Australia Dancing - Baronova, Irina (1919

Baronova, Irina (1919 - 2008)

Seymour, Maurice: Irina Baronova in costume for 'Le lac des cygnes' (Swan Lake), Ballets Russes [1], 1930s

Irina Baronova, born in Petrograd, was one of the three legendary 'baby ballerinas' who made such an impact on dance audiences in the 1930s and 1940s. Her family fled to Romania when she was one year old and it was in Bucharest that she began her dance training with an ex-corps de ballet dancer from the Mariinsky Theatre. Her talent was clear from the beginning and the family soon moved to Paris where Baronova continued her training with Olga Preobrajenska. In Paris she performed as a soloist at the Paris Opera in 1930 and the Theatre Mogador in 1931. In 1932 when just thirteen years of age she was engaged by George Balanchine as ballerina for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. She continued to dance with the de Basil Ballets Russes companies until 1939, coming to Australia on tour with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in 1938-1939.

The historian Kathrine Sorley Walker has described Baronova's dancing as combining 'the purist classicism, the most delicious demi-charactere work and a deep instinctive understanding for the newer choreographic styles'. In Australia she was much admired for her performances across the repertoire and had particular successes as the Queen of Shemakhan in Le Coq d'or, as Aurora in Aurora's wedding and as 'Passion' in the second movement of Leonide Massine's symphonic work Les presages. Her main partners during the Australian tour were Anton Dolin, Paul Petroff and David Lichine.

Baronova left de Basil in 1939 and soon after began a new stage of her career in the United States. From 1941 she appeared with (American) Ballet Theatre in North and South America and worked in Hollywood in the 1940s before retiring to devote herself to her family. She came out of retirement at the urging of Dame Margot Fonteyn to serve on the technical committee of the Royal Academy of Dance and to teach and coach.

Baronova lived the last eight years of her life in Australia, in the hinterland of Byron Bay, where she completed her memoirs which were published in 2005 as Irina: ballet, life and love.

Bibliography:

Irina Baronova, Irina : ballet, life and love (Camberwell, Vic. : Penguin Group, 2005); Michelle Potter, 'Impressions: Irina Baronova: 13 March 1919 - 28 June 2008', Brolga 29 (December 2008), pp. 7-9.

A list of Baronova's roles from 1931 to 1945 is in Martha Bremser (ed.), International Dictionary of Ballet, Volume 1 (Detroit: St James Press, 1993), p. 101-102.

Baronova visited the National Library of Australia in 2007 and photographs of her visit are available at 'Irina Baronova Gallery' on the 'Ballets Russes in Australia' website. See also 'Choreartium - an insight'.

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Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
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