A disturbing mystery surrounds the death of Russian ballet star Vladimir Shklyarov, just 39 years old.
The star of the Mariinsky Theater of St. Petersburg lost his life falling from the fifth floor of the building where he lived. The accident on Saturday was announced by a Mariinsky spokeswoman. According to Anna Kasatkina, Shklyarov had been taking painkillers for a back injury, and was scheduled to undergo spine surgery today.
According to several Russian news outlets, Skhlyarov had problems with alcohol and drug addiction, and had been locked up at home by his family.
In March 2022, Shklyarov had condemned Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine in a now deleted Instagram post. In the post he declared his opposition to “all kinds of military actions.”
“It is impossible to look at everything that is happening today without crying,” he had written.
However, unlike Olga Smirnova, a Bolshoi Ballet star who fled Russia and moved to Europe, Shklyarov continued to perform in Russia and had refrained from commenting further on the war.
A federal investigation has been launched to look into the death, which for now has been listed as an accident. Born in St. Petersburg in 1985, Shklyarov had joined the Mariinsky Theater in 2003 and became its principal dancer in 2011.
The company called Shklyarov’s death “a huge loss”, by stating, “Our condolences to the artist’s family, loved ones, friends and all the many admirers of his work and talent, forever inscribed his name in the history of world ballet.”
Over the course of his 20-year career, Shklyarov had danced in the principal roles of the great ballet masterpieces, from Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, to Don Quixote and on to Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland. He had performed all over the world, including at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House in London.
In 2013 he had married a fellow Mariinsky Theater dancer, Maria Shirinkina, with whom he had two children.
The Russian dance world paid tribute to Shklyarov. Irina Baranovskaya called his death “a stupid, unbearable accident” on Telegram as Shklyarov “went out on the balcony to get some air and smoke” and “lost his balance” on the “very narrow balcony.”
A Mariinsky dancer, Diana Vishneva, wrote: “This tragedy brings only tears and sadness, this is the tragedy of our theater, our common sorrow, the sense of emptiness. You were my favorite partner, my beautiful Romeo, my brave Prince in Cinderella.”
The American Ballet Theater, where Shklyarov had been a guest in 2014 and 2015, remembered him on Instagram as “an extraordinary artist whose grace and passion inspired audiences around the world. Rest in peace, Vladimir. Your light will continue to shine through the beauty you brought to this world,” the post concluded.
