From the Stage to the Staging

The Sarasota Ballet Honors Groundbreaker Margaret Barbieri

By Sylvia Whitman

As usual, much of the program for The Sarasota Ballet’s 29th Gala remains under tulle wraps. But the committee has made one big reveal: The January evening of fine food, drink, and dance will include a salute to assistant director Margaret Barbieri, who in 2020 will be marking the 50th anniversary of her promotion to principal with The Royal Ballet in London.

“I didn’t start off on a great footing,” Barbieri recalls with a laugh. On the eve of her induction into The Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1965, she dislocated her knee onstage during a Royal Ballet School graduation performance of Two Pigeons. A quick-thinking fellow dancer yanked her leg straight and carried Barbieri offstage.

“Of course, I was devastated,” she says. But founding director Dame Ninette de Valois, visiting Barbieri in the hospital, assured the 18-year-old dancer that her contract was safe. Although healed by her summer start date, Barbieri nonetheless “felt quite depressed in my first year, because everyone else was getting the roles, and I wasn’t.” She learned later that the doctor had cautioned the company to ease her into the schedule.

 Every few months, The Royal Ballet sent out a small group of performers to local schools—to spread the gospel of dance, give neophytes a chance to perform leading roles, and allow directors to assess talent. In one such mini performance of Giselle, a tragic, romantic ballet in which a peasant girl dies of heartbreak after falling for a cad, Barbieri poured herself into the namesake role. Afterward, the director said, “‘You will dance Giselle,’” Barbieri remembers. “And I thought, ‘Oh yes, one day in the distant future.’” 

But Giselle came into the rep the next year. The casting sheet featured three principals—and Barbieri’s name, in brackets. She figured director John Field simply wanted her to learn the role. Finding rehearsals with the greats “quite intimidating,” she sat on the floor, studying the steps, trying to stay out of the way—until Field ordered her to her feet.

As an entry-level corps de ballet artist, she had a chorus role: peasant. At the final stage calls, Field barked, “’Barbieri, out of your costume. Come out front with me.’” 

“He had that very abrupt-sounding voice,” says Barbieri, “and I nearly burst into tears, because my first thought was, ‘Wow, I’m not even good enough to be a peasant.’” Instead of firing her, he announced that she would dance the lead in the Saturday matinee.

After that, Barbieri was cast on the fast track. In the corps backing Dame Margot Fonteyn, she traveled to Grenada, Spain, and Cairo, Egypt, dancing in front of the Sphinx and the Giza pyramids. Back in London, she took on more challenging roles, including Sleeping Beauty. Within a year, she jetéed over the next step on the career ladder (coryphée) to become a full-fledged soloist and then, in 1970, a principal at age 23. 

At its gala, The Sarasota Ballet will celebrate not only the rocket launch of Barbieri’s career but its amazing trajectory. Overlapping roles as a dancer, educator, and stager/director, she has worked with the greats on both sides of the pond. Along the way she also created a family, marrying Sarasota Ballet Director Iain Webb in 1982 and 5 years later giving birth to their son (which she calls her “best performance”). She credits Iain not only with his love and support throughout the years, but also for bringing her to Sarasota, where her third career really began. In an era where the arts, like other fields, struggle to promote women into top positions, Barbieri belongs to the great ballet tradition of strong female leads.

“Now I find it very, very rewarding working with the company and finding a way to develop the dancers, to see them grow in their roles,” Barbieri says. “I think I’ve been really lucky, because I’ve had the best of all three worlds.”

The Sarasota Ballet will celebrate its 29th Gala with a performance by the company and special guests at the Sarasota Opera House on Sunday, January 5, 2020. More information is available at www.sarasotaballet.org/events/gala.