Helena

Tamara Rojo, who is becoming a big star with the Royal Ballet, is also Spanish.

I do agree about Ann Jenner. She was superb in everything I ever saw her in, and a great favourite with audiences. Nobody ever expressed joie de vivre better. I have always felt she deserved to be much more famous than she was.

Siren, is Sarah Wildor really in that RB video? If so, she must have been very young indeed. What part does she dance? I don't own the video but I've seen it on television.

[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Helena ]

To find out more about Beriosova, I suggest you go to www.ballet.co.uk Ballet Legends 2 page, and read Jane Simpson's perceptive comments.

I remember Beriosova very well from her days as Principal with the Royal Ballet. She was an aristocrat among ballerinas, tall, beautiful and elegant. I saw her in many things, but especially remember her partnership with the very handsome Donald MacLeary. They were perfect together. MacLeary is still around and still very handsome! Beriosova died fairly recently.

She did all the classics, but I was particularly impressed by her Lady Elgar in Ashton's Enigma Variations, and her amazing Persephone (also Ashton), where she not only danced but also spoke the Andre Gide text in perfect French. Not many dancers today could do that!

I also just about remember her father, Nicholas Beriosov, who was ballet master with the London Festival Ballet when I was a child, and I think danced the occasional character part like Dr. Coppelius. How I wish I'd kept all my programmes so that I would be quite certain who I'd seen in what.

[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Helena ]

I'm being very predictable here, but it's got to be Fonteyn and Nureyev. I think I'd have liked Fracci and Bruhn too, but I never saw them live - I saw Bruhn in other ballets, but not in Giselle. Anthony Dowell was a marvellous Albrecht.

I'm sure the Nerina story is true. I wasn't at the performance, but I did live in London at the time and I think I heard about it first hand. It's mentioned in Diane Solway's book, and also in John Percival's much earlier (1976) biography. Percival was the respected and reliable critic of the Times. He wouldn't have invented stories.

When Nureyev introduced the entrechats to the Royal Ballet production in 1962, many of the establishment were very shocked, There is a well-known story that Nadia Nerina, when she came to perform the 32 fouettes in Act 3 of Swan Lake not long afterwards, grinned wickedly at the audience and proceeded to perform 32 entrechats instead - if he could mess about with RB tradition, so could she! Nureyev, who was in the audience, was reportedly furious.

Many thanks for that to you, Mel, and your great-grandfather Otto. Maybe I had heard it somewhere. It seems reasonable that a jilted maiden whose aim is to dance men to death should be bitter.

Does anyone know the origin of the name Myrtha? I find that in my mind, without any actual knowledge, I have always associated it with bitterness - perhaps thinking of myrrh, with its "bitter perfume". This is just popular etymology, with no basis in fact, but I thought that possibly her name might have some symbolic significance. I can't find the name in any of my books on names, nor (so far) on the Internet.

Rosemary grows in the gardens where I live (north-western UK)! And ,like myrtle, it is evergreen. We can't be literal about this, anyway - this is Romantic ballet we're talking about!

In the early lithographs of Grisi, her dress for Act 2 has little bunches of pink roses on the skirt, and she has a circlet of pink roses on her head. And butterfly wings. In fact, she looks exactly like Taglioni in La Sylphide. In photographs of Carlotta Zambelli, ballerina of Paris Opera from 1894 to 1940, her skirt has positive garlands of flowers on it.

I have always thought of the lilies simply as a conventional funeral flower, with, of course, the association with purity. And , pace Cyril Beaumont, I like them, so long as they aren't too plastic. I often cry at that point - partly because of the music.

Gautier also specified that Myrtha's flower was rosemary, as Jane says. Rosemary symbolises remembrance.

I have also heard this, although I couldn't give you a reference. Not only in England, either, but in rural communities all over Europe, and for the economic reasons given by dirac.

I realise that I've diverged a bit on the above post from Alexandra's original intention. Sorry. I tend to expect female dancers to be dark whatever role they are dancing.

There is a wonderful mediaeval English poem called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight is a powerful fertility figure. I'm not sure if it's been made into a ballet, but there is a fairly recent opera by Harrison Birtwistle. Pubs in England are quite often called The Green Man.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed ballerina is certainly the one that looks "right" to me, and I think it is because, in Europe at least, our image of the ideal ballerina comes down the Pavlova/Markova/Fonteyn route - all dark. And of course dark colouring does show up best on the stage, especially with the "white tutu" roles.

There have always been fair-haired dancers, though - Riabouchinska, Pamela May, Antoinette Sibley, Makarova, Sarah Wildor all come to mind, and of course the red-haired Moira Shearer - beautiful dancers all. To me, their fairness is noticeable, something to be commented on, whereas I would never say "Tamara Rojo has black hair", because that is the "norm".

Ashton used the different colourings of Fonteyn (dark), May (blonde), and Shearer (red) as part of the visual impact of the original production of Symphonic Variations, and I also feel that the contrast in colouring was an important visual element in the Fonteyn/Nureyev and Seymour/Gable partnerships. In both cases the man was fair and the woman dark, which I suppose is the precise opposite of the common fairytale image of golden-haired princess and dark, handsome prince.

This dark-haired, dark-eyed ideal doesn't seem to apply to men. I never felt surprised by the fair-haired male dancer - Erik Bruhn, Nureyev, Christopher Gable. (Bruhn/Fracci - there's another blond/dark partnership.)

Concerning the colour of costumes, I didn't know that blue was the colour of heroism, and have always thought that Giselle's blue dress was a symbol of her innocence and purity - the Virgin Mary is usually portrayed dressed in blue. When I saw the Bolshoi production of Giselle two or three years ago, I was very surprised to see Giselle dressed in yellow with a dark red bodice. One has to keep an open mind on these things, though, and I'm almost used to blonde ballerinas now!

[This message has been edited by Helena (edited April 04, 2001).]

I find all these points of view very interesting and have really enjoyed reading such thoughtful writing.

I read somewhere, though I can't find the reference at the moment, that Ashton had seriously considered the story of Manon as a vehicle for Fonteyn. It would have been very fascinating to see what he would have made of it, and I think it's a fairly safe bet that it would have been very different from, and in my opinion superior to, the MacMillan version, which I find shallow in every respect. I think Ashton was far better at conveying character and expressing feelings, including erotic feelings, through choreography than MacMillan, who though not exactly explicit tends to be fairly graphic, or, dare I say, obvious. Ashton's Marguerite and Armand is certainly the most erotic ballet I have ever seen (original cast, live, essential!), and it has no obvious sex at all. I feel that the closer you get to representation, the further you get from depth.

I'd like to add a word about Fille here, too. It may appear to be light, but I think it actually says something quite profound about youth, happiness and the joy of living. It's been called Ashton's Pastoral Symphony, and I suppose Beethoven's work could also be seen merely as something light and pretty. I see Fille as every bit as much an "evocation poetique" as Ashton claimed Marguerite to be, and it has the advantage that it is not at all dependent on the original cast.

I love Alexandra's quotation from Violette Verdy. Great art can be just as valid on the subject of joy as it is on other subjects.

1066 and All That is not by Osbert Lancaster, it's by WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman.

Guy, when I was a child I saw Markova dance several times. She and her partner Anton Dolin toured Britain with the London Festival Ballet, which has evolved into the English National Ballet. At the time I lived in Wirral, near Liverpool, one of their regular stops. The occasion I remember best is when I was eleven, and I presented her with a bouquet on the very large stage of the Liverpool Empire. She had danced The Dying Swan, which I watched from the wings. As you can imagine, this was ballet heaven! People were very impressed and assumed I had been picked to represent my ballet school, but in fact I had simply written to the manager of the theatre and asked if I could do it. She was a tiny little dark-haired figure in the middle of that (to me) huge stage - I was nearly as tall as she was. I did my best end-of-class curtsey and revelled in every moment! She sent me a signed photo, personally addressed to me, which I still treasure. She must have been over 40 at the time, but she was perfact. To me she was essence of ballerina, and her Dying Swan was exactly what I expected it to be. I could have been watching Pavlova herself! Oh, and she kissed me. I didn't come down to earth for weeks.

I am sure other people will have better, more informed memories of her dancing, but I couldn't resist posting this! If only I still had the programmes from my childhood I would know exactly what I had seen. Don't ever throw away programmes!

James, I saw the Fonteyn/Nureyev Giselle often in the early 1960s, though not, alas, their very first performance. And yes, it was as good as everyone says. I think the fact that I remember it so clearly now is significant. Interesting that some people are saying Guillem is too old - Fonteyn was 43! She was an experienced Giselle by then of course, but I have never seen anyone look quite so sweet and girlish at the start. We had never seen anything like Nureyev - neither, obviously, had Fonteyn/Giselle! She had the most extraordinarily expressive face and body; all the emotions, however subtle, somehow communicated to the audience. I've never been able to tell whether this was instinct or art on her part - a bit of both, I suspect, plus the right sort of face.

Nureyev had not at this stage developed the caddish side of the character (see the Albrecht thread on Anything Goes), and I remember him more as a spoilt boy who didn't really realise the harm he was doing until he had done it. His remorse was so real the whole theatre held its breath. Act 2 was so beautiful, most people just wept. It's hard to convey, but we felt as if we'd never really seen Giselle before. With dancers of that stature, the audience doesn't really think about technique - it's there, it's a means of expression.

In spite of these wonderful memories, Giselle is a ballet I am very happy to see other dancers in - I don't sit there saying "Fonteyn and Nureyev were better". Well, not all the time, anyway. It's only in Marguerite and Armand that I really cannot bear to see anyone else - and don't go by the video, it was made too late and is no reflection of the real thing.

I would love to see Rojo's Giselle, but can't get there. I am really curious to know why you say you are not usually a fan of hers. I've never seen her, but have heard only positive things about her, and on the strength of those have booked for her Swan Lake in October.

I've just noticed that you also mention Svetlana Lunkina. I saw her last year, and at first thought she was going to be superb, but although she danced beautifully, I felt she wasn't quite mature enough as an artist to convey the depth of the character. Of course, she has probably improved since then. She is very beautiful, and I thought there was a lot of potential there.

[This message has been edited by Helena (edited July 27, 2000).]

James, I thought it was a bit short if anything, with A Time to Dance disproportionately long. I'd also like to have seen the younger students in something a bit more classical - even a bit of barre and centre work.

Guy, Jonny, James and anyone else involved in yesterdsy's RBS matinee - I enjoyed it very much, from start to finish. Ann has described much of it and I agree with her on most things. The understandable signs of nerves were quite few and far between - it was almost all very confident and professional.

I was impressed by Jenny Murphy and Ernst Meisner in We are Here, but it certainly was of the "who can devise the most complicated lift" school of choreography, so I was glad to see them both dance in other things later in the programme. Ernst is a real classical dancer who I'm sure will do well; the same goes for Jenny. (And Guy, she looks fine on the stage - not too thin at all!!)

All the national dances were absolutely charming and well danced. It's nice to see the younger ones.

James WIlkie had a lot to do in the Petipa Pas de Dix, and there was no sign of lack of rehearsal that I could detect. He has an excellent stage presence: he is really communicative, and took the stage with some authority and as Ann said, enjoyment. I thought all the girls in this piece excellent.

A Time to Dance was a bit long, but certainly lively. I liked the Pas de Deux best, with Bethany Keating and Ernst Meisner. I think Bethany has the makings of (no, already is) a first rate dancer, with a lovely stage personality. I could see her as Titania or Dorabella.

A lot has been said already about the lead girls in Don Q., and I agree with it all. What a lot of talent there is in that year.

La Valse - I'm afraid I couldn't work out which one was Guy, but nobody looked nervous, and it wasn't messy! I thought it well danced, and very exhilarating - exhausting to do, I'm sure.

A fascinating afternoon - thank you all very much.

More good news! I'm not at all surprised about Alina. I've only seen her once, in Ashton's Symphonic Variations, but I thought she was a most beautiful dancer, extremely musical, which is quite rare nowadays, and with a very well-proportioned physique. In both those aspects she reminded me a little (only a little, so far!) of Fonteyn.

Congratulations to James, and very best wishes to all involved in Wednesday's Royal Ballet School matinee. I'm really excited at the thought of seeing all these future stars. Enjoy yourselves - I know I shall.

Guy -

Many thanks for all this information. I'm certainly not bored. I shall be kept very busy trying to spot all these people!

Great news about Marianela - not that I've ever seen her to my knowledge, but I expect I shall!

Thanks, Jonny. I'll look out for them. I'm looking forward to the matinee.

Very interesting reading. I don't live in London so I can't get to everything, but I am coming to the Royal Ballet School matinee on July 19th. Do you RBS students have any tips on who/what to look out for? Are you involved in it?

I thought Natasha Oughtred was still at the school, but see she's in the corps now. She seems to have won a lot of prizes. Naomi Reynolds also interests me, largely because of her appearance as Clara on TV when she was twelve. I saw Alina C. in Symphonic Variations, and thought she was a real budding star. As you say, I think the future of the RB is safe!