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Friday 8 June, 2007, will enter the history books as the end of an era for the Royal Ballet. After nearly two decades, the curtain finally falls on the remarkable career of Darcey Bussell, 38. The one remaining English female Principal Dancer in our national company will quietly drop off the radar after dancing in Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth, the last work in a regular scheduled Triple Bill.

Do we say a countrywide thank you with a Tribute Gala acknowledging her part in making the Royal Ballet a National Treasure? In the week footballer David Beckham is tipped for a knighthood for services to celebrity-ism should we not point Darcey towards the House of Lords? I am ashamed to say this is as likely as the Beckhams refusing to pose for another photograph. Sorry is not the hardest word for us Brits. When it comes to an extravagant public thank you we take our native reserve to extremes.

This is no way to treat a woman who for her entire professional career has been ruthlessly exploited by the Royal Opera House raising both its income and public profile. Instead we recently endured a low key, badly lit Farewell week at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. We keep her final appearance in house and insular while making token noise about the performance being transmitted onto the Big Screen in Covent Garden and a live broadcast on BBC2. The programme does not even make the TV Times’ highlight page. There is such a grudging feeling about it all.
 

Now I have never been an ardent fan of Darcey Bussell’s dancing though I appreciate that her style epitomises many people’s ideal of classical ballet. I prefer her in the contemporary repertoire of William Forsythe and Wayne McGregor. But my admiration for her gritty professionalism is without bounds and the nature of her departure, almost by the back door, by an industry that complains of being undervalued by both public and government paymasters, I think is a disgrace. Not only has Darcey developed her physical talents which have benefited the organisation for so long, and take it from me, nobody leads a ballet company by being an air head, but a further duty, almost as onerous, was also thrust upon her when barely out of her teens.

I was at the pivotal premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s Prince of the Pagoda in December 1989 starring the 20-year-old rookie. Between her curtain calls, Anthony Dowell, then the company’s Director, promoted her the Royal Ballet’s youngest ever Principal Dancer. She asked him, “Are you sure?” It could have been her Gethsemane moment. From that day forward, Darcey was the Face of the Royal Ballet, an unofficial role only ever held by another English dancer, the legendary Margot Fonteyn. There must have been many times during the years that followed when she wished this particular cup had passed her by.
 

For the past 18 years, Darcey has been on duty both sides of the footlights. When her colleagues limp home to crash out, she stays in the dressing room and hastily changes into best gear and applies fresh make up to a sweaty face. Into a cab and off to face the cameras, probably in the middle of a drizzly Trafalgar Square, to smile good naturedly and deliver the sound bites while looking relaxed and implacably cheerful. Then back to the theatre to dance Swan Lake’s Odette/Odile. This is not an occasional and tiresome duty, but once or twice, or more, a week for the past eighteen years. Whatever demands have been made, Darcey’s professionalism on and off the stage has never cracked. What a life. As if a dancer doesn’t give enough. Would a public pat on the back for such devotion to duty be too much to ask?

The powers that be got it right for Margot Fonteyn. On 23 May, 1979, five days after her 60th birthday, the Royal Opera House hosted a Gala in her honour. Her friend and company patron Princess Margaret attended and Fonteyn was declared Britain’s fist Prima Ballerina Assoluta. Two years earlier Fonteyn’s partner in her latter years, Russian defector, Rudolf Nureyev, was not so lucky. Not only did the fiery Tatar turn down the Royal Ballet directorship because the Board of Directors required his retirement from dancing, but Norman Morrice, the man who stepped into his directorial shoes, banned all guest artists. “The moment (Margot) ceased to dance….there was incredible urge …to turn me from identity to nonentity,” protested the man who single-handedly changed the face of classical ballet in the UK, not to mention generating record breaking Royal Opera House box office revenue. And the situation worsened for Nureyev’s compatriot, Irek Mukhamedov, who regenerated a tired Royal Ballet in the Nineties. New Director, Ross Stretton, sent a secretary to find the great dancer, to give him the message there were no longer any roles for him to dance. If that isn’t disrespect, I don’t know what is.

What a contrast to the Russian style and sense of occasion. Kirov Ballet star Farouk Ruzimatov, who enjoys Beckham style adulation in his home town of St Petersburg, has performed more farewell Galas than Frank Sinatra would have ever dreamed of.

Daily I hear fresh speculation about Darcey’s future intentions. The latest backstage gossip at the Opera House is that she will settle in his homeland with Australian husband City banker Angus Forbes, they married in 1997, and daughters Phoebe Olivia, six years old today, and Zoe Sophia, 3. All that is confirmed is her collaboration with mezzo soprano, Katherine Jenkins, in a new show, Viva La Diva, opening in November.

Darcey’s two-pronged career, of course, will have enormous potential. Her contacts book must be one of the most comprehensive in Town. Her looks and name will oil all sorts of cogs in photography, jewellery design, fashion, beauty, not to mention theatre and dance, and open up a huge range of investments for the future.
 

Without Darcey things at Covent Garden will never be the same again. For the first time in its 76 year history The Royal Ballet will no longer be led by an English ballerina, up until now a visible embodiment of the company’s native artistic soul. Today the company has a roster of some of the best dancers in the world, most of them foreign. In a very real sense I see Darcey’s departure on Friday as a definitive rite of passage for the company.

Dame Beryl Grey, a founder member of the original company and a colleague of Margot Fonteyn, says “Dancers from all over the world want to be a part of the Royal Ballet, so it will always survive.” I agree. I feel confident that the company, which I consider to be Britain’s finest cultural achievement, is now strong enough under its present director, Monica Mason, to take its place at the top of the international tree and flourish without the glue of a Margot Fonteyn or a Darcey Bussell.

I just wish we could remember our manners when the time comes to say thank you and goodbye.