Nadia Nerina

Nadia Nerina0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

Miss Dorena, where are your parents?

Presenter0:10

particularly fond of music and dancing.

Nadia Nerina0:13

No, they didn't know anything about the theatre. It just so happens my great grandfather, great great grandfather, Sir John Goss, used to write organ music and is buried in Saint Paul's, but that's the only connection.

Presenter0:23

So you'll just learn to dance at school and in the ordinary way that one does at school.

Nadia Nerina0:28

Now I twisted my ankle, and the doctor suggested I was sent to Valley Lessons to strengthen my ankle, and that's how it happened.

Presenter0:34

Just a chance like that.

Nadia Nerina0:35

It really was just as

Nadia Nerina0:37

Chance.

Presenter0:38

There wasn't much in the way of dancing to see in theatres to inspire you in South Africa, was there? No.

Nadia Nerina0:42

No, during those years in in South Africa, of course it was wartime and um there were no big shows and I hadn't seen ballet, opera, or any theatrical shows.

Presenter0:53

How early did you envisage becoming a professional dancer?

Nadia Nerina0:56

Well, it was actually when I was in Durban and it was during the war and my parents were transferred to Johannesburg.

Nadia Nerina1:03

And um I had two wonderful teachers. I only realized how great they were when I was sent to Johannesburg, and I virtually ran away.

Nadia Nerina1:10

from Johannesburg back to Durban, stayed with my dancing teacher, so um something had to be arranged about my education, and it was impossible to go to a boarding school at the same time do my lessons.

Nadia Nerina1:23

And there was a brilliant professor at the university, Elizabeth Sneddon, and she arranged that she would give me speech and drama lessons and the necessary curriculum, so that I need not take the standard school leaving certificate I could take a speech and drama exam instead. And this is what brought me into theatre.

Presenter1:39

This is what

Nadia Nerina1:42

Straight theatre.

Presenter1:43

Yes. So for a time was did you have to make a decision between dancing and drama?

Nadia Nerina1:47

Well, there came a time yes, uh I'd done everything I could in the ballet, and then my mother died suddenly in forty four. I had to have something to think about, and so I concentrated more and more on the drama.

Nadia Nerina1:58

And um

Nadia Nerina2:00

There came this time when I won this enormous uh scholarship to come to England as an actress.

Nadia Nerina2:06

And of course I had to make a decision, so I was sent away into the country, where I had a nervous breakdown deciding whether I'd prefer to come to England to dance Giselle or to play Lady Macbeth.

Presenter2:16

Uh

Nadia Nerina2:16

Yeah.

Presenter2:16

Uh

Nadia Nerina2:16

And I chose the the former.

Presenter2:19

Had you already been accepted by the Saddles World School?

Nadia Nerina2:22

Oh, no, not at all. No. This meant my coming to England completely alone.

Presenter2:25

Read.

Presenter2:26

On spec.

Nadia Nerina2:27

Uh yes, and uh my father would have to give me a small allowance, and I would have to have someone to chaperon me here.

Presenter2:32

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:33

But the school did accept you at once, of course.

Nadia Nerina2:36

Well, they they they did, yes, they were very thrilled, I believe, and I was taken straight into then Saddler's Wells Ballet Company at Saddler's Wells Theatre.

Presenter2:45

As a student you were dancing in the court ballet at Sadler's Wells. In the traditional way you you changed your name to a more romantic one, didn't you?

Nadia Nerina2:53

Yes, well my name was always um Nadine, and my father would always say Nadia. He liked to abbreviate it.

Nadia Nerina3:00

And uh my mother's wish was that I should take her name, Narina.

Nadia Nerina3:04

And so when I started with the Sadduce Wells, I automatically called myself Nadia Noreena.

Presenter3:09

Narina is a South African flower, is it not?

Nadia Nerina3:11

Yes, it is. My mother was named after a lily that grows on Table Mountain.

Presenter3:16

It was said of you in your early days as a dancer that your technique was ahead of your emotional power. Looking back, do you agree?

Nadia Nerina3:23

Yes, I I will.

Nadia Nerina3:25

They did say one time I was the greatest technician in the West, but this is because I believe that you have to conquer technique and be above it, as it were, before you can express yourself as an artist. And so I did set about in my early days working on technique, and then you can

Nadia Nerina3:45

Express

Nadia Nerina3:46

uh your own emotions and your own individual qualities.

Presenter3:50

Yeah.

Presenter3:51

Is there any one role that you look back on as your big opportunity?

Nadia Nerina3:56

No, I think really when I look back, I look back on performances in my career when everything has been right, so to speak, and to me the music is the most important part of my performance, and when the conductor is really on top form and the orchestra is

Nadia Nerina4:12

playing absolutely beautifully. This inspires me too to give a performance which is of a higher level than uh the current performances I'm giving.

Presenter4:21

How many overseas tours have you you been on with the Royal Valley? For example, how many times have you been to the United States with them?

Nadia Nerina4:26

I've lost count at least seven or eight times. And then of course our company has been to Russia and um all over Europe.

Presenter4:33

And some of these tours

Presenter4:35

can be pretty exhausting.

Nadia Nerina4:37

Exhausting. But there's one tour which is very close to home which I remember with the

Nadia Nerina4:43

Deep affection on that's as far as Cambridge.

Nadia Nerina4:46

I think Cambridge is the most beautiful, beautiful city in the world, and we have many friends there. But I remember it because I met my husband there in the first place. He was a student.

Nadia Nerina4:57

And um I remember the rooms he had were once rooms belonging to Milton and then to Smutts.

Nadia Nerina5:04

in Christ College and I remember spending so much time in between rehearsals and classes.

Presenter5:05

And I remember

Nadia Nerina5:09

with our little company on the backs of of the the river, the Cam and the wonderful daffodils that were out at that time.

Presenter5:14

Yeah.

Nadia Nerina5:18

Also

Nadia Nerina5:19

I think that to hear the Evensong sung by King's College

Nadia Nerina5:24

Qua.

Nadia Nerina5:25

It's a very happy memory at Cambridge.

Presenter5:28

You've been back to Dawnson, South Africa, many times, haven't you?

Nadia Nerina5:31

Yes, I have.

Presenter5:32

But not recently.

Nadia Nerina5:33

No, not since about four years ago.

Nadia Nerina5:36

I love dancing out there because it's my country, but um

Nadia Nerina5:41

Unfortunately, four years ago I was out with our own company and I was dancing in Johannesburg.

Nadia Nerina5:47

Previously and then I've always arranged that I dance to mixed audiences.

Nadia Nerina5:52

during my tour.

Nadia Nerina5:54

At this particular time I came back to London, with a view of returning. I had a performance here to do.

Nadia Nerina6:00

And when I left Johannesburg there was the unfortunate and very sad incident.

Nadia Nerina6:04

of Sharpsville.

Nadia Nerina6:08

I feel very strongly that as an as a dancer I'd like everyone to be able to see my performances or performances given in the theatre.

Nadia Nerina6:17

I don't like cruelty of any sort.

Nadia Nerina6:20

And that's the reason why, until it's changed and things are made happier for everyone to see performances, I wouldn't dance in South Africa.

Presenter6:28

Now you've been partnered by many fine dancers. It must mean varying your own performance enormously when you change partners.

Nadia Nerina6:36

Oh, it does, completely.

Presenter6:38

Which is your favourite role? Which ones do you look forward to?

Nadia Nerina6:42

That's that's a difficult question because I always seem to

Nadia Nerina6:47

feel at the time I'm dancing a a character that that is the the person or the character that I I love most.

Nadia Nerina6:54

I have a soft spot for one character, because I think it's because I created her, and that's Lise in La Fime al Garde.

Nadia Nerina7:01

Then there's the romantic and very gentle and superstitious Giselle,

Nadia Nerina7:07

Wilfil Swanhilda, from the Valley Coppalia,

Nadia Nerina7:10

And of course the soulful Odette in Swan Lake and the Enchantress and Wicked Odeal from the same ballet.

Presenter7:18

You like all your characters, don't you?

Nadia Nerina7:19

I lo I really do. I love them all, but each one is so interesting and fascinating to play that it's very hard to say which is my favourite.

Presenter7:28

Do you read criticisms and do you take any notice of critics?

Nadia Nerina7:32

Well, I I've always had a sort of way of thinking about it because they they're so changeable. They're like the weather. One minute they're hot, blow hot, and one minute they blow cold. And uh

Nadia Nerina7:44

I really think they're as good as their last notice that they've written on me, so you know.

Presenter7:47

It's written on me, so you know.

Nadia Nerina7:49

Depends on what they write.

Presenter7:49

Depends on what thing.