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GREG STANDFORD

I had the good fortune to come of age as a ballet lover from the vantage point of the Kennedy Center Opera House during the 1970’s. Kennedy Center Executive Director Martin Feinstein kept audiences supplied with a cornucopia of ballet companies during a decade that established a level of artistry seldom matched since. The New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater began twice-annual visits. Audiences enjoyed the precision and elegance of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, while the American Ballet offered such stellar attractions as Natalia Makarova and Ivan Nagy and, later, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland. Frederick Ashton’s Royal Ballet featured Anthony Dowell and Natalia Makarova in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet. Their storied bedroom scene is featured below. I first became conscious of the dramatic possibilities inherent in ballet with the first visit of John Cranko’s Stuttgart Ballet, whose presentations included the unforgettable Eugene Onegin and Romeo and Juliet. The great Marcia Haydee danced in both these productions. Richard Cragun, Heinz Klauss, Egon Madsen and Birgit Keil were among the other dancers who graced these productions and the results were unforgettable. Unfortunately, the 45-year-old Cranko suffered a fatal heart attack while the company was on the plane back to Germany, but Cranko’s choreography has been maintained in these and other productions in the years since, and the company made return visits to Kennedy Center. All in all, the 1970’s were a great period for ballet, nowhere more so than at the Kennedy Center Opera House.