Flaming June, by Frederic Leighton 1895
I caught Frederic Leighton’s Victorian masterpiece, Flaming June, at the Frick Museum over Labor Day weekend. The painting’s shock of orange, the palpable heat of the sun, and the dreamy languor of the lady create a stunning effect. The woman’s furled positioning is beautiful, as is the way her crossed foot juts out through her translucent gown. She made me think of Jerome Robbins’s too seldom performed ballet Antique Epigraphs. She also reminded me that there’s nothing quite like a ginger beauty in a bright color. I thought of so many iconic redhead moments: Nicole Kidman in chartreuse Dior at the Oscars, Ann Margaret in yellow in Bye Bye Birdie, and Rita Hayworth and Lucille Ball in so many blazing, technicolor images.
I also thought immediately of Moira Shearer, whose saturated crimson tresses matched her red satin slippers in the film The Red Shoes. I love this movie, as I think so many dancers do. Coincidentally, this summer I stumbled across Moira Shearer’s 1987 biography of George Balanchine, Balletmaster. It is an odd piece of literature. She barely knew Balanchine, and she quotes frequently from Bernard Taper’s definitive biography from three years prior. She fully admits her outsider status, though, like when she recounts an awkward tête á tête with Lincoln Kirstein. He demanded of her: “How can you write? What do you know? You don’t know the repertory.”
The book is out of print and it’s easy to see why. Although there are several details that were new to me, it is often a regurgitation of other sources. She is at her best when she tells stories from her (clearly extensive) interviews with Balanchine’s exes Alexandra Danilova and Brigitta (Vera) Zorina, and longtime secretary Barbara Horgan. She is at her worst while hypocritically criticizing critics like Edwin Denby. She even rewrites a passage of his “excessively flowery” review of Apollo in
I also thought immediately of Moira Shearer, whose saturated crimson tresses matched her red satin slippers in the film The Red Shoes. I love this movie, as I think so many dancers do. Coincidentally, this summer I stumbled across Moira Shearer’s 1987 biography of George Balanchine, Balletmaster. It is an odd piece of literature. She barely knew Balanchine, and she quotes frequently from Bernard Taper’s definitive biography from three years prior. She fully admits her outsider status, though, like when she recounts an awkward tête á tête with Lincoln Kirstein. He demanded of her: “How can you write? What do you know? You don’t know the repertory.”
The book is out of print and it’s easy to see why. Although there are several details that were new to me, it is often a regurgitation of other sources. She is at her best when she tells stories from her (clearly extensive) interviews with Balanchine’s exes Alexandra Danilova and Brigitta (Vera) Zorina, and longtime secretary Barbara Horgan. She is at her worst while hypocritically criticizing critics like Edwin Denby. She even rewrites a passage of his “excessively flowery” review of Apollo in
 Nicole Kidman in Dior |  Ann Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie |
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