Word: first
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...when the theater was at its lowest ebb since the war. The hits of last fortnight, Maxwell Anderson's and Kurt Weill's Lost in the Stars, and the Lunts in I Know My Love (see THEATER) had not yet opened. Sadler's Wells was the first smash of the 1949-50 entertainment season...
When Margaret (having changed her first name to Margot) made her London debut at 14 as one of the 32 snowflakes in The Nutcracker, more experienced Sadler's Wellsians laughed at the serious little girl who spent half an hour in the wings, warming up for a five-minute role. But Margot was a perfectionist, then as now: she still rehearses the entire third act duet with Partner Helpmann just before each performance of Sleeping Beauty...
...Cast. She got a chance to warm up. After her 16th birthday, she took over Markova's role in Ashton's Les Rendezvous. Already, for the conservative Morning Post, she had "some of that intoxicating quality always associated with the great dancers." After her first Swan Lake, the Daily Telegraph granted her "that rare title 'ballerina.' " Her first Giselle, at 17, was, said the News-Chronicle, "the partial fulfillment of a promise she makes every time she dances." By the time she was 20 she had completed the great classical trilogy with Sleeping Beauty...
...performance in Covent Garden, Margot slipped and pulled a tendon in her ankle. With her leg in a cast, she could not dance again for three months, though she was scheduled to open soon in Ashton's Cinderella, which she had rehearsed for six months. It was the first time anyone had even seen her crushed. Unable to endure London without dancing, she went to Paris. Moira Shearer danced Cinderella in her place...
...with the severe regimen of a Sadler's Wells ballerina-an endless round of class, rehearsals and performances-the champagne & lobster life comes only once in a blue moon. Margot would be among the first to agree with Frederick Ashton that "being a ballerina is like being a nun; it is a dedication...