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Obituary
Dame Alicia Markova
Prima ballerina of international renown and exceptional talent, who popularised her art around the globeFriday December 3, 2004
Alicia Markova, who has died at the age of 94, epitomised all the qualities of a great ballerina: a total dedication to the art of classical dancing together with an imaginative understanding and insight into establishing a character through mime.
She will for ever be associated with Giselle - her 1960 autobiography is called Giselle And I - but her range was far, far wider than that. She created roles for all the great choreographers of the 20th century and, during her performing career, she was an ambassador for ballet comparable only to Anna Pavlova, dancing in places where classical dancing of her quality had never been seen before.
She was uniquely open to facing such challenges - to appear in pantomime, in revue, in vast arenas, and to travel thousands of miles to fulfil an engagement she thought of as important in reaching a new audience. To such suggestions, often put forward by her former classmate and long-time dancing partner, Anton Dolin, she would consider a moment, open wide her big brown eyes, and say, "Well, why not?"
Born in Finsbury Park, London, the eldest of the four daughters of Arthur Marks and Eileen Barry, and christened Lilian Alicia Marks, she was a thin, delicate child and a doctor suggested that a little "fancy dancing", as it was then called, might strengthen her fragile legs. Consequently, she was enrolled at a branch of the Thorne Academy in Palmers Green.
The child did seem to become stronger, but her ballet teacher, Dorothy Thorne, also recognised that she had a pupil of exceptional gifts, quick to follow instructions, technically secure, and with a lively sense of performance.
Alicia danced in pupils' displays - her first stage appearance was on February 21 1919, in a solo eastern dance, which she had arranged herself; but she always dated her first professional engagement as being in Dick Whittington at the Kennington Theatre the following year. Lily Marks became Little Alicia, and was billed by the enthusiastic management as "the Child Pavlova", a sobriquet which was to lead to trouble later.
Convinced, by now, that their daughter should have the best training, her parents decided to take professional advice. Her mother accordingly took her to see Princess Serafina Astafieva, a former member of the Imperial Russian and Diaghilev ballet companies, who had a studio in Chelsea. Innocently, she handed in her daughter's card. Astafieva read the "Child Pavlova" inscription and flew into a rage, almost driving them away.
Alicia's tears of disappointment, however, won her permission to watch the class and then dance a solo to show what she could do. Astafieva was impressed and told the mother, "Your little girl is like a racehorse; you must take great care of her and keep her wrapped up in cotton wool." It was advice the mother followed, and Alicia never forgot.
She was enrolled at the studio, and was chosen to perform three dances, arranged by Astafieva, at the Royal Albert Hall on June 26 1923. By then, Alicia had attracted the interest of a fellow pupil, Patrick Kay, who was to be transformed by Diaghilev into Anton Dolin, and they began to practise together.
When, in 1924, her father died suddenly, leaving small provision for his family, a fairy godmother came to Alicia's rescue. Emmy Haskell, whose son Arnold was to introduce the word balletomania into the English language in the 1930s through his best-selling book of that name, immediately undertook to sponsor Alicia's lessons. She encouraged the child and told her about the history of ballet. She also persuaded Arnold, then an undergraduate at Cambridge, to come and see her protege in class. Already bitten by the ballet bug, Arnold saw Alicia's potential at once.
It was Astafieva who invited Diaghilev to her studio to see her pupils, above all Alicia. After he had seen her dance, the great impresario patted her on the head and said he would engage her for his company, and, during that 1924 London season, took Alicia to see all his company's performances so that she could learn from watching his incomparable artists.
Diaghilev changed her surname to Markova, and in January 1925 she joined the troupe in Monte Carlo, accompanied by her formidable governess, known as Guggy, and placed in the care of Ninette de Valois. De Valois's brother, the photographer Gordon Anthony, visited Monte Carlo that year and was introduced to "a very small and alarmingly frail young girl with a serious and pale 'El Greco' face framed by sleek black hair. I particularly remember her lustrous dark eyes."
She was known to the company as Diaghilev's "latest idea", but Diaghilev, as always, knew what he was doing. Because she was so tiny, at first Alicia could not be used in the corps de ballet and only in a few roles, such as Red Riding Hood in Aurora's Wedding, the one-act ballet salvaged from The Sleeping Princess of 1921, and the little American girl in La Boutique Fantasque.
However, in May 1925, Diaghilev chose her to study the title role in Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, for which George Balanchine, then also at the beginning of his career, was to make new choreography. She danced the part the following month at the ballet's Paris premiere and won the admiration of the famous critic André Levinson. (More than half a century later, Markova, whose memory was phenomenal, was to recreate and teach her Rossignol solo for the George Balanchine Foundation Archive.)
During her four years with Diaghilev, Markova also danced the title role in Balanchine's La Chatte (created by Olga Spessivtseva) and Princess Florine in the Blue Bird pas de deux in Aurora's Wedding. Above all, she was accepted into the circle of painters and musicians who surrounded Diaghilev and, like all his favoured dancers, received from them a life-enhancing education.
She was promised even more roles; Diaghilev predicted a great future for his "little English girl", and Giselle would surely have followed. But in August 1929, Diaghilev died. For Markova, who was devoted to him, it seemed the end of her world. In fact, it marked the beginning of a new one - as the ballerina who would enrich the first steps of British ballet, the companies being formed by Marie Rambert and de Valois, with choreographies by Frederick Ashton.
When Rambert and Ashley Dukes opened the Ballet Club at the tiny Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate in 1931, with a company consisting mainly of Rambert's pupils, Markova was engaged as a guest artist - at a fee which just about paid for her taxi home. But she had opportunities to dance some of the great classical solos, and to create roles in ballets by Antony Tudor and de Valois - such as Bar Aux Folies-Bergère, in which she created the role of La Goulue, the can-can star, and showed unexpected humour and roguishness. The dancer's walk was based, legend has it, on the style observed by de Valois in the ladies of Soho.
Especially important was her friendship and collaboration with Frederick Ashton, who made many roles for her in ballets such as La Péri, Façade (the technically fiendish Polka), Foyer De Danse and the elegant, possibly erotic Les Masques. Of this, Markova always insisted it was "much deeper than people thought".
Markova first danced with the Vic-Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1932 when she made some guest appearances in ballets by de Valois. In 1933 she was appointed prima ballerina and Ashton celebrated her technique, her "gaiety and warmth and wit", by making for her the ballerina role in his Les Rendezvous, his first commissioned work for the company, which premiered that December.
A momentous evening was to follow when, on New Year's Day, 1934, a night of a thick London fog, the Vic-Wells Ballet staged Giselle, for the first time, at the Old Vic. Markova danced the title role, with Dolin, as a guest, partnering her as Albrecht. The triumph was complete. Markova proved a true successor to the great line of ballerinas who had danced the ballet ever since Carlotta Grisi created it in 1841.
And it led to de Valois staging the four-act version of Le Lac Des Cygnes (as Swan Lake was billed then), thus laying the classical foundations on which her company was to build. Markova undertook the double role of Odette-Odile, partnered this time by Robert Helpmann, and set the seal on her right both to the title of ballerina and to the great classical roles. Lilian Baylis, who shared de Valois's faith in the possibility of building a native ballet company here, was well aware of Markova's importance, for it was to see her, just as much as the rest of the company and the repertory, that an audience for ballet was built up and sustained at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells.
The salary that Miss Baylis could offer was £10 a week, but she gave Markova permission to accept other engagements so long as she could count on her loyalty. Without Markova, it is doubtful if the infant company could have established itself so quickly. By the time she left, in 1935, to form with Dolin their own company to pioneer ballet throughout Britain, there were young dancers capable of sharing her repertory and she had inspired, above all, Margot Fonteyn.
The Markova-Dolin Ballet lasted from 1935 to 1937 and toured widely, presenting not only the classic ballets but also works by Bronislava Nijinska, Les Biches and La Bien Aimée, and by the 18-year-old Wendy Toye, whose Aucassin And Nicolette, in designs by Motley, was one of the most popular. The company toured all over the country and generated enormous enthusiasm, even if no classical ballet had been seen there for generations. It was this pioneering aspect which appealed most to Markova, and of which she was most proud.
Her international career, disrupted by Diaghilev's death, resumed when she joined Massine's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, from 1938 to 1941. There, she was reunited and shared roles with Alexandra Danilova, beloved Choura, who was, until her death in 1997, Markova's greatest friend in ballet. With that company she would create roles in ballets by Fokine, Les Elfes and L'Epreuve D'Amour; and by Massine, notably his Seventh Symphony (Beethoven) and Rouge Et Noir, to music by Shostakovich, with designs by Matisse, who painted the decoration on Markova's tights.
Her commitment to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo meant that Markova, together with all the other dancers, had to leave for New York after the outbreak of war to fulfil engagements there. With that troupe until 1941, from 1941 to 1946 with American Ballet Theatre, and then with a troupe presented by Sol Hurok, featuring Markova and Dolin, she danced coast to coast across America, and visited Mexico, South America, the Caribbean, Honolulu, Manila and South Africa. Those years witnessed the height of her artistry and stardom.
Returning to Europe after the war, she became a guest of the Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, in 1948. In two weeks, the company learned the complete production of The Sleeping Beauty, coming to it at a comparatively late stage in their careers. Markova's Aurora, I wrote at the time, was built on her beautiful stage presence, precise, almost fastidious execution and great aristocracy of bearing. Hers was a great Aurora.
Thereafter, Markova and Dolin were guests in many great cities in Europe before forming another company of their own, which Markova christened Festival Ballet (it became today's English National Ballet). The first performances were given in 1951, but Markova, having seen it successfully launched, left to dance in the US and then to guest again with the Royal Ballet. Her final ap pearances, however, were with London's Festival Ballet. She retired from the stage at the end of 1962, but her career was by no means over.
Markova subsequently directed the Metropolitan Opera Ballet (1963-69) in New York, was professor of ballet and performing arts at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (from 1970), and became guest teacher and producer for many ballet companies throughout the world. In 2002, at the age of 91, she featured in a documentary, Alicia Markova, La Légende, made in Paris by Dominique Delouche, which showed her coaching young dancers of the Paris Opéra Ballet and working alongside the French ballerina Elisabeth Platel in Les Sylphides, which she had learned so many years before. She was as sprightly as ever. It is her - and our - good fortune that so much footage has survived to preserve the true quality of her dance and her art.
As early as 1935, Cyril Beaumont published an eloquent monograph celebrating her artistry (he had been a treasured mentor in explaining to her the place she occupied in history as the link via Pavlova back to Marie Taglioni). Other writers also sought to capture her elusive spirit. The American poet and critic Edwin Denby spoke of the "wonder a real ballerina awakens" and described her Giselle: "The beautiful slender feet in flight in the soubresauts of Act II, how she softly and slowly stretches the long instep like the softest of talons as she sails through the air; or in the échappés just after, how they flash quick as knives; or in the 'broken steps' of the mad scene of Act I, when, missing a beat, she extends one foot high up, rigidly forced, and seems to leave it there as if it were not hers... those wonderful light endings she makes, with the low drooping 'keepsake' shoulders, a complete quiet, sometimes long only as an eighth note, but perfectly still."
Denby also wrote of her acting in Giselle, as late as 1952. "The dance-like continuity she gives her gestures and mime scenes - all the actions of the stage business imbedded in phrases of movement, but each action so lightly started it seemed when it happened a perfectly spontaneous one. In this continuity, the slow rise of dramatic tension never broke or grew confused."
Markova was made CBE in 1958, DBE in 1963, and in the same year received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the Royal Academy of Dancing.
She is survived by her sister Doris Barry, who, as a skilled PR officer, did much to smooth her career, and a younger sister, Vivienne, who in 1970 became Arnold Haskell's second wife. Her youngest sister, Bunny, who had a brief career as a dancer, predeceased her.
· Alicia Markova (Lilian Alicia Marks), prima ballerina, born December 1 1910; died December 2 2004
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