Cuba's national ballet] company but it has been under repair for a year and a half now?" The 44-year-old recently took over as director of the storied company and so, also, as director of its biennial ballet festival, which opened this weekend. Her arrival marks a generational shift.

Valdés became director during the pandemic, following the October 2019 death of Alicia Alonso, Cuba's prima ballerina assoluta, at 98. She now has the task of renewing the ballet's reputation at a time when Cuba finds itself in a deep economic crisis. She will face power cuts, food shortages, collapsing theatres and Cuba's youth fleeing the island. And as if that wasn't enough, she pointed out: "In the middle of all the preparation, I gave birth."

Alonso had taught her many things, she said, but not how to be a director.