'We realised we were going to be together': Tsetso Ivanov on performing in Cork with his wife

Romanian ballet stars Tsetso Ivanov and Katerina Petrova return to Cork to take the lead roles in Swan Lake

Mon, 13 Oct, 2025 - 21:30

Colette Sheridan

As the principal dancer with Cork City Ballet for its production of Swan Lake, Tsetso Ivanov will perform opposite his wife, prima ballerina Katerina Petrova. Both of them are from Bulgaria where they work with the Sofia National Ballet. This is their fourth year coming to Cork for Cork City Ballet’s November production.

Petrova will play the dual roles of Odette and Odile with Ivanov as Prince Siegfried in this tale of transformation, love and redemption, set against Tchaikovsky’s symphonic score. With its emotional depth, Swan Lake is iconic and a great favourite with Cork audiences.

Touring is a big part of this couple’s working life. They have a four year old son who is looked after by his grandparents when Ivanov and Petrova are away from home.

“Cork is very beautiful,” says Ivanov. He and his wife stay at the Imperial Hotel when working with Cork City Ballet.

“Every time we are there, they put up decorations every single day for Christmas. We have never seen all the decorations but we always think it’s going to look amazing.”

Ivanov was a schoolboy when he first saw Petrova dancing. He is five years younger than her. They got to know each other and the first time they danced together was in a production of Swan Lake when romance bloomed. “We realised we were going to be together in life.”

Asked if it is challenging to work and live together, Ivanov says that it’s mostly a joy. “Most people think it must be hard. For us, it’s the other way. In life, we talk about ballet at home but not so much.”

Katerina Petrova and Tsetso Ivanov in a previous production of Swan Lake.

Notoriously hard on the body, being a ballet dancer necessitates fitness and leanness. “I keep my shape by rehearsing five days a week, doing a lot of lifts of women dancers. I don’t need to go to the gym.”

Because it is so physically gruelling, Ivanov admits that there are times when he wants to quit ballet. “But that never happens.” The persistence goes right back to when he was a child and was singled out for ballet training.

From a small village close to the Bulgarian city of Varna, Ivanov’s kindergarten teacher used to dance with the children. “When she saw me dance, she saw the quality in me for a classical ballet dancer.”

At the age of nine, Ivanov attended the National School of Dance Art in Sofia, the primary institution for professional dance education in Bulgaria. For the first year, Ivanov was away from his parents but they then moved to Sofia to be with him. Ivanov has danced most of the repertoire but the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet is something he aspires to.

Swan Lake has two denouements. Artistic director of Cork City Ballet, Alan Foley, is opting for the happy ending. “Unlike the unalloyed tragedy most people cherish, this version ends with a fairy tale twist,” says Foley.

“Quite frankly, I think there’s enough doom and gloom in the world at the moment. It sounds a bit corny but I really believe people go to the theatre for escapism. They need a bit of hope. There’s enough tragedy. I wanted to steer away from that.” The traditional much-loved elements of this ballet are still in place including the cygnets’ dance for four girls, the white swan pas de deux and the climactic Black Swan pas de deux.

With dancers coming to Cork from all over the world to make up the cast of 52, Foley says it is a hugely expensive undertaking. "The thing I always laugh at is the amount of people who have said to me, including in my own career as a dancer, that 'it’s lovely but what do we do during the day?'

"Are you kidding me? Do people think we arrive at the stage door in tights and tunics for the craic? A lot of people don’t still don’t get the fact that this is their full time job. The dancers on the stage have bills and mortgages to pay and they do that by dancing. The other thing people don’t fully realize is the amount of training ballet dancers do. They train for the same length of time as a medical doctor, about eight years. They start at ten.”

And their performing career is usually over by the age of thirty-five when they become teachers or choreographers. Ballet, beautiful but demanding, is clearly not for the fainthearted.