Limelight · Ballet

Isadora

Isadora is a narrative ballet made in 1981 by Kenneth MacMillan for the Royal Ballet, with a scenario by Gillian Freeman drawn from the life and writings of the American dancer Isadora Duncan. Its distinguishing structural device is that the title role is split between a ballerina, who dances Isadora, and a speaking actress, whose text is taken directly from Duncan's memoirs — an unusual biographical-ballet format that puts the work in the catalogue as much for its dramaturgy as for its steps.

What is danced

The article does not describe specific steps, positions, or technical vocabulary danced in Isadora, so nothing concrete can be reported about the choreographic language itself. What it does establish is the work's central formal device: the danced role of Isadora is performed by a ballerina (Merle Park at the premiere) while a separate actress (Mary Miller) speaks text drawn from Duncan's own memoirs, meaning the dancing and the spoken narration run in parallel rather than the dancer also carrying spoken text herself.

Staging history

The ballet premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 30 April 1981, with Merle Park dancing the title role, designs by Barry Kay, and the Bennett score conducted by Barry Wordsworth; it was then performed in New York. It subsequently went unseen until it was revised in consultation with MacMillan's widow and revived by the Royal Ballet in 2009. The 1981 production was also featured in the BBC's 50th-anniversary programme 'Right Royal Company' and filmed with the original cast by Granada Television, broadcast in 1982 and later issued on DVD in 2011 by Odeon Entertainment, paired with the unrelated 1968 feature film Isadora.

How to watch it

Watch for the interplay between the two performers sharing the title role: the ballerina's danced Isadora against the actress's spoken text taken from Duncan's memoirs, rather than a single performer carrying both movement and narration. The ballet is structured around Duncan's relationships with named partners (Paris Singer, Edward Gordon Craig, Sergei Yesenin) and the drowning of her children, so the danced scenes track specific biographical episodes rather than abstract divertissement.

Credits

  • composer: Richard Rodney Bennett

Questions

Why does Isadora have two performers playing the title role?
The ballet divides the role between a ballerina who dances Isadora Duncan and an actress who speaks text drawn from Duncan's own memoirs, so the dancing and the spoken narration are performed by different people simultaneously.
Who danced Isadora at the premiere?
Merle Park danced the title role at the first performance on 30 April 1981 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Mary Miller as the speaking Isadora Duncan.
Has Isadora been revived since its premiere?
Yes. After the original run and performances in New York, the ballet was not performed again until it was revised in consultation with Kenneth MacMillan's widow and revived by the Royal Ballet in 2009.
Is there a film of the ballet?
The original cast was filmed by Granada Television and broadcast in 1982; this recording was later released on DVD in 2011 by Odeon Entertainment, packaged alongside the separate 1968 feature film Isadora.
This entry was written from “Isadora (ballet)” on English Wikipedia (revision 1333504302), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.
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