‘Marguerite and Armand’: The Making of a 20th Century Ballet

Commentary

In 1961, world-famous English ballerina Margot Fonteyn met the wild Russian defector Rudolf Nureyev. Their first rushed meeting over a cup of Earl Grey tea, where he was immediately smitten but she was less than impressed, led to an 18-year partnership which would leave an indelible impact on the ballet world.

Among the many pieces choreographed especially for this legendary couple was a passionate 33-minute ballet, telling one of the world’s most famous love stories. Originally penned by author Alexandre Dumas (son of the author of classics “The Three Muskateers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”) as an 1848 novel “La Dame aux Camélias” or “The Lady of the Camellias,” this story has been adapted numerous times.

First, it was an 1852 stage play by the author, then Giuseppi Verdi’s revered opera “La Traviata.” Later, it was adapted into countless films (including the 1936 classic “Camille”) and finally as Frederick Ashton’s Fonteyn and Nureyev vehicle “Marguerite and Armand.”

The Story

The ballet tells the story through a series of vignettes. It begins when Marguerite is on her deathbed. She has a vision of her beloved Armand, a phantom memory dancing across the stage. The tale then proceeds through flashbacks, beginning with a scene of Paris society, as elite gentlemen gather to admire Marguerite, a figure of glamour in a red gown on the arm of a wealthy duke. A young stranger enters and sweeps her off her feet.

The next scene is a vision of romantic happiness. Both clad in white, the young lovers dance joyfully in their happy countryside world. Armand leaves, and his father enters, a forbidding figure ready to pass judgement on Marguerite. Soon moved by her sincerity, he dances with her compassionately but asks her to leave Armand; she consents. When Armand enters, she dances with him one last time. As he slumbers, she slips away.

The next vignette mirrors the beginning of the story. Now clad in black with the pallor of illness, Marguerite is accosted by an enraged Armand. He throws a handful of cash in her face and storms out. Stunned, Marguerite makes a staggering exit en pointe, racked with coughing. The final vignette returns to the beginning. Marguerite is near death, a pale figure in a limp nightgown. Armand’s father enters, followed by his son. In a last moment of ecstasy, they dance a passionate pas de deux, and Marguerite falls to the ground dead. Grief-stricken and remorseful, Armand closes her eyes for the last time.

The Making of a Masterpiece

Frederick Ashton, who had been the master to Fonteyn’s muse since the Royal Ballet was a small company called the Sadler’s Wells, first got the idea for this piece in 1961. As Meredith Daneman tells it in her biography, “Margot Fonteyn:” “An insistent image of her [Fonteyn] had come to him [Ashton] in 1961—‘before Rudi Nureyev had been invented’—while watching Vivien Leigh rehearsing ‘La Dame aux Camélias.’ But an existing score based on the Dumas play—by the French composer Henri Sauguet – had left the choreographer cold. It was not until a year later when, as he lay steaming in his bath, he heard Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor on the radio, that the ballet flooded, of its own volition, into his mind. ‘Almost immediately, I could visualize the whole thing,’ he told the ‘Observer’s’ Alexander Bland. However, that visualization had come, not chronologically, but as ‘a kind of tabloid, a pilule. But I would like it to be strong enough to kill.’ Not too tall an order, perhaps, given the casting that he had planned. It was, by now, April ’62, and Rudi Nureyev had well and truly ‘been invented.’”

Going into further detail about Ashton’s fortuitous Liszt score, Ms. Daneman explains: “Where his stirring choice of music was concerned, he [Ashton] had chanced upon an unexpected felicity. … He discovered, to his delight, that Marie Duplessis, a courtesan on whom the character of Marguerite Gautier was based, had, in the last two years of her life, been … involved with Franz Liszt. ‘This seemed to be a marvelous thing … that somehow this music had fallen into place … one doesn’t know how much of the piece was Liszt’s memory of her. It may not have been so, possibly not in the least. But you see, it could have been.’”

“Marguerite and Armand” opened to immediate acclaim by the public and skeptical admiration from the critics. As Ms. Daneman writes, “There was a tacit agreement among the critics that, given the ‘orgy of star-worship’ which surrounded ‘Marguerite and Armand,’ it was pointless to bring artistic judgement to bear upon it. Though James Kennedy (James Monahan) personally found it ‘a “Reader’s Digest” version of “La Traviata,” he maintained that ‘so long as both of them are to perform it, it is likely to remain the darling of the multitude—no matter what the critics think of it.’”

The Hollywood Theory

I recently rewatched an old family favorite which I hadn’t seen in years and barely remembered, the 1952 musical movie “Hans Christian Andersen,” starring Danny Kaye. At the climax of this film is a 15-minute ballet of “The Little Mermaid,” starring prima ballerina Doro (famous French ballerina Zizi Jeanmaire) in the title role. In the ballet’s climactic ballroom pas de deux between the mermaid and her prince, I immediately recognized the soaring music. I soon identified it as the love theme from the very same Liszt piano concerto which is used in “Marguerite and Armand.”

Could the use of this piece in both works be a coincidence? Perhaps, but I think there’s a good chance that Frederick Ashton saw “Hans Christian Andersen.” Although it was an American film, released nearly a decade before Ashton’s bathtub revelation, the artistic ballet sequence may have planted seeds in the back of his mind. Furthermore, “The Little Mermaid” co-starred and was choreographed by Roland Petit, founder of the Ballets de Paris and one of Ashton’s main competitors, not only choreographically but personally. Petit had once caused Fonteyn to briefly “defect” from both the Royal Ballet and Ashton’s leadership.

In addition, the dance itself bears an undeniable resemblance to Ashton’s meeting pas de deux. In the midst of a crowded court, the ill-fated lovers find each other and dance in the rapturous throes of love at first sight. Perhaps the dynamic music lent similar inspiration to the later choreographer with no knowledge of the other’s work. As Ashton himself said in reference to Liszt’s concerto, “It may not have been so, possibly not in the least. But you see, it could have been.”

An Enduring Classic or a Memory

When it premiered, “Marguerite and Armand” was considered solely a vehicle for the magnetic partnership on which it was written. Nearly all agreed that it would be pointless to produce it with any other dancers. However, several successful revivals have disproven this. My personal favorite is the 2013 Royal Ballet production starring Tamara Rojo and Sergei Polunin, whose appearances, personas, and age difference brilliantly mimic Margot and Rudi. I’m sure some feel that nothing can compare to the single grainy recording of the meeting pas de deux featuring the original couple, and that the ballet should have been left an undisturbed memory.

While I’m not generally much of a Fonteyn and Nureyev fan, there is something special and irreplicable about that one remaining video, even if later performances are more technically proficient. Most striking to me is a certain promenade (a movement in which the man walks around the ballerina as she poses en pointe, turning her as he goes), in which she leans back over his arm, letting herself be off-balance. In the Rojo-Polunin performance, they remain upright and in control of their movements consistently, thus lacking the total abandon of the original couple.

I tend to feel nothing can beat the original cast. When I choreograph ballets, I write roles for particular people and can’t begin to imagine other dancers in them. However, I have also seen multiple people interpret parts in different but excellent ways. It would be a shame for this ballet to lie dormant, as it is a beautiful work with unique but excellent choreography and a touching storyline. I think it deserves to live on as an enduring classic, and I’m delighted that it has done so.