Judith Turos

Ballet Mistress

Judith Turos is of Hungarian descent and was born in Romania. She is a naturalized German citizen since 1988. As a child, she was already selected by her hometown of Dej for a place at the ballet academy in Cluj. At the age of 16, she received a scholarship to the Moscow Ballet Academy, where she graduated as a dancer. She then danced for one and a half seasons with Oleg Danovski's company. There she gained her first practical experience as a professional dancer. In 1981, at the age of twenty, she defected while touring Germany for the first time, and was granted asylum in Munich. While she had to wait for her work permit, Edmund Gleede allowed her to attend the daily class given for the dancers of Bavarian State Opera. Once her work permit was issued, she was offered a permanent contract. In 1985, she was finally appointed Principal Dancer by Ronald Hynd. She subsequently appeared in numerous roles in the classical and modern repertoire. These included the title roles in Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet and her signature role of Tatiana in John Cranko's Onegin. After the birth of her daughter and the founding of the Bayerisches Staatsballett under the direction of Konstanze Vernon, she continued her impressive career in the 1990s. She worked with choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, Youri Vámos, Angelin Preljocaj or Davide Bombana and was featured in choreographies by George Balanchine (La Valse, Serenade, The Four Temperaments). In the field of story ballet, she expanded her repertoire with Katharina in John Cranko's ballet The Taming of the Shrew and with demanding roles in productions by John Neumeier. Neumeier cast her in A Midsummer Night's Dream as his first Munich Hippolyta/Titania. He also entrusted her with the role of Marguerite Gautier in his ballet The Lady of the Camellias in 1997. In the same season Judith Turos became the first artist to be awarded the title "Bayerische Kammertänzerin" by the Bavarian State Secretary Hans Zehetmair. In 1999 she received the Merkur Prize, the following year the Hungarian Dance Prize Európa 2000 and the Dance Prize of the City of Munich. An injury and subsequent surgery in 2003 had a major impact on her career. From then on, in addition to character roles, she also took on tasks as ballet mistress. Already in 1998, she had obtained a diploma in ballet pedagogy from Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. During the Ballet Week 2005 she bade farewell to the audience as a dancer, performing Hans van Manen's The Old Man and Me together with Ivan Liška, Since the 2005/06 season, Judith Turos has been an on-staff ballet mistress with Bayerisches Staatsballett, passing on her experience to the new generation of dancers.

(Information as of February 2025)