Mathilde Froustey

Mathilde Froustey (born June 8, 1985, in Bordeaux, France) is a French ballet dancer.

She is a principal dancer at San Francisco Ballet. Mathilde Froustey was a "Sujet" soloist of the Paris Opera Ballet until 2013.

Early life Mathilde Froustey started dancing in 1994, at the age of nine, in Dax in the south of France, as ballet training helped her back problems. Later, in 1998, she trained at the Marseille National School of Ballet. Colette Armand, her ballet teacher in Marseille, recommended she audition for the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet School.

During her career, Froustey met artistic directors of prestigious ballet companies on several occasions when the directors were in the audience of ballet performances. She was on particularly good terms with Helgi Tómasson and Manuel Legris, who both appreciated her as a soloist.

After he had seen her dancing as Lise in La Fille mal gardée in Paris in July 2012, Manuel Legris offered her a position in the Vienna State Ballet as principal dancer, telling her at the same time to stay at the Paris Opera Ballet a little bit more.

San Francisco Ballet In January 2013, Mathilde Froustey accepted an offer from Helgi Tómasson, to become a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet.

Mathilde Froustey and Helgi Tómasson met each other already in 2006 at a competition in Paris through José Martinez, danseur étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet.

When she made a long-distance call inquiring about a job there, a contract arrived in the mail a week later. This was the first time that a principal dancer entered the San Francisco Ballet by bypassing the audition process.

On stage Kitri in Don Quixote is Mathilde Froustey's dream role. She was appreciated for her interpretation of Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée. "Froustey was the Lise that dreams are made of." "The queen of the night, undeniably Mathilde Froustey, is however not any longer in the stage of a young soloist making her debut. Her Lise is a whirlwind of good mood, spiced with a refined technique which lets her fly away in each variation." In the 2014 repertory season, her first repertory season with the San Francisco ballet, she performed the title role in Giselle a role she learned in ten days. was in the programming of the 2015 repertory season as well.

Awards 2004: Varna International Ballet Competition, gold medal with Josua Hoffalt 2007: Ballet2000 dance prize 2013: Danza & Danza's best foreign dancer award 2015: Isadora Duncan Dance Award for her performances of Giselle with Tiit Helimets 2018: Nominated to the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for her performance in Sleeping Beauty (Aurora)

Repertoire

Kitri in Don Quixote: Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée Anastasia in "Ivan the Terrible" Giselle in Giselle Nutcracker (Grand Pas de Deux Ballerina and Sugar Plum Fairy) Romeo and Juliet (Juliet) Swan Lake (Odette/Odile)

7 for Eight Caprice The Fifth Season Prism, and Trio Tomasson/Possokhov's Don Quixote (Kitri) Cranko's Onegin (Tatiana) Balanchine's Allegro Brillante, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Rubies, Serenade, and Theme and Variations

Gsovsky's Grand Pas Classique Lifar's Suite en Blanc Makarova's (after Petipa) “The Kingdom of the Shades” from La Bayadère, Act II (1st Solo Shade) Ratmansky's From Foreign Lands, Seven Sonatas, Shostakovich Trilogy, and Souvenir d’un lieu cher Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering (Yellow and Purple) and In the Night Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour.