Saying goodbye to Zenaida

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The Royal Ballet  The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand encore, Leeds Showcase, 11 June 2017

Yesterday, I found a movie theatre that showed last Wednesday's performance of The Dream, Symphonic Variations and Marguerite and Armand. I had missed the live transmission because I was in Preston that day watching Ballet Cymru dance Darius James's A Midsummer Night's Dream (see "A Most Rare Vision ...... A Dream" 8 June 2017).  I had intended to see Ballet Cymru on Saturday in Sale but that was the only day I could get to London to see Scottish Ballet's Emergence and MC 14/22. I had already dashed down to London to hear Christopher Hampson's interview with Gerald Dowler at the London Ballet Circle. There was also the little matter of a general election at which I like many other voters did my best to make sure that the blighters who had failed to stand up to their Eurosceptics last year and who had opportunistically sought to take advantage of a commanding lead in the opinion polls this year got their comeuppance.

Sir Frederick Ashton had created The Dream in 1964 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth.  I remember that year well because it was the year I took my "O" levels one of which was English literature which included a compulsory Shakespeare play, Birmingham Royal Ballet revived The Dream last year to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death. When I think of all the plays and sonnets that he crammed into that short life I admire that genius all the more. I love that ballet particularly because it was created for Dame Antoinette Sibley, my favourite ballerina of all time, and Sir Anthony Dowell, my favourite male dancer. I cannot hear Mendelssohn's music without memories of those two flooding back. It was wonderful to see footage of Sir Anthony coaching Steven McRae and Akane Takada. I nearly blubbed like a baby when I saw him again embracing Zenaida Yanowsky.

The other ballet with special memories was Marguerite and Armand. Ashton had created it for Fonteyn and Nureyev and they danced it at the gala for Sir Fred's retirement as director of the Royal Ballet on 24 July 1970. I know because I was there. You can see a picture of Sir Fred on stage with the company in the Royal Ballet's album on Flickr. Fonteyn's role was danced on Wednesday by Yanowsky and Nureyev's by Roberto Bolle. They are very different from Fonteyn and Nureyev but they seem to have conquered that ballet and made it their own. "Regal" was the adjective that sprang to mind several times as I watched Yanowsky trace the familiar steps. She is tall. She is graceful. She is grand. Bolle is much more believable as Armand than Nureyev ever was. He danced the role. Bolle lived it. Two other greats danced solo roles - Cristopher Saunders as Armand's father and Gary Avis as the duke.

I first saw Symphonic Variations 20 years after it was first performed and it already had a period feel. Perhaps the swirling isobars backdrop and the tennis dress tutus.  But many of the original cast - Pamela May, Moira Shearer, Margot Fonteyn, Brian Shaw and Michael Somes were still dancing. Only Henry Danton had retired. Ironically they were all survived by Danton who appeared in the recording still handsome and, seemingly, with all his faculties intact.  It was a joy to see this grand old man. He had retired before I started following ballet so I never saw him dance but I have seen his photos and what a dish he must have been.

However, the most memorable part of the performance was not the dancing but Zenaida Yanowsky;s curtain call. Flowers were everywhere. First from the House's flunkies (whatever happened to the powdered wings and knee breeches of my youth), then from the premiers danseurs nobles  (tears welled up when I saw Carlos Acosta), he was followed by Ed Watson (more tears) and they flowed like a New York fire hydrant when Anthony Dowell embraced her as a daughter and finally a floral blizzard from the balcony. Goodbyes are something the House does particularly well. I am sure there are goodbyes at The Stopera, the Palais Garnier, the Met but they can't be as they are at Covent Garden.

Royal Ballet's Rehearsals of Marguerite and Armand.and The Dream

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I skipped class on Wednesday night to watch the live streaming of rehearsals for two of the ballets in the Royal Ballet's Ashton triple bill of Marguerite and Armand. Symphonic Variations and The Dream at Covent Garden. The programme will only appear between the 2 and 10 June and all but two of the performances are already sold out. However, it will be streamed live to cinemas in the United Kingdom and elsewhere on 7 June thereby providing welcome relief from this already very depressing general election campaign.

Being very long in the tooth I know all three works very well and love them very much.

I shall always associate The Dream with Dame Antoinette Sibley who is my all time favourite ballerina by a country mile (see Sibley 17 Dec 2013) and her noble partner Sir Anthony Dowell  and visions of them in the reconciliation scene rush to mind causing me to forget whatever I am doing whenever I hear Mendelssohn's glorious score (see the RAD's tribute to Dame Antoinette on YouTube and if you have any heart I defy you to keep a dry eye). I remember hearing it in Leeds in the next rehearsal studio as our teacher patiently gave instructions for an enchainment which completely washed over me as I listened to the music.

Almost as dear to me is Marguerite and Armand in which I saw Nureyev dance with Fonteyn whom I also loved and admired (see Margot Fonteyn 18 May 2015). Fonteyn was also one of the original dancers in Symphonic Variations along with Moira Shearer, Pamela May, Michael Somes, Brian Shaw and Henry Danton. Although it was first staged even before my time Somes and Shaw were still dancing when I first took an interest in ballet. Danton was the only one I missed even though - ironically and praise is - he is still very much with us.

Those ballets are the very finest examples of Ashton's work which is discussed in a talk by Prof. Stephanie Jordan that you can hear in the above video. Also in the video is a Q & A by Kevin O'Hare, Lesley Collier, yet another all-time favourite ballerina and the gracious Zenaida Yanowsky. 43 minutes and 29 seconds into that session Yanowsky demonstrated the famous "Fred Step". The reason I know that timing so precisely is that I have been practising the Fred Step. There are two lovely rehearsals in the film. One by Yanowsky as Marguerite and Gary Avis as Armand's father in the scene where Armand's dad warns Marguerite to stay away from his boy. The other is Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé in the quarrel scene over the changeling boy and the reconciliation. They are nothing like Sibley and Dowell but I think they are just as beautiful in the way they interpret this work.  At the end of the Marguerite and Armand rehearsal, Avis said some lovely things about Yanowsky which made me admire both of them even more than I already did. The whole video is presented and moderated by Alexander Campbell who did a really first class job.

I have said enough, ladies and gentlemen.  I will leave you to watch this gorgeous video.