Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn - A Curious Partnership for ‘Le Spectre de la Rose’

This is film of a performance of ‘Le Spectre de la Rose’.

The ballet as we all probably know was choreographed by Mikhail Fokine to Hector Berlioz's 1841 orchestration of Carl Maria von Weber's piano music ‘Afforderung zum Tanz’ (‘Invitation to the Dance’) and realised a verse of the French poet Théophile Gautier:

"Open up your sleeping eyes
that are brushed lightly by a virginal dream
I am the spectre of a rose
you wore last night at a ball"

The sets and costumes were designed by Léon Bakst.

The ballet premiered at the Opera House in Monte Carlo on the 19th April 1911, with Vaslav Nijinsky as The Rose and Tamara Karsavina as The Young Girl just returned from the ball.

The footage is curious, at least for me, in that Margot Fonteyn was coached in the role of The Young Girl by Karsavina herself and that the British ballerina is here so improbably partnered very late in her career with one of the greatest Russian male dancers of his generation, Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Enjoy!