Dame Monica Mason

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Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is the director of the Royal Ballet, Dame Monica Mason. She's been called the woman who rescued the Royal she could equally be called the woman who dedicated her life to Covent Garden.

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In a few months she will take her final curtain call, fifty four years after winning her place in the Coeur de Ballet. She has shared a stage with Margot Fontaine and Rudolph Nuraieff, and was mentored by Kenneth Macmillan. Amid the passions, drama, and torment of striving for artistic perfection, one thing has remained constant. She says People around me thought of leaving the company because they were unhappy, but I didn't.

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I thought this is the best company in the world. I couldn't imagine I could be happier anywhere else. So, Monica Mason, planning seasons, looking ahead to tours, securing funding all that's been your meat and drink over the past few years.

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Um now, of course, you're just a few months from stepping down as director. Are you taking time to look back at this extraordinary, enduring relationship that you've had with the Royal Belly?

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You know, I'm finding that as people are looking back over my fifty-four years with the Royal Ballet, it's meant that I am reflecting. But of course, in looking back, one rediscovers joys and fears and all sorts, all the things that have gone to make one's life what it's been. And when you do step down, it's it's in the summer, is it in July? Yes, in July, yes.

Dame Monica Mason1:59

Eastern July.

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Will you go back and watch performances, do you think? Well, I've been invited to come back in and uh work with the company on certain Macmillan works, and so I'm thrilled that I shall be able to do that, because I think it would be very hard if I was just going to completely lose touch with everybody. Um I don't think I could bear that, actually. I think I'd have to go back in and have a cup of tea and sit in the office and

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and and keep a chair warm, really.

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I can't imagine.

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cutting the ties completely. Do you think that might be quite difficult for the new director to to have you there, because i at at least they might be intimidated by your record, I would imagine. I think that one of the things that I really would be determined uh not to do would be to get in the new director's hair.

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I couldn't bear it if I thought that behind closed doors somebody was saying, She's here again, you know.

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So I shall but I shall keep my distance and only go in when I'm asked. You yourself were principal dancer for a time. But what does it take to be a principal dancer for it it takes

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Absolute dedication.

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And that you don't achieve it.

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Easily.

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But, you know, the joy of dance, which again, one doesn't really quite understand why we long to do this.

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Punishing thing, really.

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More than compensates. Let's have some music, Monica Mason. Tell me about the first piece we're going to hear today. What is it and why have you chosen it?

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Well, I think Billy Holliday is.

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one of those stars, that indescribable stars. Her voice for me describes the pain and the joys in her life.

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And I think it touches all of us.

Speaker 43:54

All of me, why not take all of me?

Speaker 44:03

Can't you see I'm not good without you?

Speaker 44:12

Take my lip.

Speaker 44:15

I want to lose them. Take my

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That was Billy Holiday and all of me. So, Monica Mason, there are around forty dancers in the Coeur de Ballet, among them, of course, some of the youngest dancers, as young as fifteen at times. Um I've I've read that you have a sort of motherly relationship with them. Would that be fair?

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Well, I suppose it it's partly to do with when I stop dancing.

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I uh started to do coaching of injured dancers.

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It came out of having had a difficult injury myself at one stage, and you can become very scared.

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And you lose your confidence. You see other people dancing your roles.

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And you feel you're losing a part of yourself. And so I think that when I started to coach dancers, I.

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sort of felt I was on the same wavelength. How long were you yourself out of action for? I was off the stage for nine months. I think that I um had some really wonderful friends in the company.

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I'd put on weight. I didn't like what I saw in the mirror, so I simply didn't look, actually, for a while.

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And I remember one day Michael Soames took my hand and he said

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You're ready now to do the step that you did that caused your injury.

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And I said I

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I'm not sure I can do that. And he said yes, you can. Come on.

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And he stood in front of me, and in fact he held both my hands, and I slid my foot across the floor, gently to start with, and then a little more,

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And uh and then he said, And now tomorrow we're going to do it even more strongly.

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And there got me back.

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The uncompromising physical aesthetic of classical dance, of course, demands that dancers are.

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In the best possible shape, meaning they are extremely slim. I mean, you presumably throughout the years have have dealt with young dancers who insist on, you know, an apple for lunch and two crackers for breakfast and a lot of water and not much else.

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You know, we use um a nutritionist for advice for them.

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Because they have to understand.

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That food is fuel.

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and what they put into their bodies is extremely important. And so I think that because they have such high aspirations,

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Sometimes they are prepared to go to great lengths to achieve the image that they want in the mirror.

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But it can be very damaging. I don't know if you've seen have you seen the movie Black Swan?

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Do you know I didn't. I especially didn't go, because somebody told me not to. I don't think you would have enjoyed it. No, I from the sound of it, I don't think I would. Well, of course, it was an overblown Hollywood interpretation. But one of the points that was made in the movie, that there were these beautiful young women who, of course, couldn't even let a morsel of cake pass their lips without running to the toilet to throw up. I mean, is that something that you're.

Dame Monica Mason7:02

Yes.

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Are you conscious of in the ballet world? Is it something that you you think you have to just accept as part of the scene? No, I think that was a very extreme view.

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I think that, um

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Uh by and large the dancers in the Royal Ballet, who are the ones that I know

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best know how to take care of themselves.

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Let's have some more music, Monica. What's next?

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Well, of course Swan Lake is such a huge part of a classical ballet company's repertoire.

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And

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When you're dancing in the quarter ballet, or if you're dancing the lead.

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There's something about standing on the stage, behind those curtains,

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and hearing the orchestra begin this fabulous overture.

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It is simply so inspiring and needs to be because this is not an easy ballet to dance.

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The Russian State Symphony Orchestra playing the overture to Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, conducted by Dmitry Jablonski. You were giving me a little window on that backstage world, and I was asking you during the music if there's ever been a time when you have been almost overwhelmed by the responsibility of dance. And you started to tell me about, well, it must have been 1963, and it would have been the 22nd of November. Tell me what happened.

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We were

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Just about to start a performance.

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And uh the news of the shooting of President Kennedy came through.

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and somebody went in front of the curtains and

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Told thee public.

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I mean, we were absolutely struck dumb.

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The idea that this could have happened was completely overwhelming.

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And then of course we had to dance.

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But it was a question absolutely of putting the lid on that box with all those emotions and summoning up your courage really just to get on and dance. Let's travel then a little further back. We're going back to um the early nineteen forties. It's South Africa. And you are born to a British mother, South African father. Your your father twelve years older than your mother. How how did your parents meet?

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Actually my mother was born in South Africa.

Dame Monica Mason10:19

Back up.

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Um and she and my father met at work.

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My father was an accountant, my mother was a secretary, and he was twelve years older than her.

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Very handsome.

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And a a very, very lovely man. And y did your mother then have British parents? Is that where I'm getting that from? Yes, right. And I'm imagining at that time in South Africa your your home was well populated by staff. How did they treat you, and how did you treat them? Well, you know, it wasn't actually.

Dame Monica Mason10:40

Yeah.

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We had a a woman who came to help my mother with the washing.

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And then we had a man in the house who did a lot of cleaning, and he helped my mother cook the evening meal. But we were not weighted on hand and foot. My mother didn't believe in it.

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And so there was a lot of respect shown to the people who worked for us. And your parents were were a very social couple, were they? They had They were very social, yes. They had lots of friends and I remember parties and I always used to creep out and come down the stairs. I loved watching people dance and I loved seeing them ballroom dancing.

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Let's have some more music. We're on the third disc of the day. Monica Mason, what are we going to hear? We're going to hear Richard Tauber singing You Are My Heart's Delight because I have a very vivid memory of my grandmother and a wind-up gramophone. And she would say to me, Let's go and sit down and and listen to my favourite. And I knew exactly which it was. I would wind the gramophone up, put this record on, and then see her put her head back on the chair and shut her eyes, and her face had an expression of absolute bliss.

Speaker 312:01

You are my heart and where you are highlights.

Speaker 312:13

Who make my darling cry when the light of God you shine on me?

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That was Richard Tauber, and you are my heart's delight. Memories there of your grandmother leaning back in the chair and just soaking up that beautiful piece of music, Monica Mason. Your father died then when you were just thirteen. Can can you tell me what happened?

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Well, I think he must have known something wasn't right, and by the time he went to see a specialist

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It was realized that he had something seriously wrong. Of course, my sister and I were not told anything.

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And he drove me to school on the Monday morning and said I'm you know I'm driving myself on into hospital.

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And uh in fact it was the last conversation I had with him.

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Because children weren't allowed into the particular hospital that he was in.

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and I remember he came out on a balcony.

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and waved to us and we were on the other side of the road.

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I never saw him again. He

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He died on the Saturday. He had

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Cancer?

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Um and it was far too advanced for them to do anything.

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And so he died in five days.

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I'm thinking of this very

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Tender and small units then of you Your mother then would just have been in her early thirties. She was a very young woman.

Dame Monica Mason13:39

It's a very young woman.

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Your sister, you've mentioned, and you were the the eldest, yeah. Did your mother lean on you?

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For support.

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Do you know uh

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She was extraordinary. I I remember that on the night of his death.

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The doctor came round to the house and gave her, I suppose, a sleeping pill, and he said I've

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Given your mother something to help her to sleep.

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I think it would be wonderful if you could sleep in the room with her. They had two single beds pushed together,'cause in South Africa you tended not to have double beds'cause of the heat and

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I think my mother slept in my father's bed, and I slept in hers.

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And the doctor had said to me

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You must be very brave for her.

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And looking back, of course, I think, gosh, that was quite something to say to a thirteen year old, and

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I just thought.

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I will do that. I will try to be brave for her.

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And

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In the night

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Um I could hear her talking.

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and she spoke very clearly. I could hear her talking to my father.

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She wanted to know why he'd gone so quickly and.

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and she told him what a wonderful life they'd had together.

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And I lay there in the dark listening to this.

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I thought I must be brave, I must be brave and of course then I heard her crying.

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Um I think I have cried for years.

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Following that I can still cry.

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Um at the time I didn't. And I'm sure you weren't crying for yourself, but I'm wondering if in a way that was the end of your childhood. There you were at thirteen, suddenly faced with the harshest reality that any of us have to bear.

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Well, I think what uh I noticed particularly was when I went back to school

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I remember feeling

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Incredibly different suddenly. All my friends talked about their parents.

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And now I couldn't talk about my father.

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And I just was so aware of feeling rather isolated.

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And where was dance in this? Where y you were obviously were dancing at that age and

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Well, dance was really, I think, probably quite a lifeline, although

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Interestingly, just not long before my father had died, I had said to him one Sunday morning we were sitting together

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And I said to him, you know, I think I want to be a professional dancer.

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And he said, Well, you know, I don't think that's perhaps quite sensible because there's no professional company here in South Africa.

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And I thought then well, I didn't want to upset him in any way, and I just thought, This will keep. We'll talk about this another time.

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And of course we never did.

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Let's have some music, Monica.

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What are we going to hear? We're on the fourth piece. I've.

Dame Monica Mason16:36

Yeah.

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Chosen Charlie Coons and

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The Harry Lyme theme, because my father loved piano music.

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And I remember one day, again a very clear memory, of him putting this record on, and him saying, Would you l like to learn to foxtrot? And so with that I stood on his feet, and we danced around the sitting room.

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Charlie Coons playing the Harry Lyme theme. And so after your father died, Monica Mason, your mother was persuaded to move to England. Tell me about your first memories of of arriving in England.

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We arrived on Friday the thirteenth of July.

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Nineteen fifty six.

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It was a very rainy, chilly day, and of course the ship docked in Southampton, and we travelled up to London on a train.

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And it was so exciting, I think I spent the entire journey looking out of the window.

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except for noticing that the person who'd come to meet us at the ship was the man who became my stepfather.

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And he was a business associate of my father's. I noticed that he looked at my mother in a

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in a way that indicated his feelings were

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Um

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Not uh dispassionate. How long was it before they married?

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Oh, they married him. We arrived in the July, and they married at the end of October.

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Ah, so it's very fast.

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I think

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She probably liked him a lot.

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and grew to love him.

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But I think she realized.

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that he was going to be such a good friend, and that she must have been frightened by the idea of looking after my sister and myself alone in London.

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But he was a a wonderful supporter, a tremendous friend.

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And let's not forget that this was a a London of of smog and b you know, a b a bombed out city. I mean, Lo London would still in parts have been in rubble, was it? Absolutely. I mean, it was a it was they were hard times and some things were still rationed.

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It it couldn't have been more different from our life in South Africa. But you know, I don't think I noticed the grey skies.

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All I knew was that I was able to dance every day.

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So at the time that you joined the Royal Ballet, you were the youngest ever. Tell me about your audition. How did that go? Well, you know, I failed my first audition for the ballet school, so I took another one and got in and I went for a year. And during my year at the ballet school, I danced with the opera. Maria Callas and Tito Gobby, is that right? With that you danced while they were there? And what were they like?

Dame Monica Mason19:51

Did you dance while they were there?

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Well, of course we had to m go up the stairs behind her dressing room to reach the floor where we were changing, and we had to tiptoe up the stairs, and we weren't allowed to speak.

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Who told you that? Uh her dresser.

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Because her dresser was like um on guard outside the dressing room. And did you ever see Madame at close quarters?

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Oh yes.

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Fabulous face, those enormous eyes, very, very strong and

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And um she was always surrounded by people. She was escorted to the stage and escorted back to her dressing room and

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Well, I suppose you know you're in an opera house, so there are stars around. She was a big one.

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And Margot Fontaine, it has to be said, a creature of such grace, perfection, and beauty that it would be difficult to imagine anybody not being intimidated by her. Did did you encounter her at all? I used to stand next to her on the bar.

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Um

Dame Monica Mason20:50

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

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And I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I

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The outline of her neck and shoulders.

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And the way she held her arm. I mean, I can even see the shape of her fingernails now, if I think about it.

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She was the most incredible role model.

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But she was also so human and

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She giggled.

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Ugh so contagiously.

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Very difficult to imagine that, really. I find that astonishing.

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No, she she loved life.

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Let's have some more music, then, Monica. What's next?

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Well, my father was born in Natal, near a town called Ladysmith, and as a child my family used to go down to our cousins, and of course we were surrounded by Zulus.

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And I was so amazed by the harmony of their voices when they sang. My father could speak Zulu, and this piece of music, when it first came out, I remember thinking

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This is just this is me, and so this is Paul Simon and the Ladysmith Black Mombazza.

Dame Monica Mason22:02

Awa awa I will try gancha Awa awa o dessin Suwinis and Amcha Awa awa sibona wense gagancha Awa awa amantum passane I asked her She's a rich girl she don't try to

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Hiding diamonds on the soul of the shoe in the mouth.

Dame Monica Mason22:23

Here's a

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Poor boy empty as a pocket empty as a pocket with nothing to lose

Dame Monica Mason22:27

Empty out.

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Paul Simon and Lady Smith Black Mambazzo and Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. In the introduction, Monica Mason, I described Kenneth MacMillan as your mentor. He was, of course, the artistic director of the Royal Ballet through the seventies. How did you meet?

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Well, I met him um really within, I think, the first two weeks of being in the company. So I was only sixteen, and he was, I think, twelve years older than me. Tell me about the night. You say that night I was showing off like hell, and I was pretty sure Kenneth was watching me.

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Oh, that was somebody's housewarming party.

Dame Monica Mason23:03

Yeah.

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I loved.

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going mad at parties. It didn't require any drink.

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to get me to go mad. And I

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I knew Kenneth was watching. And so you're you're a bit of an extrovert, then, are you? Oh, yes. I was.

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Not any more? Oh, I well, I you know, I suppose I control it,'cause I can't be seen to be doing that as a director. And so the extraversion, did it come from having a physical confidence, of knowing that you could command a room with your your presence? You know, I always loved being physical. I loved performing.

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But I never felt I was wonderful at it. I just knew I got such pleasure out of if somebody said dance, I would do it. Do you still dance?

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Oh, if I get the chance, yes. Yes, dance at parties. No, not so much at parties, but I do dance in the kitchen a lot.

Dame Monica Mason23:52

Yeah.

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Your own private performance. Well, in the case of Kenneth Macmillan, it it it it was Be Careful What You Wish For, because he made a new ballet for you to play the lead in. It was a new version of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

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In which your character literally dances herself to death in the final scene. Tremendous uh physical hard work.

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Tell me about it.

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Well, he called me across the room.

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And he said, I've been given permission to make a new ballet, and I want you to dance the lead.

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I was twenty.

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I didn't know what he was talking about. Just to be clear, were you still part of the Cordebelle at that point? Yes, I was. I was in the Cordubellet.

Dame Monica Mason24:32

Uh

Speaker 424:32

At that point

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But he said, This is not going to be classical ballet at all. I'm going to invent a different way of moving.

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It was intriguing because the pianist he had broken down the score into dancers' counts.

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And so we counted the final sacrificial dance that she does right at the end of the piece into this sort of.

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incredible telephone number lists of numbers, you know, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You just rattle these numbers off and and I used to go home every night, play the music, listen to it on on the disc,

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and count the counts and count the counts and remind myself of the steps. As you say, you were just twenty and the reviews for your performance were phenomenal. Did you devour them all up and think, Yep, I've arrived. You know, there's also that moment when you think

Dame Monica Mason25:25

Right.

Presenter25:29

Was that me? Di you know, did I do that? And because it was designed on me, it was made on me, you know, it fits like the most wonderful clothes made for you. Kenneth, I think when he'd watched me at that party, would have known

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because he was a genius, that that he could push me to an incredible limit. And there's something rather

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wonderful or mad to think that you could die dancing.

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I used to think that. What a wonderful way to go

Presenter26:06

Time for some music, then, Monica. What are we going to hear?

Presenter26:09

Well, um entirely appropriately we're going to hear the final dance of the Rite of Spring, and this is where one hopes to convince everybody that you're completely dead at the end of it.

Presenter27:23

The sacrificial dance from the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky, played by the Concert Gerbau Orchestra of Amsterdam, conducted by Colin Davis. Indeed, Monica Mason, he conducted that first performance. Yes, he did. Can you as you're listening to that

Dame Monica Mason27:33

Yeah.

Presenter27:36

Can you recall every single step?

Dame Monica Mason27:38

Yeah.

Presenter27:39

Yes, I I think I probably have to do it on the beach on my desert island. Kenneth MacMillanen ended up creating, I think it was five roles especially for you in total. You were at Covent Garden the night he died. Yes. Did you have any inkling that all was not well?

Presenter27:56

Oh yes, because I was sitting by his side, and I could tell that some days he was exhausted. His wife, Deborah, said to me, you know, Kenneth is seriously ill.

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He could die at any moment.

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That terrified me.

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And um his death that night uh it was the opening performance of Marling.

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Um even at the beginning of the evening, he said, I'm not feeling very good. And when we came to the second interval,

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Anthony Dahl, who was the director, and Deborah.

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Um, his wife and I were looking for him and we couldn't find him anywhere.

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Deborah said to me, Monica, go and watch the rest of the evening, and two-thirds of the way through the last act, somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

Presenter28:40

And I knew immediately that something terrible must have happened. So your dancing days finished then. You stayed with the company as assistant to the director.

Presenter28:50

You said at the time this is interesting you set out to be the best assistant there could be. You saw that as your role. You weren't sort of gunning for the top job at that point.

Presenter29:00

I was never gunning for the top job. I never for a moment saw myself as a director of a title.

Dame Monica Mason29:05

What?

Presenter29:07

Well, I think because if you've worked in a company under Ninette De Valois, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth Macmillan.

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Yes, I get where you're going.

Dame Monica Mason29:16

You wouldn't.

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And so, you know, I have hung their portraits in my office as a constant reminder of the responsibilities that I carry.

Presenter29:28

In a way, the job sort of fell into your lap. As you say, it wasn't one that you were gunning for. How surprised were you to find it there?

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Well, it because I was assistant director, it felt natural to be asked to look after the company, and after about six weeks I

Presenter29:45

Discovered that I really loved it.

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But because everybody was so wonderful to me, and everybody was so for me,

Presenter29:53

You know, it sort of happened almost without me being aware that it was happening. And the next thing I was appointed. And so then I thought, now I've got to go for this.

Presenter30:03

You were married for many years to another dancer. Was y I mean, I can only imagine that in a household like that you are living and breathing dance.

Presenter30:12

Well, my husband had stopped being a dancer by the time we married. He had a serious injury and he went to work in the music business.

Dame Monica Mason30:15

Yeah.

Dame Monica Mason30:19

Yeah.

Presenter30:20

You didn't have children. Is that because dance was taking up a lot of your life at the time?

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Do you know, I I don't quite know why I didn't get pregnant, but it didn't happen.

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Let's have some music, Monica.

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Our seventh of the day.

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Well, my husband was an amazing musician, as well as having been a dancer.

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and he used to take his guitar with him on tour.

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And so I used to find myself sitting in his room while he played his guitar for hours.

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And I grew to love the music and I grew to love him.

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So this of course has a very special place in my heart.

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Andres Segovia, playing the Prelude No. One in E minor by Eitor Villalobos. That was dedicated to your former husband, Monica Mason. I'm I'm wondering about this life of dedication, in fact. You have been dedicated to the ballet, and yet when you retire next year, you know, the ballet finds someone else to take your role as director. What do you find? What takes its place?

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It's it's going to be

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So difficult, I think, to imagine.

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I can't uh I can't really plan it because um it's outside of my experience.

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Because of course I've never been anywhere else. I don't know anything else. Um but I have never

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stopped thinking about my very first days.

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with Royal Ballet and what

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what that meant to me, which is why I really never wanted to go anywhere else.

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And it's remained the same to this day.

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The most demanding aspect, really, is the amount of energy needed. And I've

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I think been blessed with lots of energy.

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So I was only too happy to give it to my profession.

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You wouldn't think now, I wonder I mean, you you seem a very vigorous person, full of a lot still to give. You say you quite like the taste of power once you were given it. You wouldn't think about going to run something else.

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Well, it hasn't arisen yet, but do you know I'm quite open to

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to suggestions. But of course

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I can tell that I don't have as much energy as I had when I was a young dancer. Well, it's all relative, Mike. It is.

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You'll be dancing to the Stravinsky, as we know, on the island. What else will you do on the island? Will you occupy yourself? I'll do some gardening. Right. It won't be easy, as long as it's not too cold or not too desolate.

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It might be okay. I think you'll make a good fist of it. Let's hear your final piece of music then.

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Well, my final piece of music.

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has to be uh the song of the earth.

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This Ballet by Kenneth MacMillan.

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Many people feel is perhaps his greatest achievement.

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It's a great piece of choreography.

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And

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just meant so much to me.

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To be in the spale.

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The ending of Der Abschied the Farewell from The Song of the Earth by Mahler, sung by Christel Lutwig and Fritz vunderlich, with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia Orchestras, conducted by Otto Klemperer.

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So we come to the moment, Monica, when I shall give you the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and what are you going to take along?

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Well, I would like a specially put-together omnibus of everything by David Attenborough.

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I just think he's completely wonderful, and he's taught us all so much about the world we live in. Right. One great big bound volume, then, is yours, and a luxury, too.

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Well, now I'm probably not allowed to have all sorts of things. Um I wondered perhaps in the end

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To be practical, I'd need a torch.

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Because it's going to be very dark on this island.

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and I remember as a child being very frightened of the dark.

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African nights are very black and although wonderfully starry.

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And I think I'll need a torch. Right, we shall give you that. And if you had to save just one disc from the waves, which one of the eight would you pick? Oh, it would have to be the Song of the Earth.

Presenter36:04

Dame Monica Mason, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you so much, Kirsty.

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You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.