The Bouquet
On the second curtain call, standing in rows with the rest of the cast, sweat snaking down our bodies, I blinked in disbelief as an attendant strode towards me from the wings with three bouquets blocking out his face.
He put one in my arms and the other two at my feet.
Anyone can leave flowers for a specific ballerina at the stage door ahead of a performance, but my casting had been so last-minute that these three must surely have been meant for Carolyn.
I tried to smile through my embarrassment; as soon as I accepted the flowers, the audience’s applause amplified. Whoops and whistles shot up like firecrackers. I knelt in a révérence, while Annie, Noemi, and Akihiko received a bouquet each for their Lilac Fairy, Carabosse, and Princess Florine.
On the third curtain call, I got to do something I had never done before: step forward and greet our conductor, Valentin, from stage right. He grasped my hands and flashed a proud, fatherly grin.
‘You did it!’ he squeaked.
‘Ah!’ I squeaked back, because how could I be expected to produce words?
Sander made room for him in our line, and we all bowed again, the applause unbroken.
When the curtain came down, most of the corps broke their formation to high-five, hug, and collapse against pieces of scenery.
Those of us in the front waited to take turns on the remaining sliver of stage, as attendants parted the curtain just wide enough to let two or three dancers out at a time.
The audience’s palms must have been sore and red from five solid minutes of clapping, but when Sander and I emerged, they rose in a standing ovation, as if they’d practised it during the interval.
The noise was astonishing. I’d heard something like it from the other side of the curtain after Sander and Carolyn’s turn in Manon, but being the direct recipient was a physical experience, like standing in a gale.
We bowed to the audience, then to each other, then to the audience once more.
My face hurt from smiling. It always did on opening nights, but even more so on this one.
This season’s production of Beauty commemorated forty years since its inaugural outing on this very stage, barely a year after the end of the war – to mark the occasion, a handful of single-stemmed roses flew up from the stalls, and more from the balconies.
Laughing with joy, exhaustion, and mild delirium, I gathered up a few of the roses and held them to my chest, mouthing Thank you to the sea of faces and red velvet.
Then I did something which is par for the course in British ballet today, but was less so in the eighties: I turned to Sander and offered one of the roses to him.
Male dancers also received flowers from time to time, but they were always sent directly to the dressing rooms, never presented onstage. The unspoken rule was a hangover from the days when ballerinas were paid more often in pretty gifts – flowers, perfume, soaps, dinners – than actual coins.
A few extra cheers sprang up from the audience as he accepted it with visible surprise and bowed his head to me.
By the time we rejoined the rest of the dancers behind the curtain, Nick had herded them all into a rough semi-circle. With the audience finally relieved of clapping duties, he was able to say a few words, as he always did on opening night.
‘A mere twelve hours ago, I feared tonight was, if not outright doomed, then certainly on its way there. But my fear was fleeting, because the BCBC’s artists are not only the most talented and hardworking in all the British Isles’ – cue the obligatory cheering – ‘you are also the most dedicated. Selfless. Fearless. When illness or injury strikes down one dancer, even at the eleventh hour, another steps up without hesitation.’ He pointed at me like a traffic guard and beckoned me to his side.
‘Tonight, that dancer was Patricia Errington. She not only saved the first performance from catastrophe, she brought magic to the stage. Well done, Trix. Superbly well done.’
He gave me a hug, lifting me onto my pointes and then, briefly, off the floor.
The rest of the cast clapped and cheered.
Stephen whistled, his blue eyeshadow smudged with sweat.
Noemi cupped my face in her hands and called me “chérie”.
Fiona and Jamie, their White Cat and Puss-in-Boots masks perched on their glistening brows, squeezed me tight.
‘You smashed it out of the bloody park, darling,’ Jamie said.
‘I’m so proud of you it’s sickening,’ Fiona said, and looked as if she wanted to say more, but her mouth froze in a grin as her eyes went past my left shoulder.
Sander was standing a few feet behind me, still holding the rose and wearing a subtle smile. Amidst the hubbub of the cast and crew, he was an oasis of calm. He held the rose aloft and raised an eyebrow: What was this for?
I gave half a smile back, and half a shrug. ‘It felt only right, after everything. After…’ Now that we were all standing still, at ease, I remembered my shin. I listened out for pain, but there was none. ‘After the emergency rehearsals, the lifts, the fish dives—’
‘The fish dives,’ Fiona and Jamie repeated.
‘You made it so easy.’ I gestured to the rose. ‘Thank you, Sander. Thank you so much.’
He tapped his chest and pointed to me. ‘I should thank you. Without you, I would be a lonely prince wandering dark woods forever.’
With that, he said goodnight and left for the dressing rooms. It was the longest sentence I’d heard from him all day, perhaps ever.
I left the Dance Hall via the stage door, the crisp night air intoxicating. Fans of Carolyn who’d been huddled in the cold surged forward as one, asking me to sign their programmes instead, throwing compliments with the same verve they had thrown the roses onto the stage.
Normally I would have caught the Central line home, but someone had called a taxi for me: the flowers needed their own seats. Halfway through the journey, as London streamed past in winks of gold and navy, I remembered I only owned two vases.
At one o’clock in the morning, swaddled in my old, warm dressing gown, I split the third bouquet between a pencil pot and an empty milk bottle retrieved from the rubbish.
I had been entirely wrong – all three bouquets were, in fact, addressed to me.
One from Nick (Hail to the Princess Aurora!
Thank you for being a terrific sport, angel, superwoman, etc.
etc.), one from Stephen (Sending you flighty thoughts from the wings, until Saturday xxx), and one in handwriting I’d never seen before:
A thousand thanks on my wife’s behalf. As soon as she feels up to it, we would love to host you for tea in Primrose Hill. She hopes you enjoy Aurora. Warm wishes, Armand.
It took a moment to put the name to a face. Armand was a freelance photographer with a gift for capturing bodies in motion – he was such a regular fixture during stage calls and performances that he might as well have been on the company payroll. He was also Carolyn’s husband.
All of London seemed to fall asleep before I did, but that was only to be expected after an opening night like this one.
My arms and legs were splayed across the mattress, sore, spent, but uninjured.
I still didn’t know what to make of the phantom stress fracture, and whether it might merely be lying dormant, waiting to strike in earnest on Saturday.
I tried to keep my eyes closed and think of something else: what photographs Armand might have snapped during the performance; whether my fudged finish on the Act III solo would be mentioned in reviews; how it would feel to go back to Stephen as my partner, to his familiar pace and harsher grip.
If I would ever have the opportunity to partner with Sander again.
Maybe in a gala someday, or a mixed bill.
DANSEUSE
The Sleeping Beauty: Not a day over forty
Reviews | Ballet
Erin Desborough
Opening Night Review:
Tuesday, 11 February 1986
With its evergreen fairy-tale allure, rainbow parade of costumes, and enchanting sets, The Sleeping Beauty is iconic, but not usually renowned for its romance.
The long-awaited kiss that breaks Carabosse’s curse tends to be over and done with quickly, and the pas de deux between the two leads, Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund, usually prioritises technical precision over believable affection.
What a surprise awaited me, then, on the opening night of the British Classical Ballet Company’s first show of the new year.
Expectations were high for this fortieth-anniversary production of The Sleeping Beauty, which brought the Covent Garden Dance Hall out of its slumber after the Second World War and has been a staple of the BCBC’s repertory ever since.
Prima ballerina Carolyn Sabouri and rising star Aleksander Sylvan were the obvious choice to kick off proceedings, but a last-minute casting change meant that Ms Sabouri was replaced by first soloist Patricia Errington, originally scheduled to debut as Aurora this coming Saturday.
Having never seen Errington in the role before, nor her and Sylvan partnered together, the audience’s mood as the lights dimmed was ambivalent.
To say expectations were exceeded would be an understatement.
Errington has steadily garnered acclaim over the years for her expressive characterisation, graceful footwork, and beautiful lines in previous soloist roles.
In Beauty, she not only brought these traits to the fore, she also performed some of the most assured classical technique I have seen for quite some time.
The Rose Adage was a near-perfect balance (if readers will excuse the pun) of youthful giddiness and steely poise, while the Act I finale brought out a raw desperation to cling to life before Aurora fell into her century-long sleep.
An even more pleasant surprise came in Act II.
From the moment the Lilac Fairy (performed by Annie Petrowsky with her perennial charm and prowess) conjured a vision of Aurora for the wayward Prince Florimund, the romantic tension between the two characters was spellbinding.
Despite having had only a few hours that same day to rehearse, by the time Sylvan swept Errington into their first lift, one would be forgiven for thinking they had been dancing together for years.
Throughout the vision sequence, their silent pining for each other’s embrace had the audience rapt.
I could go on for many more paragraphs extolling Sylvan’s and Errington’s technical accomplishments during the Act III wedding – the fish dives, the pirouettes, the jetés en tournant – but the most remarkable takeaway of the night was their shared gift for storytelling.
Whenever they gazed into each other’s eyes, it was with the same smitten love we expect from Romeo and Juliet.
In a fortieth-anniversary iteration that could easily have been a cold, artless recital of pure technique, this serendipitous duo breathed new life into the bones of an old story.
Although Carolyn Sabouri was dearly missed, I cannot help but hope, along with the hundreds of delighted patrons who filed out of the Dance Hall last night, that this will not be the last time we see Sylvan and Errington paired onstage.
The Sleeping Beauty is in rep at the Covent Garden Dance Hall until 1 March, with varying casts.