Anthony Dowell

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

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Our castaway this week is a dancer, possibly it's been said, the best classical male dancer in the world, Anthony Dowell.

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Anthony, have you ever imagined yourself as a Robinson cruiser?

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No, I haven't. I think it's because I've always lived with my family. I've never lived alone.

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So I I secretly think I shall be okay. I sort of long to be alone at times, but um I have a secret suspicion that uh I won't be very good at being alone.

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What would you be happiest to have got away from?

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Um, I think a a rigid routine, always having to follow a timetable.

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and the perhaps the self-discipline all the time.

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Are you a musician?

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Uh no. Um, I learned the piano when I was about uh

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seven, but uh it wasn't a great success and then it uh from the piano it developed into just studying the theory of music and I took a few exams but uh that's as far as I got.

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What was your plan for selecting your record?

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Well, I I started by doing it for memory's sake, things that were going to bring back atmospheres, pleasant memories, and then I thought, well, no, when you're

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Plonk down on that island. The records have to be things one really likes to hear, things that are going to last. So I changed a bit. What's the first one then?

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Uh the first one is the stylistics.

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I think it's probably the

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The one record that's gonna cheer me up.

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when I've uh realized that there's a a long

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Stretch of loneliness ahead.

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And it also reminds me too of New York, which is a

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For me a very exciting city to work in and once I was had tremendous success there.

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What's the number?

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It's called Love Comes Easy.

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Together.

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Uh

Anthony Dowell2:42

Together

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Lady Love casts a spell, Magic fills the air whenever

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Love comes easy by the stylistics.

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What's your second record?

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It's um a piano concerto by Ravel.

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There's really no special reason for picking this, except perhaps that it will remind me that my mother very much wanted me to play the piano, and I never made it.

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But it's just a very special

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piece of music to me. It uh

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It's soothing too.

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But if the adagio from Ravel's piano concerto in G major,

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Mata Agerisch with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Are you a Londoner? Yes, yes I am.

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From a family particularly interested in the arts?

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Not particularly, no. My mother was uh

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very interested in dancing, but she just did it for fun. I think the only time she actually appeared in front of an audience was she was part of the the ballet in Hiawatha at the Albert Hall

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As a child we have taken to the theatre much.

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Um not a great deal.

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Mostly, I suppose, pantomimes and ice pantomimes. Well, how did your how did your dancing career start? Well, uh it started by going to the same school as my sister. Um for convenience I suppose. Um we went to the Hampshire School, which was run by Susan Hampshire's mother, Mrs June Hampshire.

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And it was a school that, apart from the academic side, also concentrated quite a lot on ballet, musical comedy.

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Tap. And so I learnt all that at a very early age, about four.

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And I suppose because I showed no objection to it and I think from Mrs Hampshire's very keen eye on me, she s told my parents that there was a a talent there for classical dancing. And you went on to the Royal Ballet School?

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Yes, when I was eight. When you were eight? Yes.

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There you're given a general education as as well as dancing and stagecraft generally. Yes, I mean that was I wasn't very happy from the change from Mrs Hampshire to the Royal Ballet School because there was much more concentration on the academic side, which is rightly so I suppose because they felt that if you didn't make the grade as a classical dancer you'd have to be prepared for the big world. Were you taught music?

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Yes, yes I was. I I learnt the recorder.

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Did you appear as children with the Royal Ballet Company?

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Not when I was with the school, no. In fact, this is really what made me not so happy being there because.

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One felt very cut off from the theatre. I did occasionally get to matinees at Sadler's Wells Theatre and and at the Opera House, but uh

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We were never allowed to appear with the company, but now that's changed, and I think this is a very good thing. Yes. So you didn't really.

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Up here, in a theatre, you didn't tread the boards as it were until you joined the company.

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Yes, that's right. In fact, um

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In those days, it was a sort of an apprenticeship. You went into the opera ballet, and I was with the opera ballet for a year. At what age?

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I was sixteen.

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And uh there wasn't that much dancing except in the big operas like Aida and Macbeth. It was mostly spear carrying.

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And then you joined in the Royal Ballet itself? Yes, I joined the company just before they went to Russia for the first time. And you went with them? Yes, yes.

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Well, that was a gorgeous introduction, wasn't it? And a very frightening one, because.

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To be suddenly

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put amongst a a big company of uh sort of famous names. Uh when you're on tour you're much uh in closer contact with everyone. And especially being in Russia, we were really herded together and we had to eat at in the same dining rooms and at the same table, so it was a bit scary.

Speaker 17:46

Yeah.

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You danced solos in your first season with the company.

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Yes, towards the end of my first year with them.

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And leading roles by the time you were twenty-one.

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Yes. Well, let's have your third record. What's that to be?

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This is the last act pardo deux from Benjamin Britton's The Prince of the Bogodas.

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I've chosen this because

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These were the first records I ever bought, and I think it's the first ballet that really excited me.

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Had to wash.

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To watch. You've never danced this yourself? No, I haven't. No, I was a student when this was in the repertoire.

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An excerpt from The Prince of the Pagodas.

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Benjamin Britton conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra Garden Garden.

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How early in your career did you decide that the classical roles were more important to you than character ones?

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I don't think I decided that uh

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They were more important. It just so happens.

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They can tell what sort of a dancer you will be.

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From an early age, I was lucky enough to be a classical dancer. I say lucky because if you are a classical dancer, it's easier to.

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Um

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to go into other forms of of dance.

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Um

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I think it was sort of planned for me. You were streamed, as it were. Yes, yes.

Speaker 110:12

Yeah.

Anthony Dowell10:13

Uh

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Surely classical roles are more difficult because of the weight of tradition.

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Yes, they're the most exposing ballets to dance in. If you have an off-night in a classic, it's much more noticeable than an off-night in a ballet that's say created on you. Really because you're following in so many people's footsteps. Many people know what is expected of you in a classic. Yes. You formed your celebrated partnership with Antoinette Sibley.

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When did that first start? When did you first dance together? Um it was Sir Frederick Ashton who put us together first when he created the dream for us.

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And then from then on we have danced all the classics. The last thing we

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Created together was Kenneth McMillan's manner. Yes.

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What is it in the chemistry of a partnership which is first apparent? Is it a shared sense of humour or outlook or is it a physical matching?

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Physical matching is the most important thing. I think this is what happened when Sir Frederick put us together. He didn't know that we were going to get on together as people off the stage or share the same sense of humour. That's a sort of added bonus that came with it.

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He saw that we would please the eye.

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to be put together we're uh

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anatomy and we hear the music too.

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The same way, that's very important.

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How do you mean?

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Um

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Well, we just dance to the music the same way. It's very.

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It's hard to explain. I think people think that, you know, you can either dance on the music or off it. It's not quite as cut and dried as that. We just seem to hear it the same way.

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And move accordingly. Th that's why in the partnering, the purely technical side, it works so well, because I know exactly when and how she will move.

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That's our record number four.

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Well, this is from the dream actually. It's my um horror record I've picked uh to get the adrenaline going or to s test whether my nerves have uh given up after being in solitude.

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In fact, in the company, I've nicknamed it the Scream when we ever do this ballet. It's really because.

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It's beautiful music and a lot of times when one wants to dance to music and suddenly you find the thrill that you're going to create a ballet, a very favourite piece of music.

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And then by the time you finished uh the ballet, it

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can take a rather nasty twist because the the music now, the schizo just uh for me its associations are feeling very exhausted and uh nervous and

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Tired, all those sort of things. And of course it's the Mendelssohn music. That's right, yes.

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The scherzo from Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to a Midsummer Night's Dream, Pierre Marteux conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Now we know, Antony, that to be a dancer is is a growling life physically.

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Practice at the bar every morning, very often rehearsals in the afternoon, performances at night, and there is.

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Tremendous self-discipline. A dancer just can't have

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one extra drink or or or two large a a second helping.

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Yes, yes, that's right. Um in fact

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That's the most important thing that I would if I was ever on us, you know, what uh

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Am I glad about that?

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through being a dancer and it it is the self-discipline that one has to learn.

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That um stands you in good stead for no end of situations in life itself. How much time during the year do you spend in Turing?

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I would say about two months.

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You go to the United States most years and recently you've been to Japan with five weeks.

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Yes, it's

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That was new territory. Very new, yes. Did you enjoy it?

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I did very much, yes. One was I was very busy at the time, and so.

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You have quite a battle with yourself at saving your own energy for the performance at night and how much.

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to see during the day how many temples to walk around.

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And I was so impressed with the people. I missed them, I think.

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Most of all.

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We've got to record number five.

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Uh this is the duet from

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Act One of Mano Lesco by Puccini.

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I'm not an opera fan, but uh

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When Antoninette and I were in Spoleto, we had the

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Great fortune to see

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A production of this opera by Visconti.

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It was very.

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Unforgettable night, really.

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I love pillaf

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I'm a girl.

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And gathered under the war in God.

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Here the ancient.

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Part of the first act duet from Puccini's Mano Lesco, Maria Callas and Giuseppe DiStefano.

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Let's move on to your your next record. What's that?

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This is Barbara Streisand singing Starting Here, Starting Now.

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I find her

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Possibly the most exciting lady performer. A very exciting talent.

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When you sleep.

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You will dream a dream that's free from care.

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On the

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Barbara Streisen.

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What are your practical qualifications for being a castaway? Could you look after yourself?

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I think I could. I would be able to um perhaps build a shelter. I remember doing that as a as a kid with a friend of mine. We were we always seemed to be building houses and to to make them waterproof in an English climate. I think I'd probably be quite good on a in a desert island climate.

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De

Speaker 118:21

Uh

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And obviously you're athletic, you could chin out trees and get coconuts and fruit and that sort of thing. Yes, yes. What about trying to escape?

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Um, no, I wouldn't. I'd wait till that um friendly puff of smoke appeared on the horizon because although I love water, the sea,

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I have a great fear of it as well.

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Record number seven.

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Oh yes, this is um

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From Round the Horn. I picked this because not only because it's the human voice, which I think one would desperately need to hear.

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It's really my sort of humour. It's the company's sort of humour. The Royal Ballet has the most fantastic sense of humour and I would uh I would miss them so much. So this is why I've picked this one.

Speaker 319:14

Now the round-the-horn colour supplement. And first with Fashion Daphne White Thigh.

Anthony Dowell19:19

Hello

Anthony Dowell19:21

Courage is in the news again. He's done remarkable things in dresses.

Anthony Dowell19:28

Fabulous things in coats. A now I hear he's done something startling in his boots.

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Fabulous.

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Kenneth Horne and some of his mate.

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Now we get to your last record. What's that?

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Enigma variations.

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Nimrod would um remind me of home and all the marvellous parts of the country that I would be missing a great deal.

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Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sir Adrian Bolt conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

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If you could take just one disk out of that eight, which would it be?

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I think it would be

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The Prince of the Bogodas. Um

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Because of

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The wealth of invention in that music, I think um it would have a lasting power. Yes. And one luxury to take to the island with you.

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This is certainly very difficult. I've sort of went through a list of food hampers and

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bed linen beds and the the QE two, all those sort of things. But uh um it's I think it'll be a radio because um and that's uh not a radio that I can transmit messages on, just something to receive

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BBC programmes to make me feel less lonely. Yes, I can't guarantee the BBC programmes. Reception difficulties may be awful. There may be a volcano or something handy. But anyway, have your radio. Thanks. Good luck.

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And one book, apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias? It would be The Wind and the Willows. Right.

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And thank you, Anthony Dowell, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Well, thank you very much for asking me. I can't say it's been easy, but I've enjoyed it very much. Goodbye, everyone.