MILAN (Reuters) – Italian Jacopo Tissi said on Monday he was leaving his role as a principal dancer with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I am shocked by this situation that has come upon us from one day to the next, and quite honestly, I find myself unable to continue with my career in Moscow,” Tissi wrote in a post published on Instagram.
“No war can be justified. Ever. And I will always be against every kind of violence,” added Tissi, 27.
Briton Xander Parish, a principal dancer at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, also said on Instagram that he was leaving Russia.
“My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine,” he said.
Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini praised Tissi’s move calling it a “brave and noble choice”.
Last month Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was fired by Italy’s La Scala and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra after he failed to condemn the invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Sara Rossi in Milan, editing by Keith Weir and Angus MacSwan)
