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Ninette de Valois
Memorial Service in Westminster Abbey 28th September 2001 by Ann Williams | |||||||
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The great, vaulted ceiling and sombre stained glass windows of the 13th century Westminster Abbey lend dignity to the simplest of ceremonies, and today's thankgiving ceremony for Ninette de Valois was certainly simple though, fittingly, it was also very elegant. The sunshine of this beautiful autumn day helped. The great west door of the Abbey remained open throughout the hour-long ceremony, lending dazzling perspective to the nave, which, for this occasion was split by two banks of facing pews. The procession of the starry and the not-so-starry guests filed between the pews towards the choir and out of our view, leading to whispers of 'Isn't that Sibley?' Or 'I'm sure that's Lynn Seymour..'. They were all there, of course, every name you could think of in the ballet hierarchy. Then came the dignitaries - chief among them the wheelchair-bound HRH Princess Margaret accompanied by her daughter Lady Sarah Chatto. I thought it was incredibly brave of the Princess to put in this appearance; she is obviously a sick woman, her face almost obscured by enormous dark glasses. Finally came the clergy, choristers and the Dean of Westminster As the congregation was assembling the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, played pieces from de Valois' ballets, as well as from Nutcracker and Les Biches (presumably the latter two were particular favourites of hers). I sat with Bruce and Brendan, following the proceedings from the Order of Service booklet. Its first page carries a rare photograph of de Valois smiling the most dazzling of smiles (she seems to have considered it a point of honour to look as stern as possible in photographs, possibly to reinforce her fearsome reputation), but this photograph shows that she was actually rather a beautiful woman. Anthony Dowell read from the First Letter of St. Peter, and did it beautifully. Alexander Stannus, her great-nephew, read a piece of her poetry Dancers in Action, and her great-niece, Louise Verity recounted some family recollections which, sadly, were all but inaudible in the echoing vastness of the nave. Ironically, she was the only one we could actually see speaking; the other speakers were all invisible from where we were sitting. The core of the service was Sir Peter Wright's address, which was profoundly touching. He said, among other things, that she was one of the most brilliant women of the twentieth century and I don't suppose there was a single one of us present who did not agree. He didn't attempt to gloss over her faults - he said she could be contradictory, petty and even ruthless, but his affection and respect shone through. I loved one particular anecdote. He recalled that she came back to the stage at the age of 52 after a thirteen-year gap to dance the maid in Ashton's A Wedding Bouquet. When the curtain went up and the audience recognised de Valois, they went wild and continued going wild for several seconds. De Valois silenced them completely and instantaneously with one commanding gesture of her arm. 'From being complete pandemonium, the place suddenly went so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop', Sir Peter said. (This story probably says all one needs to say about de Valois' authority). He covered her whole career in his wide-ranging address, listing her achievements - the establishment of three major companies (the Royal Ballet, the Royal Birmingham Ballet and the National Ballet of Turkey) as well as the Royal Ballet School before concluding his address by saying simply 'She was my boss until her dying day'. I hope that the full transcript of Sir Peter's address will be published somewhere shortly, because he said a great deal more that I have been able to recollect here (maybe others present will be able to recollect more?). As the service ended, the great and the good filed past us once again and I tried to memorise all the names and faces. Among the senior presences that I recognised were Pamel May, Beryl Gray, Alicia Markove and Alexander Grant, and amongst the somewhat younger Merel Park, Antoinette Sibley, Lynn Seymour, Lesley Collier, Donald MacLeary, Monica Mason and Anthony Dowell (obviously) together with Ross Stretton (I probably just imagined the shifty look on the latter's face..). Bright-eyed attentive RB students, rows of them, considerably lowered the average age of the congregation. There were countless others. Sir Jeremy Isaacs was there, and a busload (yes, a busload) of BRB dancers, including principals, accompanied by David Bintley and wife. As we filed out of the Abbey into the autumn sunshine, the orchestra played the Rose Adagio music from Sleeping Beauty, and never has it sounded so rich, so profound and so moving to me. I have tears in my eyes thinking about it now. | ||||||||
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