Legendary ballerina Dame Alicia Markova reminisces about the past and plans for the future.  Interviewed in 1967 by the Herald-Tribune's dance critic Walter Terry, Dame Alicia dismisses feeling any nostalgia for her performing days. She has been preparing for this transition all her life, always interesting herself in backstage details, even taking lessons in lighting, so she could move seamlessly from in front of the footlights to behind them. She speaks of auditioning for Diaghilev at the age of ten and professes to be horrified at having been billed as "The Child Pavlova." In her new role, as Director of Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera, she gingerly handles the question of why the job has proved a challenge to so many previous dancers and choreographers. The key, she insists, is to love opera, which she does. Indeed she danced in many operas when with the Ballets Russes. Her aim is "to get the ballet and opera living side by side, peacefully." When asked to compare the two arts she makes the interesting distinction of seeing ballet as more "Latin"  and "light" while opera is "Nordic" and "heavy."

Talk turns to the Ballet Evening which the company is putting on. She speaks glowingly of presenting the world premiere of Anthony Tudor's Concerning Oracles and the US premiere of his Echoing Trumpets. Terry tries to get her to fantasize about a future expansion of the opera's ballet, with more of these dance-centered events, but Dame Alicia seems quite firm and level-headed about just how much freedom she will be allowed. It is, she points out, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, not the other way around.

English ballerina and choreographer Alicia Markova photographed in 1963.

(Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty)

Dame Alicia Markova was born Lillian Alicia Marks in London in 1910. Diagnosed with flat feet and weak knees, she was sent to a dance academy for therapeutic reasons. There, she astonished the teachers with her skill. As Tina Sutton, in her biography The Making of Markova, reports:

"Within months, the naïve teen became the youngest ever soloist at the world famous Ballets Russes and star of Balanchine’s first full-length choreographic work for the company, The Nightingale. As London newspaper The Independent would later comment: “Alicia’s incredible virtuosity thrilled Balanchine. He included double tours en l’air, a turning jump from the male lexicon, and devised a diagonal of jouettés that gave the impression of a little bird hopping.” The ballet launched both of their careers. However, Lilian Alicia Marks would not be listed on the program. Being a prima ballerina in the 1920s “necessitated” a Russian name. “Who would pay to see Marks dance?” scoffed Diaghilev, who quickly rechristened her Alicia Markova."

After Diaghilev's death, Markova became active in British ballet, helping to establish both the Ballet Rambert and the Vic-Wells Ballet (which would later become the Royal Ballet.) She continued her career as a guest soloist with companies all over the world, gaining the greatest fame for her interpretation of Giselle, a part she "owned" for many years. The transition she refers to in this interview, from ballerina to administrator, surprised many in the dance world. As dance critic Jack Anderson remembers, in the New York Times:

"Dame Alicia, who had occasionally made guest appearances in the ballet sequences of works in the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera, astonished the dance world in 1963 when she accepted an invitation to direct the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. The Met's dance troupe had never been considered important and the opera management had seldom shown much interest in ballet. Nevertheless, in her six years as director, Dame Alicia raised the dancers' technical level and made it possible for the ballet company to present programs of its own."

But when one reads more about Markova's life one is not at all surprised at the continued success she had upon retiring. She was a hardworking woman, utterly obsessed with her craft, who never married, performed every night of the week, twice on Saturdays, and danced to an advanced age through extraordinary pain. As The Independent newspaper noted:

"In pre-First World War England, a frail, exotic-looking Jewish girl who learnt to dance in Muswell Hill and was so shy that she barely spoke a word until age six and was so sickly she needed to be home-schooled turned herself into a superstar and became the most famous ballerina in the world."

Markova had to overcome poverty, sexism, anti-Semitism, and not being considered “pretty” enough to succeed….becoming the world’s first openly Jewish prima ballerina assoluta – the highest (and rarest) rank of a classical female dancer.

Dame Alicia Markova died in 2004.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 150009
Municipal archives id: T2262