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The prima ballerina with the feet light as a feather ...



Anna PavlovaAnna Pavlova was born in St. Petersburg on January 31 (February 12 new style calendar), 1881. For Pavlova's early memories we had best turn to her own words: 'I always wanted to dance, from my youngest years. I could think of no other future, could not see myself in any other role than that of dancer on a big stage in front of a crowded audience. I wanted to perform for them the perfect beauty of movement, to wait with baited breath and a convulsing heart for their applause. Thus I built castles in the air out of my hopes and dreams, which work was crowned when I was taken for the first time to the Maryinsky Theatre...to a performance of the Sleeping Beauty ...I was so riveted by the spectacle that I sat motionless. I hardly dared to breathe, fearful to break the spell. Then, in the second act, just when many couples were waltzing, I was suddenly tapped on my arm. I was startled, looked about and saw that it was my mother who touched me. My breathless attention had struck her. "Nura", she said, "would you like to be dancing with them?". I said "No, I would rather be dancing there alone, like that sweet Princess" ... When I was eight years old I could no longer keep my aspirations in check, and begged to be allowed to learn to dance' (translated from Anna Pawlowa, Tanzende Fuesse. Der Weg meines Lebens, Dresden 1928).

At the annual graduation performance of 1899 she made quite an impression on the jury, and it was announced that she would join the Imperial Ballet at the Maryinsky Theatre later that year, as a coryphee, that is, bypassing the corps de ballet. She made her debut on September 19 (old style), 1899, in La Fille Mal Gardée. Pavlova's career flourished. In 1905 she was officially appointed to the rank of prima ballerina. During these years she already was in close contact with those members of St. Petersburg theatrical life who were poised for quite radical renewal, people as Sergei Diaghilev, Alexandre Benois, Leon Bakst and Mikhail Fokine. In May 1907 she was allowed to go to Moscow on her first independent tour, with a small company led by Mikhail Fokine. Later that year, she presumably travelled as far as London (though not yet performing there). She was quite ready to try on new things. Things such as Fokine's new- fangled choreography. In December 1907 Fokine created a short solo, The Swan, for Pavlova. This piece was to become completely identified with her name in the popular imagination.

Pavlova and Dandré (her husband) settled permanently in London. She rented a house, which she later purchased, on The North End Road in Hampstead. This house, which became known as Ivy House, was to be the base for Pavlova's world tours. She gathered her own company around her and travelled widely, presenting ballet literally all over the Anna Pavlovaworld, also in places where classical ballet had never been seen before. Millions must have seen her dancing, and she attained the status of a super star. Many testified to the profound impression she left behind, convincing the one of the beauty and expressiveness of classical ballet, inspiring the other to take up ballet him or herself.
But two decades of almost uninterrupted touring took their toll: she burned herself up. In January 1931, by now aging and tired, she was involved in a railway accident while travelling from Cannes to Paris. She was unhurt, but caught a cold during the twelve hour delay during which the carriages were without heating. By the time she reached Holland, the starting point of a new tour, billed as a farewell tour, she had developed pneumonia. She died in a bedroom of the Hôtel des Indes in The Hague in the early hours of January 23, 1931. Her ashes are at Golders Green Cemetery, close to her beloved Ivy House.
Pavlova Dessert"A symphony of silence! So Pavlova has been described," began the report in the West Australian on Tuesday, July 9, 1929. "But who, seeing the famous ballerina for the first time as she stood on the deck... at Fremantle yesterday, could apply the description?" In 1934, Mrs Elizabeth Paxton succeeded her husband as licensee of the Esplanade [Hotel in Perth, Western Australia] and under her invigorated guidance the afternoon teas became very desirable occasions.... One day she called in her manager... and they approached their chef [Bert Sachse] to devise something special... Bert Sachse experimented for a month.... According to Paxton family tradition, the Pavlova was named at a meeting at which Sachse presented the now familiar cake. The family say that either the licensee...or the manager...(as Sachse also said) remarked, "It is as light as Pavlova.

-Frederick Naerebout