Margot Fonteyn & Rudolf Nureyev - "The Perfect Partnership"

"The Perfect Partnership"

The First Performance of
 Margot Fonteyn & Rudolf Nureyev

Dear friends & ballet fans,

Here is another excerpt from a chapter of my book – regarding the life of "The First Lady of The Royal Ballet". Specifically, about the her first eeting with her legendary partner – Rudolf Nureyev.

After dancing together for 10 Years, Margot Fonteyn had separated from her parter, Michal Somes, That retired in 1961. Michal (1917-1994) that was only two years older then her, decided to retire due to his mature age and there were some people in the theatre who "whispered" that maybe Margot should do the same, and finish her dancing career.

In what could have been considerd as a stage in getting an admistrative role, Margot got a mandate to invite a world known ballet star to perform in a special fund raising night for the Royal Ballet School. After her invitation to the Russian Superstar Galina Ulanova (1910-1998) was turned down for the 3^rd year in a row, in the conference room of the ballet school came up the idea of inviting Rudolf Nureyev, who have just defected to the west.

The idea was warmly acknowledged, and since the dancer was at Copenhagen at the time, the only way to contact him was through one of the organizers of the special night, Collette Clark, who was in contact with Rudolf's ballet teacher Vera Volkova. Since Margot was responsible for bringing the guest star, she was in intensive connection with Collette in order to see what exactly is the quality of the star and whether he will be willing to perform in the special night.

The conversation was something like this:

Ø  Collette: He says he (Nureyev) wants to dance with you.

Ø  Margot: I’ve never set eyes on him, and anyway I'm set to dance with John Gillipin “Le Spectra of the rose”. Ask Vera if he’s a good dancer.

Ø  Collette: Vera says he’s adamant about dancing with you, and that he’s marvelous.

Ø  Margot: He sounds tiresome to me…

Ø  Collette: No, they say he’s extraordinary. They say that he has such a presence he only has to walk on the stage and lift his arm and you can see the swans by the lake…

Ø  Margot: The more I hear of him the worse he sounds. I don’t mean as a dancer, but why should he decide to dance with me when he’s only twenty three and I’ve never even met him?

Ø   Collette: Well, Vera thinks he's a genius. She says he has “The nostrils”. You know what I Mean? People of Genius has “nostrils”.

That was actually the first communication between the couple that will eventually be known as "The Perfect Partnership"

In the dawn of 1961 came Ninette De Valoise, the founder and artistic director of the royal ballet, to Margot and told her that Rudolf is about to perform with them in the upcoming season. She asked Margot if she wanted to dance the lead role aside him, in the ballet "Giselle".\

 At first, Margot didn’t find the idea so appealing, and was actually afraid that if the two dancers will team up, a 23 year old Russian rising star and a 42 year old English ballerina, it will look like "Lamb dancing with Mutton". She asked for a day to think about it and when she returned home she realized that he is about to be the big sensation of the season and if the opportunity to dance with him will be given to a different ballerina she will be left behind and away from the spotlight. And so Margot took the courage and decided to take on the role with the young star and literally to engulf a new challenge in her career.

The 21^st of February 1962, the premier of Giselle, was the date which all of London's ballet world was expecting – especially those who had tickets (it is told that in the same premier merely 70,000 ticket requests were denied after it sold out). In the ticket office event they were bragging that "even the queen herself could not get a ticket".

Because Rudolf was educated in the Russian ballet style, which minimizes the use of mime in comparison to the English style, the two dancers met in the middle, which resulted dancing with an unbelievable level of dramatic expressiveness. The symmetry between the two dancers was so outstanding that none other then Ninette De Valoise was noted said that "it is incredible to believe that they were not brought up in the same school". It appeared as if they heard the music in the same way and the one was the other's shadow or mirror – "Two edges that came together and created a whole"

Margot and Rudolf completely devoted themselves to the roles to such extent that it was almost impossible for the crowd to realize that they are actually acting.

Rudolf Recollects:

"I was Albrecht (The lead male character in Giselle), and Albrecht was in love with Giselle; on the stage I saw her through the eyes of a lover"

When the curtain come down at the end of the show there were no applause at all for something that seemed like a minute. Nobody believed what they have just witnessed – the icon of the English Ballet had performed with a young Russian man who Is about half her age, and they both looked like the perfect partnership. When they came up stage  for one of the 23 encores the crowd demanded (the presumable record was in the couple's premier of "Romeo & Juliet" – 43 encores), Margot pulled out one of the red roses in her bouquet, that was sent to her by her husband, and presented it to Rudolf, who in an classical but very typical manner got down on one knee and kissed her hand.

The press cheered and remarked a new era in ballet.

Hyperlink to ther performance of 

(Giselle 1962)

Margot and Rudolf remained very close for all of their personal lives and professional careers, and in interview about 30 years later, Rudolf said:

"She shaped my career, because of the chemistry we had… she was a very good friend of mine – like family. In fact she was the only family I had."

Indeed Margot's unfulfilled maternal instinct together with Rudolf's never ending fire completed each other perfectly. 

Yet, it is difficult to ignore the spicy question about the existence of intimate relationship between the two. even though she was married and he was (usually) a Homosexual they've still toured the world together and shared a long time alone. Although This question is answered in many different ways,  maybe the best one was said by Margot's biographer, Meredith Daneman:

"Perhaps the most intimate union that an artist can ever forge will be with someone who shares, not his bed, but his dream"

The full article will appear in my book:

"The Romantic and Neo-Classical Ballet

Masterpieces, Creators and unforgettable performers"

"The Young Man and Death"

Dear friends,

I have put together some excerpts from a chapter of my book that discuss one of my favorite Ballet Masterpieces "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort"

 (The Young Man and Death)

(Drawing by: Shulamit Hochberg)

If the princesses, knights and fairies – The main figures of the romantic era, would have seen "The Young Man and Death", they would probably been mesmerized by the long way that was made between the 19^th century fantasy ballets, to an art form that is so realistic a century later. They probably would have a real hard time relaxing from the shock…

The cooperation between some of the most superb artists of their time have brought to the world one of the most expressive neo-classical masterpieces – a work with obvious meanings regarding emotional extremism due to unrequited love - A kind of love that brings a man a total loss of control and practically suicide.

The Father of The Young Man

The father of the piece is the influential French choreographer Roland Petit (1924-2011). Trained  in the Paris Opera Ballet since the age of 8, Roland was a promising young soloist who performed most of the lead classical roles. At a relative young age he had felt artistically unfulfilled from only dancing classical works and so he formed his own ballet company with a vision of ballet world as being much more creative and much more extreme...

According to the tradition of artists cooperation, set in the days of "Les Ballet Russes" in the early 20^th century, this masterpiece was the fruit of cooperation between the Roland Petit, and Jean Cocteau – the novelist, director, poet and Multi-Artist. The latter was the writer of the ballet's libretto, which he described in five sentences:

"A young man is in love with a woman

He wants to tempt her, to get her

She refuses

She kicks him and leaves

He hangs himself"

With the use of the language of classical ballet,  Roland was suppose to dramatize a surreal, dark, and alienated atmosphere, a kind of drama that would reflect the general atmosphere that was present in post war world two, in Paris of 1946.

"The Youth"

The first performer of the ballet was Jean Babilée, a dancer who was known to have the highest leap since Vaslav Nisjinsky. The French-Jewish dancer (originally named Jean Guttman) began a tradition of acrobatic dancers performing this role. As a matter of fact, "The Young Man And Death", was always a kind of a "Modern Showcase Piece" for every classical dancer who wants to show his power in combining Contemporary and modern qualities.

Jean Babilée & Nathalie Philippart in the first production

The Music

Apart from the suicidal drama and the virtuoso choreography, one of the most important elements of this masterpiece is the music – John Sebastian Bach's "Passacaglia in C Minor". The score carries a basic tune in a very low and dark key that keeps repeating throughout the composition. No matter what happens around it musically, the basic dark tune remains constant in the background, in a way that matches the basic atmosphere of the piece.

The Ballet

A common element in Petit's ballets is the use of chairs. In his famous ballet adaptation to the opera "Carmen", we see the gypsies dancing in the streets with chairs – a symbol that implies that they are living in the streets. In "The Young Man and Death" the chairs are being kicked and tossed around by the youth as a symbol for his wildness and for his scattered home – his scattered soul. 

After all his longings, the youth got what he wished for – the door opens and there stands a woman with a horrifying yellow dress, long black gloves and a kind of deep look in her eyes that is matchless in its cruelty.

After a sexual and twisted interaction, the woman storms out of the room, not before she ties a rope from the ceiling, and upon the rope she points to the youth to make it of use...

And so, after a motional and emotional last storm, came the picture that shocked the world of dance: the youth wraps the rope around his head and drops the chair beneath his feet.

When the suffering body relinquishes the struggle, the curtain is expected to come down, But surprisingly enough, the decor actually rises up and in the background we see the streets of Paris. On the stage appears a horrifying figure, "Death", in a white and red dress, and orders the young man to come off the rope. "Death" takes off his mask and we see that it was actually the woman, who then puts its mask on the face of the youth, and sends him to wonder the streets of Paris…

Symbols and conclusions

At first glimpse, the ending of the ballet leaves us with a little sexist aftertaste – the woman caused the youth to end his life and apparently it was nothing but a fraud - she was "The Grim-Reaper". Yet, a deeper perspective might suggest a different conclusion - the possibility that the woman was in fact an hallucination - a perspective that is supported by artistic expressions like the costumes, the drama and even the title of the ballet – "The Young Man And Death". In French, the last word of the title (Mort) is feminine gender, which can imply that perhaps the youth's interaction was maybe with his beloved, but an in-depth perspective suggests that it was actually a dialogue - between the young man and death. …

The full article will be published in my book:

"The Romantic & Neo Classical BalletMasterpieces, Creators & Unforgettable Performers"

Hyperlink to the performance of the Paris Opera Ballet (2005)