TAMARA ROJO ON THE ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET AND HOW ISAAC HERNANDEZ 'MAKES HER FEEL LUCKY'

Karolina Kuras

CHARLOTTE EDWARDES

Tamara Rojo is surprised that my first question is not about her boyfriend, Isaac Hernández, the senior dancer at the English National Ballet (ENB) where she is artistic director, who just happens to be a smouldering Mexican, 16 years her junior.

She doesn’t say why she is surprised but the relationship has certainly been ruffling tutus. Anonymous sources told The Times last month that members of the company were “uncomfortable” with the romance, suggesting “a conflict of interest” because Hernández is a “direct subordinate” and blamed it, in part, for the fact that the ENB has lost a third of its dancers in two years.

Those sources were never identified and Rojo, 43, is genuinely bemused, possibly a little hurt, by the fuss. Hernández arrived in this country “a fully fledged star”, she explains, a veteran of the Paris Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. There’s “not even a possibility” of conflict, she says, because “he has won all the awards you can possibly win, so there was nowhere I could promote him”. Anyway, she adds, crisply, “I don’t deal with contracts.”

They’ve been together a year-and-a-half and have “never made any secret of our relationship — it is what it is”. Whether such whispering would have happened to a male director she doesn’t wish to speculate. “All I can say is that we’ve always been honest and I hoped there was no animosity towards us.” She perks up when I ask how she feels about the age gap. “Lucky,” she says. “He makes me feel lucky. He’s amazing.” She throws me a mischievous glance. “I highly recommend it.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/tamara-rojo-on-the-english-national-ballet-and-how-isaac-hernandez-makes-her-feel-lucky-a3776631.html