Margot Fonteyn

British dancer

• Born: May 18, 1919
• Birthplace: Reigate, Surrey, England
• Died: February 21, 1991
• Place of death: Panama City, Panama

As the first ballerina trained by a British school and company to achieve international status, Fonteyn almost single-handedly developed the Royal Ballet’s female repertoire during her thirty years with the company and became the model for the modern ballerina.

Early Life

Margot Fonteyn (MAHR-goh fawn-TAYN), born Margaret Evelyn Hookham, was the daughter of Felix John Hookham, an engineer with the British-American Tobacco Company, and Hilda Fontes Hookham, a coffee heiress. Fonteyn was educated both by private tutors and in local schools as the family traveled from England to Louisville, Kentucky, on the way to China.

Fonteyn’s earliest dance training began in Ealing, England, at age five, with Grace Bostulow. In China, she studied with the Russian-trained George Gontcharov. Her mother kept a watchful eye over the various teachers and methods of training her daughter received. When Fonteyn was twelve, she returned with her mother to England both to visit her older brother Felix and to be tested at the Royal Academy of Dancing. Two years later, the pair returned to London permanently and young Fonteyn was enrolled at the school for the Vic-Wells Ballet, which was to become the Sadler’s Wells and eventually the Royal Ballet. At fifteen, Fonteyn was shy, well-mannered, and extremely self-disciplined. She had decided to make a career for herself as a dancer and was single-minded in her pursuit of this goal.

At Sadler’s Wells School, Fonteyn studied with the director, Ninette de Valois, as well as Nicholas Legat, Serafine Astafieva, Vera Volkova, and Anna Ludmila. When in Paris, she studied with Olga Preobrajenska and Mathilde Kschessinskaia. In 1934, she made her professional debut in the Vic-Wells production of The Nutcracker. Later that season, she had her first solo role in the Mazurka from Michel Fokine’s Les Sylphides, and de Valois cast her in an important nondancing role as the young master Tregennis in The Haunted Ballroom. Also that year, de Valois contracted Frederick Ashton as principal choreographer of the Vic-Wells, and in his revival of Rio Grande, “Margaret Fontes,” as she then called herself, was cast as the Creole Girl, her first important solo dancing role.

Life’s Work

In 1935, Alicia Markova, who had been the prima ballerina of the Vic-Wells, left the group to form her own company with Anton Dolin. With characteristic modesty, Fonteyn attributes her later success to the coincidence of having been the right age to be groomed to take Markova’s place. In fact, de Valois planned to rebuild the company on the strength of her male star, Robert Helpmann, choreographer Ashton, musical director Constant Lambert, and her new leading ballerina. It was at this point that de Valois thought her young ballerina needed a new stage name. As Margot Fonteyn, the former Margaret Hookham’s artistic reputation began to grow.

Among Fonteyn’s strongest traits as a dancer were her perfect proportions; her relatively small (five feet, four inches), light, and supple body; and her exotic, dark good looks. These features combined to help Fonteyn establish an unusual stage presence that would serve her throughout her career.

Fonteyn danced in a series of Ashton ballets, many times in roles created specifically for her. These include Baiser de la fée (1935), Apparitions (1936), A Wedding Banquet (1937), Les Patineurs (1937), Horoscope (1938), Dance Sonata (1940), The Wise Virgins (1940), and, most memorably, The Sleeping Beauty (1940). In addition to the Ashton ballets, during this period Fonteyn began to create leading roles from the extremely difficult classical Russian repertory, including Giselle and Swan Lake. Her interpretations of these roles required not only superior technical ability but also a gift for dramatic characterization and mime. Few dancers in the history of classical theatrical dancing have ever rivaled Fonteyn’s gifts as both actor and dancer.

During World War II, the Vic-Wells Ballet toured Europe performing mostly repertory works. Ashton added only one new ballet, The Quest, in 1943, with Fonteyn and Helpmann dancing the leading roles. Helpmann choreographed two important ballets for Fonteyn, Comus and Hamlet, both in 1942. She also created the role of Love in Orpheus and Eurydice (1941), choreographed by de Valois.

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London was the home of the Vic-Wells, now named the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, after the war. Fonteyn was featured in Ashton’s Symphonic Variations (1946), Les Syrenes (1946), The Fairie Queen (1946), and Don Juan (1948) and in de Valois’s Don Quixote (1950).

As a guest choreographer in the postwar years, Léonide Massine staged revivals of The Three-Cornered Hat with Fonteyn dancing the role of the Miller’s Wife, and Mam’zelle Angot with Fonteyn in the title role. She also performed as a guest artist with Les Ballets de Paris in Roland Petit’s Les Demoiselles de la nuit in 1948. In 1948, Ashton choreographed Cinderella for Fonteyn but an ankle injury prevented her from performing the part when it premiered. Moira Shearer was instead given the role, and it was after Shearer’s retirement that the ballet was staged with Fonteyn in the title role (1949).

It was also during this 1949-1950 season that the Sadler’s Wells began what proved to be a series of successful tours to the United States. Fonteyn became as much a success there as in England. In 1950, she created the role of the first ballerina in George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial for the Sadler’s Wells Company. Between 1951 and 1953, she danced the roles of Chloë in Ashton’s Daphnis and Chloë, the title roles in both Ashton’s Tiresias and his Sylvia, and the Spirit of the Air in his Homage to the Queen. Unfortunately, Fonteyn’s touring schedule had to be somewhat limited during this time because of a new and serious ankle injury; also, in 1953, a case of diphtheria demanded a long period of recuperation.

In 1954, Fonteyn added the title role in Fokine’s The Firebird to her repertoire. This ballet, like The Three-Cornered Hat, was a revival of Sergei Diaghilev’s original production. Tamara Karsavina, the first Firebird in 1910, was responsible for the reconstruction. Michael Somes, one of Fonteyn’s longtime partners at the Sadler’s Wells, danced the role of Ivan Czarevitch in the production, which was taken to the Edinburgh Festival that year.

Also during this year, Fonteyn made plans to marry Roberto Arias, a Panamanian attorney and politician. Shortly after their marriage, on February 6, 1955, Arias was made ambassador to the Court of St. James, where he served from 1955 to 1959 and again from 1961 to 1962. During these years, Fonteyn made American television appearances for the National Broadcasting Corporation network in Sadler’s Wells productions of The Sleeping Beauty (1955) and Cinderella (1957).

In 1956, the Sadler’s Wells received a royal charter and, in 1957, it changed its name to the Royal Ballet. This was also the year that Fonteyn, Somes, Rowena Jackson, and Bryan Ashbridge made their first tour of Australia and New Zealand, performing with the Australian Ballet.

In 1958, Ashton created for Fonteyn one of her favorite roles, that of the water sprite in Ondine . This ballet highlighted the ballerina’s innate sense of line and musicality, and she described it as a joy to dance from beginning to end. A film called The Royal Ballet (1960), produced and directed by Paul Czinner, includes the three-act ballet of Ondine performed by Fonteyn and Somes, along with The Firebird and the third act of Swan Lake. In 1959, Fonteyn became a permanent guest artist with the Royal Ballet, a company from which she never officially retired.

In 1961, Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union. The following year, with Fonteyn’s help, he became a permanent guest dancer with the Royal Ballet. The first appearance of this remarkable and electrifying partnership was at Covent Garden in February, 1962, in Giselle . The performance garnered twenty-three curtain calls, and similar responses seemed to follow wherever the two appeared. Ashton choreographed Marguerite and Armand for the pair in 1963, a ballet based on the romantic novel La Dame aux camélias (1848), by Alexandre Dumas, fils. Along with the regular repertory of the Royal Ballet, the couple performed Nureyev’s restagings of the pas de deux from Le Corsaire, Raymonda, Swan Lake, La Bayadère, and Paquita. The partnership of Fonteyn and Nureyev was widely publicized, and audiences and critics around the world filled theaters for performances of Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty.

Roland Petit was asked to choreograph a new ballet for Fonteyn and Nureyev in 1967. The subject of his Paradise Lost was the biblical creation, and the stars were cast as Adam and Eve. Petit designed movement that was influenced by the modern dance idiom, and the ballet was set in a pop art style. Audiences found the ballet both shocking and compelling. Critics praised Fonteyn for her masterful performance in such an atypical role and unusual dance style and for the youthfulness of her portrayal of Eve. Petit also created the less successful Pelléas and Mélisande in 1969, which was performed to mark the anniversary of Fonteyn’s thirty-fifth year with the dance company.

From the 1960’s through the 1970’s, Fonteyn often appeared as a guest artist with major international companies. In 1970, she appeared with the Stuttgart Ballet in John Cranko’s Poème d’extase. Her role of an aging ballerina who rejects her young suitor out of respect for the memories of past lovers again won for her the admiration of the critics. The role was also one with which she was especially pleased because she felt an affinity with the character, who was her age and was looking back on her life. In 1975, Fonteyn and Nureyev were asked to appear with Martha Graham and Dancers in New York in a production of Graham’s Lucifer. Unlike the Petit piece, which borrowed heavily from the modern dance idiom but was ultimately dependent on the classical ballet vocabulary, Graham’s work utilized a vocabulary entirely of her own invention. This unlikely union of classical dance with modern dance was an important step in the fusion of these two idioms.

Fonteyn made another crossover into modern dance in 1975. Nureyev had been performing Jose Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane with the Canadian National Ballet since 1972. In 1975, he asked Fonteyn to appear as Desdemona in his staging of it with his touring chamber company, Nureyev and Friends. Fonteyn also joined the Australian Ballet on tour once again in 1976 with performances of Robert Helpmann’s The Merry Widow. In 1977, Ashton composed a short pas de deux for Fonteyn and Nureyev to be performed for the Jubilee Celebration for Queen Elizabeth II. Fonteyn danced the role of Ophelia in Hamlet Prelude with characteristic tenderness and lyricism. During the 1979 London season, the pair performed L’Après-midi d’un faune, Vaslav Nijinsky’s famous ballet originally choreographed for himself when he was a member of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Two nights later, Fonteyn joined Nureyev in Le Spectre de la rose, another Nijinsky ballet. Fonteyn had once learned her part from Karsavina, Nijinsky’s original partner.

In 1956, Fonteyn was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her charitable work and her years of dedicated artistry with the Royal Ballet. Her other honors include the International Artist Award from the Philippines in 1976, the Order of the Finnish Lion in 1960, the Order of Estacio de Sa, Brazil, in 1973, and several honorary degrees. In 1980, she wrote The Magic of Dance, which was published that year and produced as a television series for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Significance

Fonteyn’s celebrated life greatly advanced the popularity of dance, not only in Great Britain but also around the world. Her early years with the Sadler’s Wells helped to establish the company, which as the Royal Ballet continues to be a major presence in the world ballet community. Her later success with Nureyev broke down traditional assumptions about the ability of mature dancers to continue vigorous performance careers.

Fonteyn was not only a brilliant dancer but also a modest, gracious woman who always credited her collaborative artists. These traits helped to make her an international ambassador of dance; she did more than perhaps any other single person to educate and excite the public about the beauty of theatrical dancing.

Bibliography

Bland, Alexander. Fonteyn and Nureyev: The Story of a Partnership. New York: Times Books, 1979. A thorough record of the partnership from 1962 until 1979. It offers a chronological survey of the dances they performed together, including elaborate photographic records and quotations from newspaper reviews of their work. Bland tells how the collaboration developed and provides the kind of personal information that brings the partnership to life.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Royal Ballet: The First Fifty Years. New York: Doubleday, 1981. An encyclopedic compendium. Bland provides a complete history of the company, including information on principal dancers, designers, choreographers, and administrators. The photographic documentation is excellent, including spectacular color plates. An appendix of statistics gives precise facts about productions, repertory, touring, and staff.

Chappell, William. Fonteyn: Impressions of a Ballerina. London: Theatre Book Club, 1952. Includes illustrations by Chappell and photographs by Cecil Beaton. Chappell was one of Fonteyn’s first partners in the Royal Ballet and gives a personal tribute to her artistry. His appraisal lacks critical distance but provides strong evidence of the way Fonteyn’s personality positively influenced the reception of her work.

Daneman, Meredith. Margot Fonteyn. New York: Viking, 2004. Daneman, a former member of the Australian Ballet Company, provides a comprehensive and admiring biography of Fonteyn.

Denby, Edwin. Dance Writings. Edited by Robert Cornfield and William MacKay. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. Reprints of articles and reviews from Denby’s lengthy career as New York’s most influential dance critic. The several reviews of Fonteyn’s performances with the Royal Ballet appraise her dancing within the context of the productions, compare her to other contemporary dancers, and describe her appeal as a performer.

Fonteyn, Margot. Autobiography. London: W. H. Allen, 1975. A charming chronicle of her life, told with surprising humility and a warm, engaging sense of humor about her many accomplishments. Fonteyn discusses in detail the factors that motivated her career, the importance of her marriage, and her impressions of major choreographers and partners.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A Dancer’s World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Introduces children and parents to the study of dance, providing sound advice on the selection of schools and teachers, the steps that can lead to a dance career, and the many aspects of dance as a professional field.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Magic of Dance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Fonteyn writes a history of Western theatrical dance from the unique perspective of one who played a role in its development. The visual reproductions are of exceptional quality, perhaps because the work was first undertaken as a special program for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Though not a textbook, the work traces the relations of major trends and artists intelligently, informing the discussion with the anecdotal resources of a writer at ease with her subject.

Money, Keith. The Art of Margot Fonteyn. New York: Reynal, 1965. The book consists of Money’s excellent photographs of Fonteyn, together with informed commentary by Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton, Money, and Fonteyn herself.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Fonteyn: The Making of a Legend. London: Collin, 1973. Money’s book includes not only his own photos but also a complete chronological record of Fonteyn’s life in pictures. The text consists of Money’s biographical commentary on the photo essay.