"by the Royal Ballet, dancing a duet with Ashton in his ""Salut d'amour"" and a tango from Ashton's ""Façade"" with her former partner Helpmann. At the end of the evening, she was officially pronounced ""prima ballerina assoluta"" of the Royal Ballet. She performed with Nureyev in his summer season, taking the part of lead nymph in ""L'après-midi d'un faune"" by Vaslav Nijinsky and as the girl in ""Le Spectre de la rose"". Fonteyn and Nureyev remained close even after she retired to a Panama cattle farm with her husband. The small farmhouse near El Higo, which did not have a"
"for the Royal Ballet include: First performing together with the Royal Ballet in Giselle on 21 February 1962, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev would form what has been called the greatest ballet partnership of all time. The partnership would lead to both dancers being noted amongst the most famous ballet dancers of all time and came at the peak of what is now widely regarded as the most successful period in the Royal Ballet's history. On 12 March 1963, the couple premiered Sir Frederick Ashton's ""Marguerite and Armand"", the first ballet created for them and one that become their signature"
"he and Fonteyn performed together in ""Giselle"" to an enthusiastic capacity crowd, for which they received 15 minutes of applause and 20 curtain calls. The performance was followed by a show-stopping performance of ""Le Corsaire Pas de Deux"" on 3 November. The press described their performance as otherworldly and ""The Observer"" called it a ""knockout"" and the pairing history-making. A few days later, they performed ""Les Sylphides"" to rave reviews which were carried in United States newspapers. Fonteyn was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Cambridge in 1962. Sir Frederick Ashton choreographed ""Marguerite and Armand"" for"
"Michael Somes Michael George Somes CBE (28 September 191718 November 1994), was an English ballet dancer. He was a principal dancer of The Royal Ballet, London, and the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn. Somes was born in Horsley, Gloucestershire, England. In 1934, he was awarded the first scholarship given to a male by the Royal Ballet (then known as the Vic-Wells Ballet). In 1938, he and Fonteyn created the principal rôles in the Frederick Ashton/Constant Lambert ballet ""Horoscope"", after which he was described as ""potentially the finest British male dancer of the half century"". He originated rôles in 24 ballets"
"until 2003. Against the wishes of Frederick Ashton that it not be performed by any other dancers than Fonteyn and Nureyev, it was revived as part of a Royal Ballet triple-bill, starring Nureyev's protegee Sylvie Guillem and the Royal Ballet star Jonathan Cope. The Fonteyn-Nureyev partnership lasted for many years until Fonteyn's retirement from the Royal Ballet in 1979, aged 60. In 1970 after Frederick Ashton retired as Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet, there were many calls for Nureyev to be announced as his successor. However, Kenneth MacMillan was given the position, and Nureyev left the Royal Ballet as"
"ballets created by Ashton, including""Symphonic Variations"", ""Cinderella"", ""Daphnis and Chloe"", ""Ondine"" and ""Sylvia"". In 1949, she led the company in a tour of the United States and became an international celebrity. Before and after the Second World War, Fonteyn performed in televised broadcasts of ballet performances in Britain and in the early 1950s appeared on ""The Ed Sullivan Show,"" consequently increasing the popularity of dance in the United States. In 1955, she married the Panamanian politician Roberto Arias and appeared in a live colour production of ""The Sleeping Beauty"" aired on NBC. Three years later, she and Somes danced for"
"Margot Fonteyn Dame Margot Fonteyn, DBE (18 May 191921 February 1991), stage name of Margaret Evelyn de Arias, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet, eventually being appointed ""prima ballerina assoluta"" of the company by Queen Elizabeth II. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England and China, where her father was transferred for his work. Her training in Shanghai was with George Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at the age of 14, she was invited to join the Vic-Wells"
"when she was performing with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. Margot Fonteyn Dame Margot Fonteyn, DBE (18 May 191921 February 1991), stage name of Margaret Evelyn de Arias, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet, eventually being appointed ""prima ballerina assoluta"" of the company by Queen Elizabeth II. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England and China, where her father was transferred for his work. Her training in Shanghai was with George Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at the age"
"duo, ""Paradise Lost"". It was an abstract, modern production designed to emphasize Rudolf as a virile Adam and Fonteyn as a chic Eve. With pop art décor and flashing neon, the ballet titillated the fans, including Mick Jagger and his girlfriend, the singer Marianne Faithfull. Fonteyn went into semi-retirement in 1972, relinquishing parts in full ballets and performing only a variety of one-act performances. In 1974, she was awarded the Royal Society of Arts' Benjamin Franklin Medal, in recognition of her having built bridges between Britain and the US through her art. She ventured into modern dance, performing as ""Desdemona"""
"named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was married to fellow ballet dancer Dame Antoinette Sibley, but they eventually divorced. He later married ballet dancer Wendy Ellis. He died of a brain tumour in London in 1994. Michael Somes Michael George Somes CBE (28 September 191718 November 1994), was an English ballet dancer. He was a principal dancer of The Royal Ballet, London, and the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn. Somes was born in Horsley, Gloucestershire, England. In 1934, he was awarded the first scholarship given to a male by the Royal Ballet (then known"
"Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The following year, the duo appeared in a ""Producers' Showcase"" production of ""Cinderella"". Fonteyn starred with Somes in a 1958 BBC Television adaptation of ""The Nutcracker"" which premiered on 21 December. She was successful in two other Ashton ballets, ""La Péri"" (1956) and ""Ondine"" (1958), before becoming a freelance dancer in 1959, allowing allow her to accept the many international engagements she was offered. Shortly before her marriage Fonteyn had been selected to succeed Adeline Genée, as president of the Royal Academy of Dance and though she protested the appointment, the Academy"
"the ballet-going public. During his career, Blair worked with some of the most notable choreographers of the twentieth century, including Anton Dolin, George Balanchine, John Cranko, Frederick Ashton, and Kenneth MacMillan. Besides Fonteyn, he also partnered leading ballerinas of the company, including Nadia Nerina, Lynn Seymour, and Svetlana Beriosova. His partnership with Nerina is perhaps the most notable. They had danced together as Swanilda and Franz in ""Coppélia"" and had won critical acclaim, but it was as Lise and Colas in Ashton's new version of the old French ballet ""La fille mal gardée"" that forever solidified them as a pair"
"1959 by Celia Franca and Betty Oliphant in Toronto, Ontario. A photo in ""Dance Collection Danse"" shows her classmates and a young Esmonde-White smiling up at the violinist Yehudi Menuhin after his concert at Massey Hall. After her training, she worked around the world with the National Ballet of Canada at the same time that the company danced with Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and other very well-known dancers such as Karen Kain and Robert Joffrey. Unfortunately, she broke a foot, and the injury ended her ballet career in her early twenties. Esmonde-White's next effort, her own company making homemade rag"
"a much praised partnership with Christopher Gable. The title role in MacMillan's ""Romeo and Juliet"", which was created on her in 1965 although danced by Margot Fonteyn at the première, established her as the leading dance-actress of her generation. She was prima ballerina at Berlin Opera Ballet (1966–69) under MacMillan's direction, where she danced the first performance of his ""Concerto"", whose second movement was inspired by her, and created the role of Anna Anderson in the one-act version of ""Anastasia"" (1967). She guested with various companies including London Festival Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, National Ballet of Canada, Alvin Ailey"
"the Order of the British Empire in 1951 for her contributions to British ballet. Plagued by injury, she considered retiring, especially after her most frequent partner of the 1950s, Somes, began to take less challenging roles. On an American tour in 1953, Fonteyn found herself suddenly reacquainted with Roberto ""Tito"" Arias – whom she had spent time with at Cambridge University in 1937 – when he surprised her with a visit to her dressing room after a performance of ""Sleeping Beauty"". Arias was now a politician and Panamanian delegate to the United Nations. Although he already had a wife and"
"Testimonies"", GoldenGate Edizioni, 2016. Violetta Elvin Violetta Elvin (born 3 November 1924) is a retired Russian prima ballerina and actress. In 1986, ""The Times"" described Elvin as “the only rival ever to give Dame Margot Fonteyn a run for her money”. Born Violetta Prokhorova on 3 November 1924 in Moscow, she graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet in 1942. Elvin was only 20 when she had already danced the leads in Swan Lake, Marius Petipa's Don Quixote and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai with the State Ballet of Tashkent. In 1945, she met and married British architect Harold Elvin in Moscow, and"
"December 1961, partnered by John Gilpin. The performance was praised: ""Her Aurora, already enchanting, promises to be for her generation what Fonteyn's had been to mine."" Sir Frederick Ashton's ""The Dream"" (1964), a balletic version of Shakespeare's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"" was created for Sibley and the up-and-coming Anthony Dowell. Ashton cast Sibley as Titania and Dowell as Oberon. David Vaughan wrote that the production was ""sure of a place in contemporary ballet history if only because it initiated a new partnership, Sibley and Dowell, that was to become second only to Fonteyn and Nureyev in popular esteem ..."" Writing"
"early 1960s, Nerina was widely regarded as the rightful successor to the aging Margot Fonteyn as the leading ballerina of the Royal Ballet. Her career path was diverted, however, by the defection of the young Rudolf Nureyev from the Kirov Ballet in 1961. His subsequent partnership with Fonteyn at the Royal Ballet postponed her retirement and revitalized her career. She remained the reigning queen of the Covent Garden stage for another two decades. Nerina was disappointed at being overshadowed by Fonteyn and Nureyev, but, ever generous in spirit, she never blamed Fonteyn for her dominance. She remained on friendly terms"
"Palmer film about Fonteyn, entitled ""Margot"". Wendy Ellis Somes Wendy Ellis Somes (born 6 December 1951) is a former principal ballerina with the Royal Ballet in London, and is now a worldwide producer of the Sir Frederick Ashton ballets Cinderella and Symphonic Variations. She was born Wendy Rose Ellis in Blackburn, and received her early training at the Carlotta School of Dance, later winning a British Ballet Organization scholarship. In 1963 she was selected to study at the Royal Ballet School, and moved to London with her parents to continue training. She started there in 1963 and joined the Royal"
"the festival. He joined London Festival Ballet (today English National Ballet) in 1959. On 23 June 1959, Yuresha partnered with Belinda Wright at a Royal Command Performance before Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Manchester. He danced in the BBC ""Eurovision"" production of Sleeping Beauty with the legendary prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn starring in the title role on 20 December 1959. Yuresha joined the Royal Ballet in 1962, the same month as another Eastern European émigré, Rudolph Nureyev, joined the company. Wright followed Yuresha to the Royal Ballet, and the pair continued their dance partnership in dozens of performances."
"lighthearted romp of amorous pursuits. It proved to be the role that made him a star. As a ""whimsical, endearing little person in a tow-colored wig,"" Grant happily ""bounced about the stage like a rubber ball,"" then collapsed in abject despair before winning the heart of the ballerina in the title role, danced by Margot Fonteyn. The next year, 1948, Ashton devised a spectacular hoop dance for him in ""Les Sirènes"", the first of Grant's many created roles in Ashton ballets. Promoted to principal dancer in 1950, Grant became one of Ashton's muses, inspiring him and even collaborating with him"
"ligament in her ankle. She was unable to dance for several months, missing the premiere of Ashton's ""Cinderella"". She recovered sufficiently to dance with Michael Somes in the Christmas presentation of the ballet, and made her mark in the role of Cinderella by challenging the traditional costume for Act I, replacing the usual brown outfit with a stark black dress and a kerchief tied severely over her hair. Observers commented that Fonteyn inserted a new, stronger sense of pathos into the performance. Reprieving the role of Aurora in 1949 when the Royal Ballet toured the United States, Fonteyn instantly became"
"on Sunday, the Goslings took over, staying on until Nigel's death in 1982. During almost two decades of working together, they not only regularly wrote reviews for the newspaper, but they wrote, edited, or contributed to ten books on ballet and dance, four of which dealt with the life and career of Rudolf Nureyev. The Goslings had first seen Nureyev dance with the Kirov Ballet in Paris, just before he defected to the West in June 1961. Soon after, when Margot Fonteyn persuaded the young Russian virtuoso to come to London to appear in a gala for the Royal Academy"
"duration of his life. She had previously been involved with Donald Hodson, the Controller of the BBC Overseas Service. Lambert dedicated his score for the ballet ""Horoscope"" (1938) to Fonteyn. When the company visited the University of Cambridge for a brief professional engagement in 1937, Fonteyn first met Roberto ""Tito"" Arias, an 18-year-old law student from Panama who would later become her husband. Fonteyn became enamored with Arias after seeing him perform a rumba dance at a party. The pair enjoyed their time together for the next week, but Arias then returned to Panama for the summer holidays. His lack"
"and was with the company when it was caught in the Netherlands during the German invasion on 10 May 1940, escaping back to England in the hold of a freighter. With Fonteyn and Pamela May, June was one of trio of exceptional performers and close friends who gained the nickname 'The Triptych'. She met David Bredon, whom she was to marry in 1942, at a party in Cambridge in 1938, at which Fonteyn and May also met their future husbands. After her marriage, she retired from dancing and had two children. In 1946 she returned to the stage, creating the"
"""Romeo and Juliet"" premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 9 February 1965. Though MacMillan had conceived the ballet for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, for ""bureaucratic reasons"" Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev danced the opening night, to MacMillan's disappointment. Fonteyn and Nureyev brought new life to the characters, as did the set and costume designs by Nicholas Georgiadis; Fonteyn, considered to be near retirement, embarked upon a rejuvenated career with a partnership with Nureyev. The production was filmed and received a cinematic release in 1966. Romeo and Juliet (MacMillan) Choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Royal Ballet production of"
"Ashton, George Balanchine, Agnes DeMille, William Forsythe, Kurt Josse, Antony Tudor, and others. She performed the Doll in ""Petrushka"" with Rudolf Nureyev at New York State Theater (currently David H. Koch Theater). In the mid-1980's she was a member of the Frankfurt Ballet under directorship of William Forsythe. Throughout her performing career she worked internationally as a guest artist with various ballet companies including The Royal Winnipeg and Ballet Flanders; dance festivals including Jacob's Pillow; and independent tours such as Stars of American Ballet (with Fernando Bujones), Stars of World Ballet in Australia (some talent included Margot Fonteyn, and others"
"of a masterwork"". The ballet was originally intended as a vehicle for The Royal Ballet's then prima ballerina, Margot Fonteyn and the title role of Ondine was choreographed specially for her and led one critic to describe the ballet as ""a concerto for Fonteyn"". From its première in 1958 until the work was removed from the repertoire in 1966, nearly every performance of ""Ondine"" saw Fonteyn cast in the lead role, with the only occasional exceptions seeing Nadia Nerina and Svetlana Beriosova dancing the role. Maria Almeida became the first ballerina to dance the role of Ondine in a revival,"
"found the Cecchetti Society, which merged with the ISTD in 1924. Acting as ballet master he had instructed performers in various ballet companies. From 1933 he had taught, eventually from his own dance studio in London. There he was accompanied on piano by his longtime partner Wanda Evina (1891-1966). Since 1916 they had been romantically linked. Evina was British, a professional dancer, and an accomplished pianist. He worked also with the Royal Academy of Dance. Among his students was Margot Fonteyn. She remembered him as a guest teacher during her early years at Sadler's Wells under Ninette de Valois, which"
"Dame Margot Fonteyn. In 1977, he won the Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. Wall retired from The Royal Ballet in 1984 and was appointed a CBE. In 1985 Wall joined the Royal Academy of Dancing where he was Director and General Secretary until 1991. Following this he became Guest Repetiteur with London City Ballet, and joined English National Ballet as Ballet Master in 1995. There is a 1975 statue, ""Jete"" by Enzo Plazzotta based on David Wall, on the corner of 46-57 Millbank, Westminster, London. Wall married Alfreda Thorogood, a fellow dancer, in 1967. They first met"
"decisions were frowned upon because they were unheard of."" Mosaval was recruited by Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1951. In 1956, Mosaval was promoted to soloist in the company, which was soon renamed the Royal Ballet. He became a principal dancer in 1960 and a senior principal in 1965. Mosaval toured extensively with the Royal Ballet, dancing in continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, the Far East, Canada, and the United States as partner to such famous ballerinas as Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova, Elaine Fifield, Lynn Seymour, Merle Park, Doreen Wells and fellow South African Nadia Nerina in"
"studied at the Royal Ballet School. The first was Alicia Markova who, having been mentored by Ninette de Valois as a member of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, was invited to become one of the founder dancers of the Royal Ballet. She was designated the company's first Prima ballerina, and was later recognised as a Prima ballerina assoluta. Margot Fonteyn trained at the Royal Ballet School and spent her entire career with the company. As a gift for her 60th birthday, she was appointed Prima ballerina assoluta by Queen Elizabeth II. Phyllis Spira joined the Royal Ballet School in 1959, graduating"
"who encouraged her to audition for George Balanchine, artistic director of New York City Ballet. Upon returning to New York, Chazin danced for Balanchine and was invited to join his company. After she started working with him, in 1961, she began to experience foot problems, but she worked through the pain and continued dancing. In the fall of 1961, right after the Berlin Wall was erected, she went to Europe with the Santa Fe Opera company and danced on stages in Berlin and Belgrade. The following summer, in 1962, she returned once more to Jacob's Pillow with Thomas Andrew and"