New Book on Irina Baronova

[Marcmomus]

The University of Chicago Press recently published Irina Baronova and The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo by her daughter, the actor Victoria Tennant. 235 pages with at least one picture on every page, many images are full page. Also an excellent text to put them in context using extracts from diaries, letters and interviews. Relatively large format -9.5 x 11". Such a high quality printing job I am thinking of buying a second copy to frame some. An excellent documentary of her life. Strongly recommended.

[Helene]

Many thanks for the heads up!

[Natalia]

This one came out last fall. I got it for Christmas and LOVE it. Very much in scrapbook format - an album compiled by a loving daughter after her mother had passed away and the daughter discovered a treasury of old photos, programmes, etc.

Going through this tome was extra-enjoyable because I had just read Baronova's bio which I had found in an old beachside bookstore in Bondi, Australia. [Crazy coincidence, as Baronova herself lived her last years on an Aussie beach, north of Sydney!] Little did I know that, upon my return to the US, my husband had this marvelous companion tome under the Xmas tree.

I highly recommend first reading her autobiography, for the most thorough enjoyment of the daughter's lovely scrapbook. Then you will appreciate certain personal/marital details that only the daughter presents...details that Baronova herself was too shy to expose.

[Barbara]

I thoroughly agree, Natalia. I went to the conversation between Ms. Tennant and Wendy Whalen last December at the 92nd Street Y here in NYC. I was lucky to purchase the book at the event and have it signed by the author. I had fallen in love with Irina after seeing the Ballets Russes documentary and subsequently read her memoir. The two books are lovely companion pieces.