Section:GDN 1J PaGe:10 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 17:30 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Wednesday 7 August 2019
10
T
hough Julia Farron,
who has died aged
96, was recognised
as one of the
most versatile,
intelligent and
valued members
of the company
now known as the Royal Ballet, her
career did not follow the obvious
pattern of rising from the ranks of
the corps de ballet to dance Odette/
Odile, Aurora and Juliet. Indeed,
she did not perform any of these
roles during her time with the Royal
Ballet’s predecessor companies, the
Vic-Wells and Sadler’s Wells, from
the late 1930s onwards, or from its
inception in 1956 until her offi cial
retirement, or in post-retirement
appearances in the 1960s.
Rather, she was a great tackler
of recently created virtuoso roles,
even in 1951 being thrown on at
the last minute as the ballerina in
George Balanchine ’s challenging
Ballet Imperial, a work in which sheJulia Farron
Dancer with the
Royal Ballet who was
a great performer of
virtuoso roles
to make them her own. The ballet
photographer Gordon Anthony
claimed that when she took over
the ghostly role of Alicia from Alicia
Markova in The Haunted Ballroom ,
created by his sister, Ninette de
Valois , the character changed from
ethereal to more vicious : where
Markova was ectoplasm Farron
was a poltergeist. Farron was more
successful than Margot Fonteyn
as the vivacious Mam’zelle Angot
in Léonide Massine’s ballet, and in
Robert Helpmann’s The Miracle in
the Gorbals (1945 ) her Prostitute
was more voluptuous, if less exotic
and fl amboyant, than those of
other interpreters.
Born Joyce Farron-Smith in
London , she was the daughter of
Hugh Farron-Smith, a civil servant,
and his wife, Amy (nee Ellis), a
teacher. She began her training at
the Cone school in London, and
became one of the fi rst pupils to
win a scholarship to the Vic-Wells
school in London, from which she
graduated into its ballet company at
the age of 14 , having undoubtedly
benefi ted from the training of
the 1930s, which combined fast,
detailed footwork with generous use
of the upper body. De Valois was the
director of the Vic-Wells company,
and in 1937 persuaded Joyce to
change her name to Julia and drop
Smith from her surname.
Her performing career began with
the role of a dancing snowfl ake in a
pantomime Cinderella at Drury Lane
during its 1934-35 run. The following
Christmas she was Will o’ the Wisp
in the children’s production of
Bluebell in Fairy Land at the Scalaotherwise loved leading the corps de
ballet. But while most dancers move
towards mime roles such as the
Queen in The Sleeping Beauty as a
sequel to dancing virtuoso solos, she
was the graceful and elegant, albeit
young, Queen when the Sadler’s
Wells Ballet reopened the Royal
Opera House in 1946. Six years later
she was dancing the second girl in
the Florestan pas de trois in the same
work so precisely and buoyantly that
it sparkled with new brilliance.
Among the more substantial
roles she created were the narrow-
minded, jealous, puritanical Hannah
in Mirror for Witches (1952) and
a tarantella dancer in Veneziana
(1953), both choreographed by
Andrée Howard, and for John
Cranko the dramatic Princess Belle
Epine in Benjamin Britten’s The
Prince of the Pagodas (1957), and
Jocasta in Antigone (1959).
Farron took on roles that relied
on characteri sation and drama as
well as dance, and she had the abilitytheatre, London. By this time she
had also performed as Clara in The
Nutcracker and Little Bo-Peep in De
Valois’s Nursery Suite.
As a member of the Vic-Wells
company she danced in many of
Frederick Ashton ’s ballets: as a
Bridesmaid in his Le Baiser de la
Fée; a Belfry Spirit in Apparitions;
and famously when as the smallest
dancer in the company she created
the role of Pépé the dog in his
anarchic A Wedding Bouquet , all
in 1936. That year, too, she danced
in a performance of Wagner’s
opera Tannhäuser during which an
on-stage fountain leaked and the
bacchanal was performed ankle-
deep in water.
In 1939 it appeared that Farron
would have a breakthrough when
Ashton chose her to lead the cast
in Cupid and Psyche. However,
although he used her soft, fl uid
style to good eff ect and included
choreographically interesting
material such as his ballerina’s
“walking on air” motif for the fi rst
time, the ballet itself was one of his
rare disasters.
She toured with Sadler’s Wells
Ballet throughout the second world
war, including one visit to the
Netherlands that was cut short as
German troops invaded, and in roles
such as Mademoiselle Theodore
in The Prospect Before Us and the
Betrayed Girl in The Rake’s Progress.
Along with Beryl Grey , Gillian Lynne
and other colleagues, she recalled
the period in David Bintley’s BBC Four
fi lm Dancing in the Blitz: How World
War II Made British Ballet ( 2014 ).
After the war, Farron began
performing with the South African
choreographer and dancer Alfred
Rodriguez, whom she married
in 1948. She missed the Sadler’s
Wells conquest of New York in
1949 owing to the birth of her son,
Christopher, but Ashton continued
to choreograph for her , including
the cameo role of vengeful Diana
in Sylvia (1952) and in the dazzling
Neapolitan Dance added to Swan
Lake. In 1958, by which time Sadler’s
Wells had become the Royal Ballet,
Ashton also showcased her as the
deserted Bertha in Ondine.
Her offi cial retirement from the
stage came in the summer of 1961,
but she would return as a guest to
the Royal Ballet throughout the
1960s, creating Lady Capulet in
Kenneth MacMillan ’s Romeo and
Juliet (1965) and taking on the role
of the venomous fairy Carabosse
in Peter Wright ’s staging of The
Sleeping Beauty (1968).
She also became an inspiring
teacher at the Royal Ballet School
(1964-82), before moving to the
Royal Academy of Dance, where she
was assistant director (1982-83) and
director (1983-89). She never lost
touch with dance and in 2012 was
appointed OBE.
Alfred died in 2002, and she is
survived by Christopher.
Jane PritchardJulia Margaret Farron, ballet dancer,
born 22 July 1922; died 3 July 2019Farron as
Hannah in
Andrée Howard’s
Mirror for
Witches (1952)
ROGER WOOD/ROYAL
OPERA HOUSEObituaries
Farron
created
the role of
Pépé the
dog in
Ashton’s
anarchic
A Wedding
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