Word: coventionalism
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London's Covent Garden exploded with applause at the first appearance in six months of Britain's Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn. An attack of diphtheria last October had left strange complications. Her legs and arms were numb and nerveless. In January she said: "At the moment, I can't do even the easiest dance." By last week she felt ready to appear in the undemanding ballet Apparitions, and summoned her oldest friends to rally round. Instead of a few friendly faces, she drew a capacity audience of some 2,000 which gave Margot 14 curtain calls...
Among London's shortages last week was an acute dearth of sopranos able to sing the demanding lead in Verdi's Aïda. At noon on the day of a performance, Covent Garden learned that Soprano Gré Brouwenstijn had a case of laryngitis. By 1:30 Conductor Sir John Barbirolli and the opera management had made a quick canvass of the countryside without flushing an available soprano, finally began calling the Continent...
Arriving at Covent Garden by 5:30, she spent an hour and a half, while her costume was being cut down to size, talking to Conductor Barbirolli and the cast. She was the only one singing in Italian (Covent Garden's performances are traditionally sung in English), but Barbirolli told her not to worry: "I'm going to take good care of you." When she made her entrance her knees were shaking, but "directly I started I knew I was singing well. The only bad moment I had was when Amo-nasro first comes on to the stage. I turned...
...Covent Garden gave Lenora an enthusiastic welcome, and the applause at the end was not just for a brave try. Lenora had stage presence, and her voice reached to the farthest tiers of the opera house. Since it was not a first-night performance, few critics were on hand. But the Daily Express' Cecil Smith, often a carper, came and was conquered. Wrote Smith: a voice of "exceptional beauty and vitality...
...look silly. I usually wear a painted one." But for publicity photos one day last week, he tried on a two-pronged affair on a nylon gauze mounting. It fitted so well ("You didn't know it was there") that he decided to wear it in Rigoletto at Covent Garden that night...