Four Ballerinas Perform A Solo from ‘Raymonda’

I lived in London (and Paris) as a kid and saw Margot Fonteyn many times in the latter stages of her career with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden – ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Swan Lake’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Marguerite and Armand’, ‘Les Sylphides’ ‘Le Corsaire’ pas de deux … and ’Salut d’amour’ where in formal evening wear she danced with Frederick Ashton – not a dry eye in the house. In other parts of the world I saw some rarities for that stage of her career, such as ‘The Nutcracker’, ‘The Merry Widow’ and ‘La Sylphides’ in Australia. One solo she kept in her repertoire till quite late was from ‘Raymonda’, which had been choreographed by Marius Petipa to music by Alexander Glazunov, and was first presented at the Mariinsky Theatre on 19th January,1898. This solo as a concert piece depends it seems to me on getting the style right and I’m not sure Fonteyn managed this satisfactorily. And perhaps this is why it is not widely around on film, though I think I’ve seen a fragment of her pe