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Marguerite and Armand (2017)

15 January14 February 2021

Marguerite and Armand (2017)

15 January14 February 2021

Marguerite and Armand (2017)

15 January14 February 2021
Online only
Ballet and dance
£3
Zenaida Yanowsky and Roberto Bolle in Marguerite and Armand ©2017 ROH. Photograph by Tristram Kenton
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Frederick Ashton's passionate ballet, set to Liszt’s tempestuous Piano Sonata, recalls the tragic love affair between the courtesan Marguerite, and her lover Armand.

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Generous philanthropic support from

Julia and Hans Rausing

The 2020/21 Ballet Season is generously supported by

Aud Jebsen

Story

Roberto Bolle and Zenaida Yanowsky in Marguerite and Armand. ©2017 ROH. Photograph by Tristram Kenton
Marguerite and Armand

Marguerite lies on her deathbed, recalling her tragic love affair with Armand in a series of feverish flashbacks.

Background

Marguerite and Armand was created for Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn in 1963 by founding choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Frederick Ashton. The story draws from the same inspiration as Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La traviata – the play La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils. Fonteyn herself recalled the intensity of the choreography, claiming that the tragic love story was 'a passion more real than life itself’.

The ballet is set to Franz Liszt’s La lugubre gondola and his famous Piano Sonata in B Minor. It depicts the burgeoning love between Marguerite and Armand, movingly expressed through passionate and daring lifts and lustful pas de deux. But the lovers’ happiness is threatened. Marguerite's social position and the ‘gilded cage’ in which she lives is evoked by Cecil Beaton in his elegant stage designs. The final pas de deux, as Marguerite lies dying in Armand’s arms, is among the most moving in Ashton’s repertory for The Royal Ballet.

Frederick Ashton created more than one hundred works during his lifetime (1904–88). For further information, please visit www.frederickashton.org.uk

Cast and Creatives

Cast
Conductor

Emmanuel Plasson

Marguerite

Zenaida Yanowsky

Armand

Roberto Bolle

Armand's Father

Christopher Saunders

Duke

Gary Avis

Admirers

Matthew Ball, Reece Clarke, David Donnelly, Nicol Edmonds, Kevin Emerton, Erico Montes, Tomas Mock, Fernando Montaño

Maid

Mica Bradbury

Piano

Robert Clark

Concert Master

Vasko Vassilev

Orchestra

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Creatives
Choreography

Frederick Ashton

Music

Franz Liszt

Orchestration

Dudley Simpson

Designer

Cecil Beaton

Lighting designer

John B. Read

Antonio Pappano in rehearsal for Live from Covent Garden, 13 June 2020 ©2020 ROH. Photograph by Lara Cappelli

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