Maria Baranova

Principal Dancer

Maria Baranova started her professional training with the Helsinki Dance Institute in 1999. As a student she participated in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition where John Neumeier invited her to join the Hamburg Ballet School on a scholarship. Under Mr. Neumeier’s thorough guidance, she quickly moved to the graduating class and graduated within a year. At the age of sixteen, Maria won the Helsinki International Ballet Competition in 2009 (Junior Female Division) and joined the Hamburg Ballet. There, she performed many roles in Neumeier’s original creations as well as various soloist and principal parts. In 2010. she received the Bronze Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. In 2011, Maria Baranova won the Erik Bruhn Prize in Toronto with the Pas de deux from the second act of Giselle and Chopin Dialogues, a choreography that was created for her by John Neumeier. She was later invited by Kenneth Greve to become a principal dancer at the Finnish National Ballet. In 2015, she received an invitation from the artistic director Mikko Nissinen to join the Boston Ballet as a principal. In Boston, Maria enriched her repertoire with neo-classical and modern ballets by George Balanchine, Jorma Elo and William Forsythe. In 2019, Maria joined Bayerisches Staatsballett as a principal dancer. Her repertoire spans from classical to neo-classcical and to contemporary ballets, as she worked with many of today’s leading forces in dance, including choreographers Justin Peck, Jacopo Godani, Pierre Lacotte, Patrice Bart, and David Dawson.

(Information as of September 2024)

Roles and parts in the 2025/26 season
Title role in La Sylphide (Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni)
Tatiana in Onegin (John Cranko)
Female Solo in the Grand Pas Classique from Paquita (Marius Petipa), as part of the Konstellationen multiple bill

Previous roles and parts
Kitty in Anna Karenina (Christian Spuck)
Gamzatti in La Bayadère (Patrice Bart after Petipa)
Title role in Cinderella (Christopher Wheeldon)
Swanilda in Coppélia (Roland Petit)
Title role in Giselle (Peter Wright after Coralli/Perrot/Petipa)
Princess Natalia in Illusions – like Swan Lake (John Neumeier)
Dancer in Jewels (George Balanchine)
Thaïs – Pas de deux from Ma Pavlova (Roland Petit), as part of the Wurzeln und Blätter multiple bill
Marie inThe Nutcracker (John Neumeier)
Tatiana in Onegin (John Cranko)
Paquita in Paquita/Grand Pas Classique (Alexei Ratmansky after Petipa)
Soloist in Le Parc (Angelin Preljocaj)
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (John Cranko)
Marja in The Blizzard (Andrey Kaydanovskiy)
Charlotte in Swan Lake (Ray Barra after Ivanov & Petipa)
Hippolyta/Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (John Neumeier)
Phrygia in Spartacus (Yuri Grigorovich)
Title role in La Sylphide (Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni)

Affairs of the Heart (David Dawson), as part of the Passagen triple bill
Broken Fall (Russell Maliphant), as part of the Paradigma triple bill
Pictures at an Exhibition (Alexei Ratmansky), as part of the Passagen triple bill
Tchaikovsky Overtures (Alexei Ratmansky)