Friday, 9 December 2011

Margot Fonteyn

 Fonteyn's name dominated British ballet for more than 40 years. One of the truly great dancers of our time, she was the most famous ballerina of the second half of the century, Ashton's muse, the perfect exemplar of the English style - and all of that even before the wonderful Indian summer of her partnership with Nureyev. For anyone who saw her, she is still the one against whom all others are measured.
Margot Fonteyn was born in England in 1919 - her real name was Peggy Hookham - and spent some of her childhood in China.
By the time the war broke out in 1939 Fonteyn had danced Aurora, Giselle, and Odette/Odile, and - perhaps more importantly - had already created half a dozen roles for Ashton. After a stormy start caused by mutual incomprehension, she and the choreographer established a happy relationship which over the next 25 years produced most of her greatest roles and his greatest ballets.  The company's nomadic wartime existence ended with the invitation take up residence at Covent Garden, and their opening night performance ofSleeping Beautyshowed how far Fonteyn, still only 26, had travelled on the path to prima ballerina.
By about 1960, though, talk of possible retirement had begun to creep into reviews and interviews.Fonteyn gave her final performance in the early 70s, and retired to Panama to live with her husband, who had been paralysed in a shooting incident. She died of cancer in 1991. Her musicality and her understated eloquence and elegance made her the perfect embodiment of what we have come to think of as the English style, whilst her modesty and dignity set the tone for the whole company in its developing years. If this makes her sound too 'ladylike', though, remember that not only has she been described as 'the most passionate of dancers', she was also arrested probably more often than the average prima ballerina assoluta.http://www.ballet.co.uk/old/legend_js_margot_fonteyn.htm

1 comment:

  1. Margot was one of the greatest dancers of her time. She had a rough start with Ashton, but went on to have a good relationship towards him. She then went on to have the best roles and be in the best ballets.
    Although she wasnt a typical ballerina, as she was arrested a few times, therefore wasnt as 'ladylike' and innocent as people thought.
    However in her dancing it was a different story as she was elegant and passionate in her musicality.
    She was overall a very famous dancer, and died of cancer in 1991.

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