Jacopo Tissi Returns to La Scala After Leaving Bolshoi

Jacopo Tissi, the 27-year-old Italian dancer who became the first Italian étoile at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, has returned to the Teatro alla Scala in Milan as an 'artista ospite'. Tissi, born in Landriano in 1995, trained at the La Scala Ballet School and later at the Vienna State Ballet before joining the Bolshoi. He left Moscow in March 2022, weeks after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, distancing himself from mentors Alexander Vetrov and Makhar Vaziev. La Scala assigned him first to Giselle and then to the role of Drosselmeyer/Prince in The Nutcracker, alongside Martina Arduino, for performances on December 31, 2022, and January 4 and 7, 2023. The production, directed by Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993), runs until January 11, 2023, marking the ballet's return to La Scala after several years. Tissi's flight from Russia echoes Nureyev's own defection.