in a corner? You don’t look well. Shouldn’t you see a doctor?”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
“Surely, something is wrong with you. You look pale, and it’s not the
very least bit like you to be off sulking in a corner. What’s the
trouble?”
“The insult to you,” I said.
I remembered what Hughes had said, when “Madame” replied: “Insult?
Insult?... What insult? Did you insult me?... What on earth _are_ you
talking about?”
There was no point, I felt, in reminding her of the incident.
“When you want to speak to me,” I said, “must you pull my coat off my
back?”
“The next time I shall do it harder,” she said with her very individual
little laugh. “Don’t you think we have been here long enough?... Come
along now, take us home.”
This is Ninette de Valois.
* * * * *
Following the San Francisco engagement, the company turned east to the
Rocky Mountain area, the South and Middle West, to arrive in Chicago for
Christmas.
The Chicago engagement was but a repetition of every city where the
company appeared: sold-out houses, almost incredible enthusiasm. _The
Sleeping Beauty_ was the opening programme. Because of the magnitude of
the production, it was impossible to present it except in New York, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. Both public and press were
loud in their praises of the company, the production, the music.
Another delightful piece of hospitality was the party given at the
Racquet Club in Chicago, following the first performance by Ruth Page,
the well-known American dancer and choreographer, and her husband,
Thomas Hart Fisher. Not only was there a wonderful champagne supper in
the Club’s Refectory, at which the members of the company were the first
to be served; but this was followed by a cabaret, the climax of which
came when Margot, in a striking Dior gown of green, stepped down to
essay the intricate steps of a new and unknown (to her) South American
ball-room rhythm. She had never before seen or heard of the dance, but
it was a joy to watch the musicality she brought to it.
It is not my custom to visit artists in the theatre before a
performance, unless there has been some complaint, some annoyance, some
trouble of some sort, something to straighten out. However, on this
opening night in Chicago, I happened to be back stage in the Opera House
on some errand. Since I was so close, I felt I wanted to wish the
artists good-luck for their first Chicago performance, and, passing,
knocked at Margot’s dressing-room door.
No reply.
I waited.
I knocked again.
No answer.
Puzzled, I walked away to return ten minutes later.
I knocked again.
Again no answer.
Worried, I opened the door.
“Don’t you hear me, Margot?” I asked.
Without glancing up, there came two words, no more. Two words, bitten
off, crisp and sharp:
“G-e-t O--u--t!”
It was utterly unlike her. What had happened? I could not imagine. We
had dined together the night before, together with “Freddy” Ashton,
“Bobby” Helpmann and Moira Shearer. It had been a gay dinner, jolly.
Margot had been her witty, amusing self. She had, I knew, been eagerly
awaiting a letter from Paris, a letter from a particular friend. Perhaps
it had not come. Perhaps it had. Whatever it was, I reasoned, at least
it was not my fault. I was not to blame.
We met after the performance at the party. I was puzzled.
“Are you angry at me?” I asked her.
“I?” She smiled an uncomprehending smile. “Why on earth should I be
angry at you?”
“You didn’t answer when I knocked at your door several times, and then,
when I spoke, you told me, in no uncertain fashion, to get out.”
“Don’t you know that, before a performance, I won’t talk to anyone?” she
said sternly.
Then she kissed me.
“Don’t take me too seriously,” she smiled, patting me on the shoulder,
“but, remember, I don’t want to see _anyone_ before I go on.”
_MARGOT FONTEYN_
In Margot Fonteyn we have, in my opinion, the greatest _ballerina_ of
the western world, the greatest _ballerina_ of the world of ballet as we
know it. Born Margaret Hookham, in Surrey, in 1919, the daughter of an
English businessman father and a dark-skinned, dark-haired mother of
Irish and Brazilian ancestry, who is sometimes known as the Black Queen
in the company, a reference to one of the leading characters in
_Checkmate_. Margot was taken to China as a small child, where the
family home was in Shanghai. There was also an interim period when she
was a pupil in a school in such a characteristically American city as
Louisville, Kentucky.
Margot tells a story to the effect that she was taken as a child to see
a performance by Pavlova, and that she was not particularly impressed.
It would be much better “copy,” infinitely better for publicity
purposes, to have her say that visit changed the whole course of her
life and that, from that moment, she determined not only to be a dancer,
but to become Pavlova’s successor. But Margot Fonteyn is an honest
person.
Her first dancing lessons came in Shanghai, at the hands of the Russian
dancer and teacher, Goncharov. Back in London, she studied with
Seraphina Astafieva, in the same Chelsea studio that had produced
Markova and Dolin. At the age of fourteen, her mother took her,
apparently not with too much willingness on Margot’s part, up to the
Wells in Islington, to the Sadler’s Wells School. Ninette de Valois is
said to have announced after her first class, in the decisive manner of
“Madame,” a manner which brooks no dissent: “That child has talent.”
Fonteyn, in the early days, harbored no ideas of becoming a _ballerina_.
Her idealization of that remote peak of accomplishment was Karsavina,
the one-time bright, shining star of the Diaghileff Ballet. All of which
is not to say that Margot did not work hard, did not enjoy dancing. In
class, in rehearsal, in performance, Fonteyn developed her own
individuality, her own personality, without copying or imitating,
consciously or unconsciously, any other artist.
It was after Markova left Sadler’s Wells to form her own company in
association with Dolin that Fonteyn began to come into her own. Ninette
de Valois had a plan, to which, like all her plans, she adhered. She had
been grooming Fonteyn to take Markova’s place. The fact that she has
done so is a matter of history, record, and fact. This is not the place
for a catalogue of Fonteyn’s roles, or a list of her individual
triumphs. Margot Fonteyn is very much with us, before us, among us, at
the height of her powers. She speaks for herself. I merely want to give
the reader enough background so that he may know the basic elements
which have gone into the making of Margot Fonteyn, _prima ballerina
assoluta_.
As a dancer, I find her appeal to me is two-fold: first as a pure
classical dancer; second as an actress-dancer, by which I mean a dancer
with a fine ability to characterize. This is important, for it implies
few, if any, limitations. Pavlova, as I have pointed out, was free from
limitations in the same way and, I think, to a similar degree. Anna
Pavlova had a wide variety: she was a superb dramatic dancer in
_Giselle_; she was equally at home in the brittle, glamorous _Fairy
Doll_; as the light-hearted protagonist of the _Rondino_; as the
bright-colored flirt of the Tchaikowsky _Christmas_. Tamara Karsavina
ranged the gamut from _Carnaval_, _Les Sylphides_, and _Pavillon
d’Armide_, on the one hand, to _Schéhérazade_, _Thamar_, and the
Miller’s Wife in _The Three-Cornered Hat_, on the other, doing all with
equal skill and artistry. In the same way, Fonteyn ranges, with equal
perfection from the Princess Aurora of _The Sleeping Beauty_, the title
role of _Cinderella_, and _Mam’zelle Angot_, the Millers wife in _The
Three-Cornered Hat_, the tragic Giselle, Swanilda in _Coppélia_, the
peasant Dulcinia in _Don Quixote_, on the one hand, to the pure,
abstract dancing appeal of her lyrical roles in ballets such as
_Symphonic Variations_, _Scènes de Ballet_, _Ballet Imperial_, and
_Dante Sonata_, on the other.
As a dancer, Fonteyn is freer of mannerisms than any other _ballerina_ I
have known, devoid of tricks and those stunts sometimes called
“showmanship” that are so often mere vulgar lapses from taste. About
everything she does there is a strange combination of purity of style
with a striking individuality that I can only identify and explain by
that overworked term, “personality.” She has a superb carriage, the taut
back of the perfect dancer, the faultless line and the ankles of the
true _ballerina_. Over all is a great suppleness: the sort of suppleness
that can make even an unexpected fall a thing of beauty. For
_ballerinas_ sometimes fall, even as ordinary mortals. One such fall
occurred on Fonteyn’s first entrance in the nation’s capital, before a
gala audience at the Washington _première_ of Sadler’s Wells, with an
audience that included President Truman, Sir Oliver Franks, and the
entire diplomatic corps.
The cramped, ill-suited platform of Constitution Hall, was an
inadequate, makeshift excuse for a stage. As Fonteyn entered to the
resounding applause of thousands, she slipped on a loose board and fell,
but gracefully and with such beauty that those in the audience who did
not know might easily have thought it was a part of the choreographer’s
design.
On the company’s return to London, at the close of the tour, the entire
personnel were the guests at a formal dinner tendered to them by H. M.
Government. The late Sir Stafford Cripps, then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, gave the first toast to Fonteyn. Turning to her, Sir
Stafford, in proposing the toast, said: “My dear lady, it has been
brought to my attention that, in making your first entry into the
American capital, you fell flat on your face.”
The Chancellor paused for an instant as he eyed her in mock severity,
then added: “I beg you not to take it too much to heart. It is not the
first time, nor, I feel sure, will it be the last, when your countrymen
will be obliged to assume that same prostrate position on entering that
city.”
To sum up my impressions of Fonteyn, the dancer, I should be
[Illustration:
_Angus McBean_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Frederick Ashton, Ninette de Valois, Leonide
Massine]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Beryl Grey as the Princess
Aurora]
[Illustration: _Baron_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Nadia Nerina in _Façade_]
[Illustration: Roland Petit
_Germaine Kanova_]
[Illustration:
_Roger Wood_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Margot Fonteyn and Alexander Grant in
_Tiresias_]
[Illustration:
_Magnum_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: John Field and Violetta Elvin]
[Illustration:
_Baron_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: _Le Lac des Cygnes_--John Field and Beryl Grey]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Last Act of _Le Lac des Cygnes_
_Baron_
]
[Illustration:
_Magnum_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: _Giselle_--Robert Helpmann and Margot Fonteyn]
[Illustration:
_Baron_
Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet: Elaine Fifield as Swanilda in _Coppélia_]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet: David Blair and Svetlana
Beriosova in _Coppélia_
_Roger Wood_
]
[Illustration:
_Baron_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: _A Wedding Bouquet_]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Act I. _The Sleeping Beauty_--The
Princess falls beneath the spell of Carabosse
_Baron_
]
[Illustration: Agnes de Mille]
[Illustration: John Lanchbery, Conductor, Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet
_Denis de Marney_
]
[Illustration: John Hollingsworth, Conductor, Sadler’s Wells Ballet
_Maurice Seymour_
]
[Illustration: Robert Irving, Musical Director, Sadler’s Wells Ballet
_Baron_
]
[Illustration: The Sadler’s Wells production of _The Sleeping Beauty_:
Puss-in-Boots]
[Illustration: Robert Helpmann as the Rake in _The Rake’s Progress_
_Baron_
]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Rowena Jackson as Odile in _Le Lac
des Cygnes_
_Derek Allen_
]
[Illustration: Colette Marchand
_Lido_]
[Illustration:
_Baron_
Moira Shearer]
[Illustration: Moira Shearer and Daughter
_Central Press Photo_
]
[Illustration:
_Baron_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: _Symphonic Variations_--Moira Shearer, Margot
Fonteyn, Michael Somes, Pamela May
_Baron_
]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: America is closer: loading at Port
of London]
[Illustration: Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Scenery and costumes start the
trek for America
_Acme-PA_
]
[Illustration: _Gyenes_
Antonio Spanish Ballet: Antonio]
[Illustration: Antonio Spanish Ballet: _Serenada_
_Gyenes_]
doing her something less than justice if I failed to call attention to a
supreme quality in her work, viz., that quality of implied ease in all
she does, bringing unstrained pleasure to the onlooker; coupled as it is
with a spiritual quality with which her performances seem to shimmer.
All these things, so far as I am concerned, add up to a _ballerina_
absolutely unique in my experience.
Margot Fonteyn is, to me, the true artist, because a great dancer must
be a human being before she is an artist; her art must, in the last
resort, be the expression of her personal attitude to life. She is
many-sided; and the wonder is that she is able to have this breadth of
cultural outlook when so much of her time has had to be spent in
acquiring technique, dealing with its problems and the means of
expression.
No amount of technique, no amount of technical brilliance or recondite
knowledge will hide the paucity of emotion or intellect in an artist’s
make-up. Technique, after all, is no more than the alphabet and the
words of an art, and it is only the difficulty of acquiring a
superlative technique that has led so many astray. But along what a
fatal path they have been led! How often are we told that the true
artist must devote her whole energies to her art, without the
realization that art is the highest expression of mankind and has value
only in so far as it is enriched with the blood of life.
As for Fonteyn, the person, whom I love and admire, I have no gossip to
offer, few anecdotes, no whisperings. About her there is not the
slightest trace of pose, pretentiousness, or pettiness. While she is
conscious she is a great _ballerina_, one of the top-ranking artists in
any art in the world today, she is equally conscious she is a human
being. Basically, she is shy and quite humble. Splendidly poised,
immaculately and impeccably groomed, chic in an international rather
than in a Parisian sense, she is definitely an elegant person. The
elegance of her private appearance she carries over into her appearance
as a _ballerina_. Anna Pavlova, of all other dancers I have known, had
this same quality.
Usually Margot dresses in colors that are on the dark side, like her own
personal coloring. Small-featured, small-boned, her clothes, exquisite
in cut, are strikingly simple. She is not given to jewelry, save for
earrings without which I cannot remember ever having seen her. She is
remarkably beautiful, but not in the G.I. pin-up type sense. Again there
is the similarity to Anna Pavlova, who would look elegant and _chic_
today in any _salon_ or drawing-room, because her elegance was
timeless. By all this, I do not mean to suggest that Fonteyn’s Christian
Dior evening frocks and day dresses are not modish, but nothing she
wears suggests the “latest word.”
One more word about her actions. I have mentioned her complete lack of
pretentiousness. I should like to emphasize her equal lack of apparent
awareness of her exalted position in her chosen calling. With the
company, she makes no demands, puts on no airs. There is no false
grandeur and none of the so-called “temperament” that many lesser
_ballerinas_ feel called upon to display upon the slightest provocation,
and often upon no provocation at all. She is one who submits to the
discipline of a great and continuous and uninterrupted and secure
company. Fonteyn works as hard, with daily classes and rehearsals,
mayhap harder, as any other of the large personnel. Her relations with
the company are on the same plane. When the company travels in buses,
Margot piles into the buses with them, joins in with the company at all
times, is a member of it and an inspiration to it. The company,
individually and collectively, love her and have the highest respect for
her.
Margot’s warning to me not to try to disturb her before a performance
had nothing to do with pose or “temperament.” It is simply that in order
to live up to her reputation she has a duty, exactly as she has a duty
to the role she is to enact, and because of these things, she has the
artist’s natural nervousness increased before the rise of the curtain.
She must be alone and silent with her thoughts in order to have herself
under complete control and be at her best.
In all ballet I have never known a finer colleague, or one possessed of
a greater amount of genuine good-heartedness. The examples of this sort
of thing are endless, but one incident pointing it up stands out in my
mind.
A certain American _ballerina_ was on a visit to London. Margot invited
this American girl to go to Paris with her. “Freddy” Ashton was also
coming along, she said, and it would be fun.
“I can’t go,” replied the American _ballerina_. “I’ve nothing to wear
that’s fit to be seen in Paris.”
“Come, come, don’t be silly,” replied Margot. “Here, take this suit of
mine. I’ve never worn it.”
And she handed over a new Christian Dior creation.
Now Margot at that time was by no means too blessed with the world’s
goods, and could not afford a new Dior outfit too often.
On their arrival in Paris, the group telephoned me at the Meurice and
came to see me. Turning to the American _ballerina_, a long-time friend
of mine, I could not help admiring her appearance.
“Where _did_ you get that beautiful suit?” I enquired.
“Margot gave it to me, isn’t she sweet?” she replied, quite simply.
This is Margot Fonteyn: always ready to share with others; always
thinking of others, least of all, of herself.
The following incident sums up the Margot Fonteyn I know and love. On
the final night of the second American tour, after the last performance,
I gave a farewell supper for the entire company at the Chateau
Frontenac, in Quebec City. There were speeches, of which more later.
When they were over, a _corps de ballet_ member spontaneously rose to
propose a toast to Margot Fonteyn, on her great personal triumph in
North America. The rounds of applause that followed the toast reminded
me of the opening night at the Metropolitan in New York. That applause
had come from an audience of paying customers, who had just witnessed a
new dancer scoring a triumph in an exciting performance. The applause
that went on for minutes and minutes, came from her own colleagues, many
of whom had grown up with her from the School. My eyes were moist. After
a long time, Fonteyn rose to thank them. In doing so, she reminded them
that a _ballerina_ was only as good as her surroundings and that it was
impossible for a _ballerina_ to exist without the perfect setting, which
they provided.
Here was a great artist, the greatest living _ballerina_ we of the
western world know, with all her triumphs, all her successes about her,
at the apex of her career; very much of the present, here was the true
artist, the loyal comrade, the humble, grateful human being.
From Chicago, a long journey to Winnipeg for a four-day engagement to be
filled at the request of the British Council and David Webster,
following a suggestion from H. M. the King. Winnipeg had suffered
shocking damage from floods, and His Majesty had promised Winnipeg a
visit from the Ballet while it was in America as a gala to lift the
spirits of the people.
Here the company had its first taste of real cold, for the thermometer
dropped to thirty-two degrees below zero. The result was that when it
came time to entrain for the journey half-way across the continent to
Boston, the next point on the itinerary, the baggage car doors were so
frozen that they had to be opened with blowtorches and charges of
explosives.
It was a four-day and three-night journey from Winnipeg to Boston, in
sub-zero, stormy weather. The intense cold slowed the locomotives and
froze the storage batteries, with the result that save for the
lounge-bar car, the cars were in complete darkness and were dimly
lighted at bed-time by a few spluttering candles. The severe cold had
also caused the steam lines in the train to freeze, so that the
temperature inside the cars was such that all made the journey wrapped
in overcoats and blankets, wearing the heterogeneous collection of
ear-lapped caps which they had purchased, even to North-west Canadian
wool and fur shakos that blossomed in Winnipeg. Somewhere east of
Chicago the “Sadler’s Wells Special” got itself behind the wreck of a
freight train which had blocked the tracks, necessitating a long detour
over the tracks of another railway, causing still further delays. Nine
hours late, the ice-covered train bearing a company that had gone
through the most gruelling train adventure of the tour, limped into
Boston’s South Station.
There followed a tense period, for the minimum time required to set and
light _The Sleeping Beauty_ is twelve hours. It was another case of
“touch and go.” Two hours were required to get the train broken up and
all the scenery cars placed for unloading; then the procession of great
trucks from the cars to the Opera House commenced; there followed the
unloading, the taking-in, the hanging, the setting, the installation of
all the heavy and complicated lighting equipment, for the theatres of
America, for the most part, are either poorly equipped or not at all,
and the Boston Opera House is in the latter category. Hundreds of
costumes had to be unpacked, pressed, and distributed. But such is the
efficiency of the Sadler’s Wells organization, its general stage
director, the late Louis Yudkin, and our own American staff, together
with the valued assistance of the Boston local manager, Aaron Richmond,
that the curtain rose at the appointed minute.
I had gone to Boston for the duration of the engagement there. Bearing
in mind the extensive travelling the company had had, climaxed by the
harrowing journey from Winnipeg, I was concerned about their fatigue and
also how it might affect the quality of the performance. My memory of
the Boston _première_ of _The Sleeping Beauty_ is that it was one of the
very best I had seen anywhere. Sir Oliver Franks, the British
Ambassador, and Lady Franks, together with Lord Wakehurst, head of the
English-Speaking Union, one of the Governors of the Covent Garden Opera
Trust, and now Governor-General of Northern Ireland, came to Boston for
the opening, and greeted the company at a delightful supper and
reception following the performance. Lord Wakehurst has been a veritable
tower of strength in the development of international cultural relations
during the Sadler’s Wells tours; together with Lady Wakehurst, he is a
charming host whose hospitality I have enjoyed in their London home.
The interest of Sir Oliver Franks, Lord Wakehurst, and the British
Council as evidenced throughout the entire tour, together with the
splendid cooperation of the English-Speaking Union, all helped in one of
the main reasons for the tour, quite apart from any dollars the company
might be able to garner. That was the extension of cultural relations
between the two great English-speaking nations.
Cultural relations are basically a matter of links between individuals
rather than links between governments, and such a tour as Sadler’s Wells
made, bringing the richness of British ballet to hundreds of thousands
of individuals, helps develop those private relationships; and the sum
of them presents a comprehensive picture of Britain to the world. In our
struggle for peace in the world, nothing is more essential than cultural
understanding. It should be pointed out that the British Council does
not send overseas companies primarily for financial gain, and its policy
in these matters is not dictated by financial considerations.