San Francisco Ballet principal ballerina Maria Kochetkova was invited to replace Alina Cojocaru, recently injured, as Odette/Odile in American Ballet Theatre's Swan Lake on June 21, opposite ABT principal dancer Herman Cornejo in his ABT debut as Prince Siegfried. This is Kochetkova’s first appearance with American Ballet Theatre.
A native of Moscow, Russia, Kochetkova trained at the Bolshoi School in Moscow and danced with The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, and as a guest artist with Tokyo Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, and Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg before joining San Francisco Ballet as a principal dancer in 2007.
Since then, she has performed principal roles in Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, and Coppélia, among others.