Research Catalog

Interview with Alicia Markova

Title: Interview with Alicia Markova [sound recording].
Author: Markova, Alicia, Dame, 1910-2004.
Publication: 1972.

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Status	Vol/Date	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Appointment Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	discs 1-2	Audio	Use in library	*MGZTL 4-177 discs 1-2	Performing Arts Research Collections - Dance

Details

Additional Authors

Gruen, John.

Description

2 sound discs (ca. 75 min.) : digital.; 4 3/4 in.

Summary

Disc 1 (ca. 48 min.). John Gruen describes Alicia Markova and the room where they are sitting; Markova speaks with Gruen about her activities since retiring as a performer, including six years as the director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and teaching at the University of Cincinnati; her current activities in London, England; seeing Anna Pavlova dance and doing a barre for her the next day; her impressions of Pavlova as a dancer and as a person; Serge Diaghilev, including their first meeting; auditioning for [Michel] Fokine and [Bronislava] Nijinska for a role in Midsummer night's dream; auditioning for George Balanchine and joining the Ballets russes; her training in Monte Carlo; her first major role, as Odette in Act II of Swan lake including an anecdote about [Mathilda] Kchessinska's coaching her; the strict regime of class and rehearsal; her performance in Balanchine's Song of the nightingale as her first celebrated role; Diaghilev's death and its devastating effect on her; the circumstances of her first collaboration with Frederick Ashton and its leading to her joining the Vic-Wells Ballet [later the Sadler's Wells Ballet and then the Royal Ballet]; her first great partner, Anton Dolin; her approach to her roles; working with Stravinsky [ends abruptly but continues on disc 2].
Disc 2 (ca. 27 min.). Alicia Markova continues to speak with John Gruen about Stravinsky; tells an anecdote about Billy Rose and [Anton Dolin's ballet] Scènes de ballet; her great admiration for George Balanchine; her sheltered life in the Ballets russes; [Leonide] Massine's making and rehearsing of works on her for others to dance; her thoughts on working with choreographers including why she thinks they liked to work with her; briefly, Margot Fonteyn; the circumstances of her and Anton Dolin forming the Markova-Dolin Company; her thoughts on current trends in ballet.

Alternative Title

Dance Audio Archive.

Subjects

Note

Interview with Alicia Markova conducted by John Gruen on July 26, 1972 at her home in London, England. This interview was used as a basis for a chapter in John Gruen's book, The private world of ballet (New York, Viking Press).
Sound quality is fair overall. There is an extraneous hiss due to distortion in the original recording as well as occasional short gaps.

Funding (note)

The assistance of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Call Number

*MGZTL 4-177

OCLC

80787284

Author

Markova, Alicia, Dame, 1910-2004. Interviewee

Title

Interview with Alicia Markova [sound recording].

Imprint

1972.

Original Version

Original format : 1 sound cassette (ca. 75 min.: 1 7/8 in. per sec.; 2 channels). Originally recorded in 1972.

Funding

The assistance of the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts is gratefully acknowledged.

Local Note

For a transcript of the audio recording see: *MGZMT 3-177.

Former call no.: *MGZTC 3-177

Archive original: *MGZTCO 3-177

Added Author

Gruen, John. Interviewer

Research Call Number

*MGZTL 4-177

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