Pamela May - Times Obit
Pamela May - Newspaper Edition - Times Online
Pamela May
May 30, 1917 - June 6, 2005
Versatile ballerina noted for a warm femininity who became a pillar of British ballet
PAMELA MAY was one of the Royal Ballet’s earliest ballerinas and, second only to her close friend Margot Fonteyn, headed the company during the period when it made its name nationally and internationally. She retired comparatively young from her many big dancing roles, but continued to play an active part in ensuring the future of ballet in Britain.
Born Doris May in San Fernando, Trinidad, where her father’s work as a petroleum engineer took him, she was brought aged 4 to England and studied dance here, making her debut at 15 while still a scholar of the Royal Academy of Dancing, taken as a supernumerary on a 1932 tour to Copenhagen with a specially assembled company headed by Adeline Genée. In 1933 May entered the Vic-Wells Ballet School and quickly joined the company, where she was soon given solo parts. The showpiece pas de trois in their 1934 premiere of Swan Lake appears to have been the first, but another early role was the Prelude in Les Sylphides, which prompted Ninette de Valois as director to decree that a less mundane forename was necessary. After much thought May picked on Angela but was told she had delayed too long: the programme had already been printed as Pamela, de Valois’s choice.
It was in the modern repertoire that May first came to note — sharing with Fonteyn the voluptuous role of the Creole Girl in Frederick Ashton’s Rio Grande, for instance. Those two teenagers were among about a half-dozen dancers of ability and promise whom de Valois tried out as possible replacements for her first ballerina, Alicia Markova, who left the company in 1935. Fonteyn’s mother, however, thinking of friendship rather than rivalry, generously invited May to accompany them to Paris in the summer holidays to study with the celebrated former Maryinsky ballerinas Egorova, Kchessinska and Preobrajenska — which they managed surprisingly cheaply but with immense benefit (although one of the things the girls enjoyed most at the time was being able to wear silk tights for class, which were forbidden at home).
During 1936-37 the two Vic-Wells choreographers both gave May leading roles to dance: de Valois in The Gods go a’Begging, Ashton in Baiser de la Fée and Apparitions. More significantly, they both soon created roles for her in their new ballets. May was the original Red Queen in de Valois’s Checkmate, where her warm femininity was ideally shown — and later by contrast she played the cold, tyrannical Black Queen with equal success. In Ashton’s Les Patineurs she was one of the prominent Girls in Red (later taking the White pas de deux), and in A Wedding Bouquet she played the forlorn Violet (and later occasionally Fonteyn’s role of Julia). A varied collection, but all given individual energy. All those were in 1937, and the following year May was even more acclaimed for her cool clean line as the Moon in Ashton’s Horoscope.
During the 1930s May also had success in supporting roles in the company’s growing selection of old classics. It was with the departure of other dancers during the early days of the war, however, that she first took on the ballerina roles in Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, soon followed by The Nutcracker and Coppélia. These parts glowed illustriously under May’s blonde glamour and pure style. Meanwhile, there were further, and maybe more important, creations made for her: from Ashton, an amazingly forceful and intricate solo in Dante Sonata, contrasted with a highly sensuous duet with Michael Somes in The Wanderer; and de Valois selected her for the stylised comedy of Mlle Théodore in The Prospect Before Us and for Eurydice in Orpheus and Eurydice.
During 1941-43, May was absent for a time, first for an injury, then because she married and had a son (her husband, Painton Cowan, being killed in action about the same time). She returned to the stage dancing in The Bartered Bride with Sadler’s Wells Opera before rejoining the ballet. This was an almost incredibly arduous time for the dancers; they performed up to eight times a week, touring and in London, with only a fortnight’s annual holiday.
Even before VE Day there were tours to liberated Belgium and France, and later in 1945 three London seasons, visits to northern England and Scotland plus a German tour, all while the company’s move to Covent Garden was being prepared with a much enlarged, splendid new production of The Sleeping Beauty. On the opening night at the Royal Opera House in February 1946 May danced in the Bluebird pas de deux, going on to alternate with Fonteyn, night after night, as Princess Aurora. Other ballets from the repertoire had to be remounted for the larger stage; then came a climax with the premiere of Ashton’s masterpiece Symphonic Variations, in which the rising young Moira Shearer joined Fonteyn and May to dance the three beautiful and highly demanding women’s roles, all of ballerina quality.
May, meanwhile, had added Fokine’s Le Spectre de la Rose and Carnaval to her Diaghilev repertoire (she also took all three solo parts in Les Sylphides), and when Léonide Massine came as guest to Covent Garden May took the role of the Can-Can Dancer in his Boutique Fantasque. Ashton’s first three-act ballet, Cinderella, brought May another leading role, as the Fairy Godmother, and she was still leading the company with Fonteyn during the triumphant first tours of the US, although by then younger dancers were also joining the first rank.
May still had two more new roles to be made for her. In de Valois’s Don Quixote (1950), she danced the highly classical “Golden Age” pas de deux, and in 1952 the rising choreographer John Cranko cast her as the Mother in his first creation for Covent Garden, the comedy Bonne-Bouche. That same year, however, saw her voluntarily stepping down to act the Princess mother in a new production of Swan Lake, and henceforth for many years she primarily played the leading mimed roles in the classics, setting a standard and a tradition for others to follow.
Additionally, May taught from 1954 to 1977 at what soon became the Royal Ballet School, where she invaluably and inspiringly passed on her knowledge of choreography and style. She became for many years a governor of the Royal Ballet, and was made vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dance. She remained a regular attender at the Royal Ballet’s and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s performances, still despite advancing years glamorous with her trademark red fingernails. And when Ninette de Valois was largely incapacitated by sickness and age, May was among those who did most to look after her. She was appointed OBE, and her work for British ballet was also marked in 1976 by the award of the RAD Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.
She married a second time, to Charles Gordon whom, like her first husband, she met shortly before the war on the company’s then annual tour to Cambridge (when, as it happens, Fonteyn and their colleague June Brae also met their future husbands). May is survived by a son from her first marriage and a daughter from the second, and had lately moved to Birmingham to be with her daughter.
Pamela May, ballerina, was born on May 30, 1917. She died on June 6, 2005, aged 88.
Pamela May
May 30, 1917 - June 6, 2005
Versatile ballerina noted for a warm femininity who became a pillar of British ballet
PAMELA MAY was one of the Royal Ballet’s earliest ballerinas and, second only to her close friend Margot Fonteyn, headed the company during the period when it made its name nationally and internationally. She retired comparatively young from her many big dancing roles, but continued to play an active part in ensuring the future of ballet in Britain.
Born Doris May in San Fernando, Trinidad, where her father’s work as a petroleum engineer took him, she was brought aged 4 to England and studied dance here, making her debut at 15 while still a scholar of the Royal Academy of Dancing, taken as a supernumerary on a 1932 tour to Copenhagen with a specially assembled company headed by Adeline Genée. In 1933 May entered the Vic-Wells Ballet School and quickly joined the company, where she was soon given solo parts. The showpiece pas de trois in their 1934 premiere of Swan Lake appears to have been the first, but another early role was the Prelude in Les Sylphides, which prompted Ninette de Valois as director to decree that a less mundane forename was necessary. After much thought May picked on Angela but was told she had delayed too long: the programme had already been printed as Pamela, de Valois’s choice.
It was in the modern repertoire that May first came to note — sharing with Fonteyn the voluptuous role of the Creole Girl in Frederick Ashton’s Rio Grande, for instance. Those two teenagers were among about a half-dozen dancers of ability and promise whom de Valois tried out as possible replacements for her first ballerina, Alicia Markova, who left the company in 1935. Fonteyn’s mother, however, thinking of friendship rather than rivalry, generously invited May to accompany them to Paris in the summer holidays to study with the celebrated former Maryinsky ballerinas Egorova, Kchessinska and Preobrajenska — which they managed surprisingly cheaply but with immense benefit (although one of the things the girls enjoyed most at the time was being able to wear silk tights for class, which were forbidden at home).
During 1936-37 the two Vic-Wells choreographers both gave May leading roles to dance: de Valois in The Gods go a’Begging, Ashton in Baiser de la Fée and Apparitions. More significantly, they both soon created roles for her in their new ballets. May was the original Red Queen in de Valois’s Checkmate, where her warm femininity was ideally shown — and later by contrast she played the cold, tyrannical Black Queen with equal success. In Ashton’s Les Patineurs she was one of the prominent Girls in Red (later taking the White pas de deux), and in A Wedding Bouquet she played the forlorn Violet (and later occasionally Fonteyn’s role of Julia). A varied collection, but all given individual energy. All those were in 1937, and the following year May was even more acclaimed for her cool clean line as the Moon in Ashton’s Horoscope.
During the 1930s May also had success in supporting roles in the company’s growing selection of old classics. It was with the departure of other dancers during the early days of the war, however, that she first took on the ballerina roles in Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, soon followed by The Nutcracker and Coppélia. These parts glowed illustriously under May’s blonde glamour and pure style. Meanwhile, there were further, and maybe more important, creations made for her: from Ashton, an amazingly forceful and intricate solo in Dante Sonata, contrasted with a highly sensuous duet with Michael Somes in The Wanderer; and de Valois selected her for the stylised comedy of Mlle Théodore in The Prospect Before Us and for Eurydice in Orpheus and Eurydice.
During 1941-43, May was absent for a time, first for an injury, then because she married and had a son (her husband, Painton Cowan, being killed in action about the same time). She returned to the stage dancing in The Bartered Bride with Sadler’s Wells Opera before rejoining the ballet. This was an almost incredibly arduous time for the dancers; they performed up to eight times a week, touring and in London, with only a fortnight’s annual holiday.
Even before VE Day there were tours to liberated Belgium and France, and later in 1945 three London seasons, visits to northern England and Scotland plus a German tour, all while the company’s move to Covent Garden was being prepared with a much enlarged, splendid new production of The Sleeping Beauty. On the opening night at the Royal Opera House in February 1946 May danced in the Bluebird pas de deux, going on to alternate with Fonteyn, night after night, as Princess Aurora. Other ballets from the repertoire had to be remounted for the larger stage; then came a climax with the premiere of Ashton’s masterpiece Symphonic Variations, in which the rising young Moira Shearer joined Fonteyn and May to dance the three beautiful and highly demanding women’s roles, all of ballerina quality.
May, meanwhile, had added Fokine’s Le Spectre de la Rose and Carnaval to her Diaghilev repertoire (she also took all three solo parts in Les Sylphides), and when Léonide Massine came as guest to Covent Garden May took the role of the Can-Can Dancer in his Boutique Fantasque. Ashton’s first three-act ballet, Cinderella, brought May another leading role, as the Fairy Godmother, and she was still leading the company with Fonteyn during the triumphant first tours of the US, although by then younger dancers were also joining the first rank.
May still had two more new roles to be made for her. In de Valois’s Don Quixote (1950), she danced the highly classical “Golden Age” pas de deux, and in 1952 the rising choreographer John Cranko cast her as the Mother in his first creation for Covent Garden, the comedy Bonne-Bouche. That same year, however, saw her voluntarily stepping down to act the Princess mother in a new production of Swan Lake, and henceforth for many years she primarily played the leading mimed roles in the classics, setting a standard and a tradition for others to follow.
Additionally, May taught from 1954 to 1977 at what soon became the Royal Ballet School, where she invaluably and inspiringly passed on her knowledge of choreography and style. She became for many years a governor of the Royal Ballet, and was made vice-president of the Royal Academy of Dance. She remained a regular attender at the Royal Ballet’s and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s performances, still despite advancing years glamorous with her trademark red fingernails. And when Ninette de Valois was largely incapacitated by sickness and age, May was among those who did most to look after her. She was appointed OBE, and her work for British ballet was also marked in 1976 by the award of the RAD Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.
She married a second time, to Charles Gordon whom, like her first husband, she met shortly before the war on the company’s then annual tour to Cambridge (when, as it happens, Fonteyn and their colleague June Brae also met their future husbands). May is survived by a son from her first marriage and a daughter from the second, and had lately moved to Birmingham to be with her daughter.
Pamela May, ballerina, was born on May 30, 1917. She died on June 6, 2005, aged 88.
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