Antoinette Sibley
Dame Antoinette Sibley (born February 27, 1939 in London-Bromley , United Kingdom ) is a British prima ballerina . After attending the Royal Ballet School , she joined the Royal Ballet in 1956 and danced there as a soloist. She was celebrated for her collaboration with Anthony Dowell .
After retiring from the stage in 1989, she became President of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1991 and a visiting teacher at the Royal Ballet that same year. She has been Chair of the Royal Ballet Board since 2000. She is the holder of the Order of the British Empire .
Early years
Sibley is the daughter of Winfred Sibley, b. Smith, and her husband Edward G. She was educated at the Arts Educational Schools and the Royal Ballet School . She had her first stage appearance during her training in January 1956 as a swan in Swan Lake. In July of the same year she joined the ballet company of the Royal Ballet.
In the beginning Sibley had small roles like that of a friend of Swanhilda's in Coppélia or Little Red Riding Hood in Sleeping Beauty . Joan Lawson in The Dancing Times attributed Sibley's dance to "lyrical qualities and a beautiful gliding line of movement".
On March 21, 1959, the artistic director of the Royal Ballet, Ninette de Valois , Sibley gave her first leading role in a matinee at the Royal Opera House . Sibley got the role of Swanhilda Coppélia . In 1959 Sibley was supported in her artistic development by Tamara Karsavina , one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Karsavina said to Sibley: “To get the full benefit of the battement frappés we need to train our muscles to respond quickly. That means that the dégagé has to be sharp in the sense of 'striking loose'. "
Unexpectedly, she got the leading role in Swan Lake on October 24, 1959, at the age of only 20, alongside Michael Somes . With that she achieved her breakthrough. Tours through the United States and the Soviet Union followed. Natalia Roslavleva describes in The Ballet Annual the dance of Sibley and the Royal Ballet in Moscow with “youthful charm, good technique and committed personalities make up a large part of the work of these dancers. To get really big you have to invest a lot of sweat and tears in the development of a mature stage technology. "
Career
One of Sibley's first major roles was in Arnold Cooke's ballet Jabez and the Devil in 1961, choreographed by Alfred Rodrigues , who was one of the first to recognize her talents. She danced the Princess Aurora in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty with John Gilpin as Prince Désiré. The critics hailed her: "Her already enchanting Aurora promises to be for her generation what Fonteyns was for mine." In 1964, Frederick Ashtons wrote The Dream , a ballet version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , for which he starred as Titania and Sibley aspiring Anthony Dowell as Oberon castete . David Vaughan wrote that the production "would surely find its place in contemporary dance history, if it was because it formed the new partnership between Sibley and Dowell - who would surely be recognized as the new Fonteyn and Nureyev ..." Vaughan wrote about Sibley's performance : "Nobody has yet been able to match Sibley's speed and her embodiment of a semi-wild creature or the silky flow of Dowell's expression."
Sibley was best known for her appearances in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet while at the Royal Ballet . She also starred as Odette Odile in Swan Lake and the title role in Giselle and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty . Other roles were in Ashton's ballets Symphonic Variations and Daphnis and Chloe , Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering and L'Après-midi d'un faune | Afternoon of a Faun . Sibley also danced in MacMillan's ballet version of Jules Massenet's opera Manon .
Sibley has appeared in a variety of other pieces such as Monotones , Jazz Calendar , Anastasia , Triad , L'invitation au voyage , Varii Capricci , Fleeting Figures and the Enigma Variations . In the Guardian , after Sibley's first announcement of her retirement, Mary Clarke wrote: “Other dancers will inherit ballerinas, but one of Ashton's creations will always be Sibley's. Nobody has and nobody will ever fill the heart of Dorabella in the Enigma Variations like Sibley did. There were other swan queens, Aurors and Giselles, but for anyone who has seen them dance Sibley will be the only Dorabella. "
retirement
Sibley announced her retirement from dancing in 1979 but was persuaded to stay. Finally she retired in 1989 after a long period of injury. She took the advice of Karsavina, who said "get off the stage before the stage leaves you." In retirement, she became president of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1991, guest coach of the Royal Ballet in 1991 and governor of the Royal Ballet Board in 2000. In 1995 she was raised to the personal nobility as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire .
Personal
From 1964 to 73 Sibley was married to the dancer Michael Somes . After the divorce, she married the London banker Panton Corbett in 1974, with whom she has a son and a daughter.
Literature
- Mary Clarke, Leslie E. Spatt: Antoinette Sibley . Dance Books, London 1981, ISBN 0-903102-64-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f "Sibley, Dame Antoinette, (Dame Antoinette Corbett)" , Who's Who 2013 , A & C Black, online edition Oxford University Press, November 2012, accessed 5 July 2013
- ↑ a b Clarke, p. 6
- ↑ a b c Clarke, p. 7
- ↑ a b c d e Clarke, p. 8
- ^ A b Mary Clarke: The dancer who called it a day. In: The Guardian , May 12, 1979, p. 11
- ^ Clarke, p. 9
- ↑ Knights and Dames: SEL – SU at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sibley, Antoinette |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British prima ballerina |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 27, 1939 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London Bromley , United Kingdom |