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 Monica Mason | |||||||
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I remember walking down Floral Street one day in 1962 with a friend who suddenly nudged me and said 'Look, that's the newly famous Monica Mason'. I'd seen her before, in various small solos in the classics, but the reason she'd suddenly become known was that Kenneth MacMillan had just picked her out of the corps de ballet to dance the leading role in his new version of The Rite of Spring. 'An inspired piece of casting', said Dance & Dancers, and it gave a brilliant start to the career of one of the Royal Ballet's least typical but most valuable dancers.
Mason was born in South Africa in 1941. When her family moved to England in 1956, she studied for a year with Nesta Brooking before joining the Royal Ballet School, and she was very soon taken into the Covent Garden Royal Ballet. She was noticed early on for her strong technique - particularly for a fine jump - and for 'hints of dramatic flair', and both of these were shown off to the full in her exhausting role in Rite of Spring, which she continued to dance, to great acclaim, until quite late on in her career. Although she did her stint in soloist roles - she was one of a memorable gaggle of Lilac Fairies - she had what is both an advantage and a disadvantage to a dancer, in that she always looked on stage like a grown up woman, so the 'young girl' repertoire was never for her. She was promoted to Principal Dancer in 1967, just after her first Swan Lake - a ballet she later danced with Nureyev, at his particular request. She was never one of the great exponents of the classic roles, but her talent for drama enabled to make something very moving of Odette, and her fourth act (especially when she danced it with David Wall) remains one of my own outstanding memories. She was a fine Firebird too, utilising her powerful jump; but what I remember most from around this time is her performance in Robbins' Dances at a Gathering, where she could just be herself, and had a rare opportunity to show her sense of humour. She inherited from Svetlana Beriosova the role of Lady Elgar in Ashton's Enigma Variations - it used to be said that Beriosova danced Elgar's idealisation of his wife, whilst Mason danced her as she really was. Mason was closely associated with Kenneth MacMillan, and created roles in
many of his ballets. Best known is probably Lescaut's Mistress in Manon,
but there was also a memorable solo in Elite Syncopations and a more
romantic role than usually came her way in his Four Seasons. When the
time came for her to relinquish most of her dancing roles, she worked with
MacMillan on the staging of his ballets, and as Assistant Director of the
company she is still thought of as one of his strongest advocates. She was one
of the first to hold a place as a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet without
being primarily a classical ballerina, using her strong technique and dramatic
talent to create a niche for herself and a model for her successors.
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