Margot Fonteyn was 17 when she first danced the title-role in Giselle. Her partner then was Robert Helpmann. On Saturday, 33 years later, she will be dancing at Covent Garden the same role, one of the most demanding and strenuous in the classical repertory. Her partner on this occasion will be Rudolf Nureyev.
Looking back on 33 years of dancing Giselle was there an aspect of it which she at first found particularly difficult? “Oh, yes, technically, I found it very difficult,” she said, “the second act especially. I was never very good in this act; and although I’m not very good in the second act now, I think somehow I manage some things technically better than I did in those early years.
Let’s face it, everything’s difficult In ballet. To do the steps well is difficult, and there are a lot of things which I don’t consider I do at all well. Anybody who’s knowledgeable about Giselle wouldn’t consider I do it well either, because you could find many, many dancers who could do the ballet much better.”
But you’ve obviously worked at it, I said, you’re a dedicated artist, aren’t you? “I don’t think I am dedicated, no,” she said. She smiled at my amazement. “Well, let me tell you,” she went on, “about something I’ve thought a lot about over the years. When I was very young I thought being a dancer meant being hand in hand with dedication. But I never had much talent for thinking about being dedicated. I suppose I tried in a very half-hearted manner, but I could very easily be diverted and persuaded to go to a party.
I remember very well the evening before I danced my second-ever performance of Giselle, when I was 17, and there was this big annual ball. Ballet or no ballet, I wasn’t going to miss that, and I had a marvellous time until about two or three o’clock in the morning. Throughout the evening people kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Margot, what are you doing here? You’re dancing Giselle tomorrow; you should be in bed resting.’ ‘What, and miss all the fun,’ I replied.
“This sort of thing has made me realise that I’ve never been a dedicated dancer. I don’t think I’ve had the temperament to be totally committed to ballet to the exclusion of what happens in the outside world.”
But now, more than ever before, there are two very distinct halves to her way of life. Not simply the public and private sides. Rather the way she divides her energy between dancing and caring for her husband. For since marrying Dr Roberto (“Tito”) Arias, former Panamanian Ambassador to London – and they have just celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary – Dame Margot says her life has taken on a meaning that goes far beyond the insular world of ballet.
“You see,” she explains, “I’ve never possessed the ability to live only for dancing. I work hard, yes. Very hard. I have a terrible sense of responsibility. If somebody asks me to do something, I hate to do it badly.” The fact is that since the shooting of Dr Arias by a would-be assassin in Panama nearly six years ago – from which he is still partially paralysed – Margot Fonteyn’s life has become more and more geared to her husband’s needs.
“Tito’s illness,” she told me, “has made me realise that life with him is the true reality. Ballet could go on whether I was there or not. I would give it all up tomorrow if Tito asked me to.”
A little over a year ago Dr Arias was standing as a candidate for the National Assembly in Panama and he was subsequently elected. “But,” explains Dame Margot, “Panama had a military take-over, so they no longer have a constitutional government. Tito escaped into the Canal Zone, and went from there by boat to New York. He hasn’t been back there since, and won’t be able to go back until the situation changes – he’d be arrested otherwise.”
She looks thoughtful for a moment, smoothing out a nonexistent fold from her black and gold dress by Yves St Laurent. “You know, in his heart he wants to go back very much. We both do. I miss Panama terribly – for a start, it’s never as cold and miserable as it is today! I feel a part there, probably because I have Brazilian blood in me.
My grandfather came from the north of Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon – actually, a tiny island, São Luís. The climate there is very similar to Panama’s, which is one reason why I feel so very attached to Panama.”
When the time comes for Dame Margot to retire from the world of international ballet – for years she has been listed simply as a “guest artist” of the Royal Ballet (“In this way I feel I’m not sitting on the heads of all the other dancers in the company)“ – it seems that Britain may be losing her for the greater part of each year.
She emphasises repeatedly that she will never announce in advance her decision to retire, and that there won’t be a special farewell gala performance at Covent Garden in her honour. One day she will be a dancer, the next day she won’t. She doesn’t want any fuss. She says simply, “Honestly, I’m surprised that I’m still dancing. Whether I’ll be able to dance in two years’ time seems quite unthinkable to me at the moment.”
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