At 654 pages, this biography begs to be called ''definitive," and it is. England's is more a literary culture than a music and dance one, and the English have an almost comical obsession with using the former to record the latter. Daneman writes as an insider, a graduate of London's Royal Ballet School, and now a novelist. That is the image Fonteyn wanted to project to the world, the porcelain-perfect princess more regal than real royalty.ĭaneman digs beneath the faade of the woman whose blossoming as an artist corresponded to the blossoming of classical dance in England, with the determined figure of Ninette de Valois transforming the Vic-Wells Ballet into the Sadler's Wells company and finally, triumphantly, into the Royal Ballet. Her face betrays no feelings whatsoever: She is utterly serene. There the great ballerina is, posed as Odette, the white swan of ''Swan Lake." Her ivory skin and dark features make her look like a geisha. The cover of Meredith Daneman's new biography of Margot Fonteyn is also a gentle cover-up.
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