Leticia Muller is leaving Pact to join the Birmingham=20 Royal Ballet. Stanley Peskin mourns the loss of a rare=20
WHEN David Bintley came to Johannesburg to stage “Still=20 Life” at the Penguin Cafe for Pact Ballet in 1994,=20 there was considerable delight among ballet-lovers. The=20 choreographer of this poignant work had chosen to=20 oversee the first production of his ballet in this=20
At the time, he was struck by the talent and magnetic=20 stage presence of principal ballerina Leticia Muller,=20 whom he cast as the Utah Longhorn Ram. It is also=20 likely he saw her in dress rehearsals of George=20 Balanchine’s Rubies and Choo San Goh’s Glow of the=20 Night. On the strength of these fine performances, he=20 offered her a contract as a principal dancer in the=20 Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) company, for which he has=20 composed a number of works.
The loss to South African balletomanes is incalculable.=20 And there is an especial irony when one stops to=20 consider the meaning of Penguin Cafe. It is a ballet in=20 which Bintley uses the metaphor of endangered animals=20 to mourn the loss of all rare and precious things. And=20 now he has “stolen” the rare and precious Muller away=20 from us.=20
It is hard to blame him. Moreover, it has taken a long=20 time for Muller to decide to play Galatea to Bintley’s=20 Pygmalion. The 1995/96 programme of the BRB includes=20 two new works by Bintley, and it is likely he will=20 create at least one role on Muller.
I first saw Muller dance professionally in Christopher=20 Kindo’s The Rhythm Divine in March 1989. The title of=20 this ballet could be appropriated to describe Muller=20 herself. Her presence was dominating, her dancing=20 stylish and insinuating. A little more than a year=20 later, she was absorbed into the corps de ballet of=20 Pact Ballet and her distinguished career as a classical=20 ballerina began.
In whichever small role she danced, she was entrancing.=20 Her beauty and musicality made an immediate impression=20 and she adorned every ballet she appeared in. Early in=20 1991, she was cast in Jack Carter’s Three Dances to=20 Japanese Music. Her performance was unforgettable. As=20 the Lady, she was always unfailingly graceful and=20
When she danced the title role in Giselle at a Saturday=20 matinee with a sympathetic Johnny Bovang as her=20 Albrecht, the audience rose to its feet to pay tribute=20 to a glowing performance. With her coal-black hair,=20 ivory skin and exotic cast of feature, Muller was music=20 incarnate. She appeared less to dance and act than to=20 live, but she did, of course, dance and act, and with a=20 radiance and subtlety that was all engulfing. Her=20 joyous love for Albrecht was saturated with an=20 emotional eloquence, a richness of emotional texture,=20 and a technical magnetism that suffused every moment of=20 the drama.
These were the qualities that were to inform almost=20 every major role she danced in the four years that=20 followed. As Milady in Andre Prokovsky’s The Three=20 Musketeers, she was more sultry and dangerous than=20 either Lana Turner or Faye Dunaway in her realisation=20 of the role as a high renaissance vixen among medieval=20
In the same choreographer’s Anna Karenina, her natural=20 genius as a dancer-actress was extended into a series=20 of dance and dramatic statements in which every=20 hesitation, every recognition of potential loss, was=20 recorded in sensitive and eloquent phrasing.
It cannot be said Muller has invested every role she=20 has danced with conviction. For example, the mannered=20 and English style of Ronald Hynd’s Rosalinda eludes=20 her. But even at the worst of times she can be=20 impressive and, like Catherine Burnett before her, she=20 has the ability to make us forget that we are watching=20 a minor work (War and Peace) or even a silly one=20
Now dancing at the height of her powers, she leaves us=20 to go to the BRB where I am sure she will give as much=20 joy and pleasure to ballet-lovers as she has given to=20 audiences in this country.
Leticia Muller dances in Spartacus at the State=20 Theatre, Pretoria, on June 30 and July 6 and 8