Born in
Saint Petersburg, Smirnova comes from a family with no connections with ballet. In 2011, while still a student at the Vaganova academy, Smirnova appeared in London at the
London Coliseum to commemorate
Galina Ulanova, who is said to be one of the greatest ballerinas. For the commemoration routine, which was choreographed by A. Messerer and accompanied by
Dvořák's
Melody, Smirnova danced with S. Strelkov. She also danced, in June of that year, at
Diana Vishneva's benefit performance at the
Mariinsky Theatre. The following month, she was in Beijing, partnered by the Bolshoi's principal dancer Semyon Chudin, performing
Grand Pas Classique (choreography by V. Gsovsky) to music by the 19th century French composer
Daniel Auber. In 2013, she performed the role of Tatiana at the Bolshoi's premiere of Cranko's
Onegin. She has created roles such as Bianca in
Mailliot's
Taming of the Shrew,
Jorma Elo's
Dream of Dream, the Marquess in
Pierre Lacotte's ''
. Her repertoire also includes Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Anastasia in Ivan the Terrible'', Terpischore in
Balanchine's
Apollo, and Marguerite in
John Neumeier's
Lady of the Camellias. In 2014, she was invited to guest with the
American Ballet Theatre as Nikiya in Natalia Makarova's production of
La Bayadère. She also danced the principal part in
Diamonds, a part which she premiered in 2012, in the Bolshoi's broadcast of
Jewels. In 2020 she was awarded the
Prize of the President of the Russian Federation for Young Cultural Figures. In March 2022, she
left Russia because of the
invasion of Ukraine. Her grandfather was Ukrainian, and she stated she was "against this war with every fibre of my soul". She was quickly hired by the
Dutch National Ballet. ==Assessment==