Minkus / Nureyev: Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote (Australian Ballet)
This spectacular film of Don Quixote, choregraphed after Petipa and directed for the screen by Russian ballet superstar Rudolf Nureyev, is recognised as one of the finest ballet performances ever caught on camera and a cinematic triumph in its own right.
Filmed in Melbourne with the Australian Ballet in 1973, the cast includes Nureyev as Basilio, Sir Robert Helpmann as the deluded knight and Lucette Aldous as Kitri. This timeless story of love, gallantry and misadventure – all unfolding with Minkus’s exhilarating Spanish-flavoured music – has stood the test of time as one of the world’s most popular ballets.
Lovingly restored from the original 35mm film, and to be heard for the first time in full surround sound digital stereo created for the DVD and Blu-ray release, this is finally, how Nureyev intended his Don Quixote to be seen and heard.
Basilio – Rudolf Nureyev
Don Quixote – Robert Helpmann
Sancho Panzo – Ray Powell
Kitri / Dulcinea – Lucette Aldous
Gamache – Colin Peasley
Street Dancer / Queen of the Dryads – Marilyn Rowe
Espada – Kelvin Coe
State Orchestra of Victoria
Conductor – John Lanchbery
Director and Choreographer – Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa
Composer – Ludwig Minkus
Arranged by John Lanchbery
Catalogue numbers: OA1350D (DVD) / OABD7301D (BLU-RAY)
Release Date – November 2021
A Little of Don Quixote
A special documentary following the recording process of Don Quixote in fascinating detail.
10/11/77 Rudolf Nuryev
Dick Cavett Speaks with Rudolf Nuryev
Secret Life – Margot Fonteyn
Rudolph Nureyev at Muppet Show
Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias (vanaf 1955) (Reigate, Surrey, Engeland, 18 mei 1919 – Panama-Stad, Panama, 21 februari 1991) was een beroemde Engelse balletdanseres (Prima Ballerina Assoluta).
Fonteyn werd geboren als Margaret Evelyn (Peggy) Hookham, als kind van een Engelse vader en een Ierse moeder, die op haar beurt de dochter was van de Braziliaanse zakenman Antonio Fontes. Al vroeg in haar carrière zou ze de naam ‘Fontes’ transformeren in ‘Fonteyn’ (een achternaam die haar broer ook aannam) en veranderde ze ‘Margaret’ in ‘Margot’: zo ontstond haar toneelnaam.
Een deel van haar kindertijd bracht zij door in China, waar ze balletlessen volgde bij George Goncharov, een Russische danser die zich in Shanghai had gevestigd. Toen het duidelijk werd dat ze talent had, keerde zij met haar moeder terug naar Londen waar ze als veertienjarige lessen ging volgen op de school die behoorde bij het Vic-Wells Ballet, het balletgezelschap van het Sadler’s Wells Theatre.
Bij het Vic-Wells debuteerde ze in 1934 als danseres als een sneeuwvlokje in De Notenkraker. Enkele jaren later volgde ze de prima ballerina Alicia Markova op. Haar samenwerking met danspedagoge Tamara Karsavina en choreograaf Frederick Ashton bracht beroemde balletten voort, zoals Daphnis et Chloé en Symphonic Variations. Met haar technische perfectie, grote muzikaliteit en terughoudende elegantie gaf ze vorm aan de Engelse stijl en bezorgde ze het Engelse ballet wereldwijde erkenning.
In 1954 werd ze president van de Royal Academy of Dancing. In 1956 verleende koningin Elizabeth II haar de titel Dame Commandeur in de Orde van het Britse Rijk. Ook trouwde ze toen met de uit Panama afkomstige diplomaat Roberto Arias. Vanaf 1959 werd ze freelance danseres, waardoor ze niet verbonden was aan een vast gezelschap.
Toen Rudolf Noerejev in 1961 de Sovjet-Unie verliet en een uitnodiging ontving van het Royal Ballet in Londen, werd zij, als 42-jarige en daarmee 19 jaar ouder dan hij, zijn partner. Samen traden zij onder anderen op in Giselle, het Zwanenmeer, Doornroosje en Marguerite & Armand. Het partnerschap drukte zijn stempel op het ballet van de twintigste eeuw, tot Fonteyn zich in het begin van de jaren zeventig terugtrok. Ze ging naar Panama om zich te bekommeren om haar na een aanslag verlamde man. Daar stierf zij in 1991 aan kanker.
Wapensmokkel
Op 28 mei 2010 gaf de Britse archiefdienst British Archives de dossiers vrij die betrekking hebben op de zaak-Fonteyn in 1959. Op 20 april van dat jaar werd de ballerina tijdens een visvakantie gearresteerd en enkele dagen vastgehouden in Panama. Ze werd beschuldigd van betrokkenheid bij een couppoging, op touw gezet door haar man. Uit het diplomatiek dossier blijkt dat ze dit bekende aan de ambassadeur van haar land in Panama. De “visvakantie” was een dekmantel voor de smokkel van wapens en manschappen, waarbij het zeiljacht van Margot Fonteyn diende om patrouilles af te leiden. In een geheim onderhoud met de Britse minister van defensie John Profumo zei Fonteyn dat Fidel Castro de motor achter het complot was.
Margaret Evelyn Hookham was born on 18 May 1919 in Reigate, Surrey, to Hilda (née Acheson Fontes) and Felix John Hookham. Her father was a British mechanical engineer, who worked for the British-American Tobacco Company. Her mother was the illegitimate daughter of an Irish woman, Evelyn Acheson, and the Brazilian industrialist Antonio Gonçalves Fontes. Hookham had one sibling, her older brother Felix. The family moved to Ealing, where her mother sent her four-year-old daughter with her brother to ballet classes with Grace Bosustow Her mother accompanied Hookham to her earliest lessons, learning the basic positions alongside her daughter in order to improve her understanding of what a ballet student needed to develop. Over the years, Hilda provided constant support, guidance and critique to her daughter; she became a well-known backstage presence at Hookham’s performances, earning the nickname “Black Queen” from Hookham’s teachers and colleagues. While some children might have balked at such overbearing attention from a parent, Hookham accepted her mother’s help with “affectionate and unembarrassed naturalness”.
In July 1924, at the age of five, Hookham danced in a charity concert and received her first newspaper review: the Middlesex Country Times noted that the young dancer had performed “a remarkably fine solo” which had been “vigorously encored” by the audience. Even during her early years, Hookham showed signs of the pressure she felt to succeed in her dancing, often pushing herself physically to avoid becoming a disappointment to others. Whenever a dance exam approached, she became ill with a high fever for several days, recovering just in time to take the test. Hookham’s father began preparing to move his family abroad for work. It was decided, after consultation, that they would take their daughter with them but leave their son Felix at an English boarding school. For Hookham, this new separation from her sibling was a painful experience. Her father was transferred first to Louisville, Kentucky, where Hookham attended school but did not take ballet lessons, as her mother was skeptical about the quality of the local dance school. When Peggy – as she was called in her childhood – was nine, she and her parents moved to China.
For about a year, the family lived in Tianjin. This was followed by a brief stint in Hong Kong before they moved to Shanghai in 1931, where Hookham studied ballet with the Russian émigré teacher Georgy Goncharov. Goncharov’s partner Vera Volkova later became influential in Hookham’s career and training. Hookham had no dreams of becoming a dancer and was a reluctant student, but she was competitive. Having June Brae in her classes pushed her to work harder.[1][15] She did not like the Cecchetti drills, preferring the fluid expression of the Russian style.[16] Her mother brought her back to London when she was 14, to pursue a ballet career. In 1934, Hookham’s father wrote from Shanghai, explaining he had been having an affair. He asked his wife for a divorce so that he could marry his new girlfriend. Continuing to work in Shanghai, her father was interned during World War II from 1943 to 1945 by the invading Japanese. After the war, he returned to England with his second wife, Beatrice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margot_Fonteyn