is that it is inexplicable. -- Margot Fonteyn
Thanks to our beloved Internet, we've got so many gorgeous (if
sometimes too brief) modes of escape right at our fingertips these
days, haven't we? When even the relentless and dark evening drizzle
can't compete with the inside of my head for sheer despondency-value, I
often turn to YouTube and poke around until I find something lovely,
something transporting. It never takes me long.
Such as it is, this dreary February day.
But here is some Monday grace, and I hope even a few ballet newbies will watch and enjoy it: the incomparable and legendary duo, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, dance a pas de deux from Swan Lake at the Vienna Opera. Music, of course, is by P.I. Tchaikovsky.
I promise--any tears you shed will be the good sort, the ones that flow upon experiencing pure beauty and truth, upon being lifted into a moment and held there, weightless, until you remember how good it actually is to be alive.*
*
Both legends have since left this earth, and much too soon: Dame Margot
Fonteyn de Arias, who'd spent her final years in Panama, caring for her
husband--who'd been left quadriplegic after being shot during a coup
attempt--died of cancer in 1991 at the age of 71. And Rudolf Nuryev,
living in Paris by then, succumbed to AIDS just two years later at 54, but not before shaking up the dance world with his
expressive and passionate style; he completely--and forever--changed
the landscape for male ballet dancers, who'd previously only served as
supporters and partners to the ballerinas. It has been said many times
that despite their differences in age, and obviously in their
nationalities and respective styles of dance schooling, Fonteyn and
Nureyev seemed as though they had been born to dance together, so
perfectly, lyrically, and artistically matched were they.
