In a few bright rooms near the Vienna Opera, an army of workers wield needle and thread, transform black felt almost magically into golden armour, and gleefully create blood splatter on fresh white shirts. Every season, the Art for Art costume workshop churns out hundreds of garments for Vienna's leading opera, ballet and theatre companies. And its reputation has stretched farther afield too, with fashion designer Valentino, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and even the football World Cup making use of its services.

In a few bright rooms near the Vienna Opera, an army of workers wield needle and thread, transform black felt almost magically into golden armour, and gleefully create blood splatter on fresh white shirts. Every season, the Art for Art costume workshop churns out hundreds of garments for Vienna's leading opera, ballet and theatre companies. And its reputation has stretched farther afield too, with fashion designer Valentino, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and even the football World Cup making use of its services.

One of America's finest ballerinas and the muse and wife of legendary choreographer George Balanchine has died, aged 88. Maria Tallchief died Thursday in Chicago, where she had founded the short-lived Chicago City Ballet, the family announced. She had previously been the dazzling prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet from 1948 to 1965, working with Balanchine, who was also briefly her husband. "My mother was a ballet legend, who was proud of her Osage heritage," said daughter Elise Paschen in a statement, referring to Tallchief's Native American background.

One of Russia's biggest female ballet stars is leaving her full time job at a Saint Petersburg theatre to join London's Royal Ballet, in the latest of a string of convulsions to hit the Russian dance world. Natalia Osipova told a Russian newspaper Monday she had been given an offer she "could not refuse" to be a principal dancer at Covent Garden and would from now on only appear as a guest soloist at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.