Mme. Hermine

or you could have albrecht change his mind and propose to myrtha, and see if that made her relent on making him dance to death...

or you could have albrecht change his mind and propose to myrtha, and see if that made her relent on making him dance to death...

well you could give albrecht a jester that follows him around.....

well you could give albrecht a jester that follows him around.....

and the person at p.r. or wherever at boston ballet a few years ago that decided that the audience wouldn't understand a ballet called 'le corsaire' so titled it "the pirate" in advertisements with 'le corsaire' in parentheses.....

yvonne, would you like to swap something for a copy of that episode? i don't remember ever seeing it. reply to me at mejapatricia@hotmail.com. thanks!

could consider yvette chauvrire as scarlett, a really good balletic 'fiddle dee dee'! and as aunt pitty pat, agnes de mille. [This message has been edited by Mme. Hermine (edited October 11, 2000).]

if memory serves me correctly trinidad did ondine with the royal ballet. maybe a british contributor can confirm this?

there's that balanchine documentary from the 1980s in which they included a bit of film from the opening night at lincoln center; balanchine is making the point in an interview that even in a ballet without a story that there is already a story when a boy and a girl dance together...i'll get the film out and post his exact words. he may be more accurately speaking of a mood but i kind of agree.

well in boston some years ago laura young, who was set to retire that year, was unable to finish a performance of don quixote (as kitri) that she had started and jennifer gelfand finished it for her (had also learned it to do with another partner but did this one and some others with fernando bujones, this at age 17)...

the lazzarinis indeed kept the pavlova 'museum' which was located in one large room on the second floor of what used to be her house in london, years ago. the museum was only open one day a week, saturday, for a few hours and each saturday when they closed they had to put everything, all the mementos, souvenirs, etc., even pavlova's big dressing table, away until the next saturday when they had to haul it out again. on weekdays the room was a classroom, and the rest of the house was a large polytechnic. the grounds were still all right but the inside of the house had been carved up a little. her little pond was still there and a statue of her had been placed coming from the middle of it. on the 50th anniversary of her death the lazzarinis gave a talk at a museum in london (can't remember where but i went) and they showed a number of films, one of which was 'the dumb girl of portici' which i saw in its entirety, (almost two hours!) and a print of the dying swan which they seemed to think they might get in trouble for showing as the fokine family still had (and might still have) the copyrightfor the choreography... just me rambling on again.

well as demille was born in 1905 i suppose that she could have seen nijinsky before he stopped dancing in about 1917 and had some memory of it...

now this isn't exactly a printed memoir but it has stayed in mind like almost nothing else about her. there was a documentary made about ruth page called 'ruth page - an american original' some time in about 1979. in that documentary miss page, who danced with anna pavlova's company when she was about 15, says that she was originally taken to a theater in indianapolis to see pavlova's company and that because her father was a friend of the theater manager's, she was taken backstage to say hello to her. according to her, when they were ushered into her dressing room (i take this to mean her and her mother), (almost verbatim) "there she was, stark naked, picking her teeth. of course she was beautiful naked but..." and that pavlova looked at ruth, who was about 12 at the time (and this would make it about 1912) and took her hair out of its then fashionable pompadour, parted it in the middle and said "thees ees for dancer!" she also said that there was a ballet in which she played her slave (or something to that effect, i haven't seen the film in years) in which she had to follow her across the stage and it would be just the two of them and she spoke of how exciting it was for a young girl. later she went on a tour of south america and as she was so young her mother went with. as they left one port she was given a present, she says, because the 'pavlovitas' were very popular among the rich gentleman. in that box there was some sort of necklace made of precious stones and her mother made her return it. and that is what i remember! just thought i'd throw that in...