Kirill Melnikov

was born in St. Petersburg and trained at the Vaganowa Institute in his native town. After graduating in 1984, he was engaged by the Kirov Ballet, where he stayed until 1990. He joined the Bavarian State Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 1992. His repertoire includes – among others – Prince Désiré (The Sleeping Beauty), Basilio and Matador (Don Quijote), Oberon in Neumeier's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Monsieur Duval and Gaston in Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias and various leading roles in Cranko-ballets such as Onegin, Petrucchio (The Taming of the Shrew), Romeo and Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet). He danced in numerous ballets by Balanchine, in Hans van Manen`s Grosse Fuge, Déjà vu, Lieder ohne Worte and Black Cake as well as in Peter Martin`s Fearful Symmetries and Twyla Tharp`s Brief Fling. He also danced Solor in in the Munich premiere of La Bayadère. He created the role of Siegfried in Ray Barra’s Swan Lake and Jean de Brienne in his Raymonda, the teacher in Shannon Rose by Youri Vàmos, various leading roles in ballets by Davide Bombana and Charles Bovary in Grand-Maître’s Emma B.
Kirill received a diploma as a Ballet teacher from the Munich Music and Ballet Academy and teaches at the Munich Ballet Academy/Heinz-Bosl-Stiftung since 1998.
As a guest, he appears on stages world wide. Kirill is married to ballerina Elena Pankova with whom he has a son, Andrej, born in 1992.