) is a ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 dancer. Graduated from Baletna Skola in Turin and Hamburg Ballet

Hamburg Ballet

Hamburg Ballet, also known as the Hamburg State Opera Ballet, is an internationally acclaimed ballet company located in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1973 it is directed by the American dancer and choreographer John Neumeier....

 School, where her teachers were Dragica Zach, Marianne Kruuse, Ilse Wiedmann and Kevin Haigen.

In 1993 she joined Hamburg Ballet

Hamburg Ballet

Hamburg Ballet, also known as the Hamburg State Opera Ballet, is an internationally acclaimed ballet company located in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1973 it is directed by the American dancer and choreographer John Neumeier....

 company, in 1996 she became a soloist and in 2001 principal. Her repertoire includes the leading rôles in the ballets created by John Neumeier

John Neumeier

John Neumeier is a well-known American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet since 1973. 5 years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school...

 : Pallas Athena und Nausikaa (Odyssey), Chloe (Daphnis and Chloe

Daphnis and Chloe

Daphnis and Chloe is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus.-Setting and style:It is set on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD, which is also assumed to be the author's home. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are...

), Ballerina (''Petrushka), Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Marguerite (The Lady of the Camellias

The Lady of the Camellias

The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...

), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Aurora, The Good Fairy and Princess Florine (The Sleeping Beauty), Marie, (The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

), Cinderella and one of the Stepsisters (A Cinderella Story), Giselle (Giselle

Giselle

Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...

), Elaine (The Saga of King Arthur), Rosalind (As You Like It), Romola Nijinsky (Nijinsky), Constanze Weber (Windows on MOZART) and Nina Saretschnaja (The Seagull

The Seagull

The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

). She created several parts in Neumeier’s ballets: Préludes CV, Death in Venice

Death in Venice

The novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1913 as Der Tod in Venedig. The plot of the work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice and is liberated and uplifted, then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a...

, Messiah, Nocturnes from “Songs of the Night”, Winterreise

Winterreise

Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...

, and The Little Mermaid.

Her repertoire also includes the rôles in the ballets by Frederick Ashton

Frederick Ashton

Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...

, George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

, Mats Ek

Mats Ek

Mats Ek is a leading Swedish dance and ballet choreographer, dancer and stage director. He was the manager of the Cullberg Ballet from 1985 to 1993....

, Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon is an international choreographer of contemporary ballet. Born in Somerset, England, to an engineer and a physical therapist, Wheeldon began training to be a ballet dancer at the age of 8. He attended the Royal Ballet School between the ages of 11 and 18...

 and Jirjí Bubenícek. As a guest ballerina she performs in Munich, Moscow, Milan, Tokio, Warsaw, Vienna, Cremona, Verona, Macerata, Taormina, New York and Australia.

Silvia Azzoni has been awarded several prizes: Dr. -Wilhhelm-Oberdörffer-Prize, Danza & Danza Prize as the Best Italian Dancer Abroad (2004), Rolf de Maré

Rolf de Maré

Rolf de Maré , sometimes called Rolf de Mare, was a Swedish art collector and leader of the Ballets Suédois in Paris in 1920–1925. In 1933 he founded the world's first museum for dance in Paris.-Biography :...

 Prize for the Hamburg Theaters 2006/2007 in the category “Outstandig Performance” for The Little Mermaid with music by Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach is a Russian-born American composer and pianist.-Early life & education:Auerbach was born in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Urals bordering Siberia. She holds degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition...

. In 2008 she received the coveted Prix Benois de la Danse

Prix Benois de la Danse

The Benois de la Danse is one of the most prestigious ballet competition. Founded by the International Dance Association in Moscow in 1991, it takes place each year on or around April 29 and is jury-based in its judging...

 for her principal rôle in The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid

"The Little Mermaid" is a popular fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince...

.