ABSTRACT
An unusual encounter took place in the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, in June 1948. Margot Fonteyn had decided to take a leave of absence from the Sadler’s Wells company. After twelve years as the company’s ballerina, and hundreds of performances in leading roles, she felt tired and in need of a new direction. She also wanted a break from the austerity of postwar London. In Paris, she was to dance a sexy, inconsequential role in Les Demoiselles de la nuit for the youthful and modern Roland Petit, with whom she was having a casual, friendly romance. At that time, Petit’s Ballets de Paris was also producing ‘adame Miroir (1948), based on a libretto by Jean Genet. Genet was rising to fame as a writer of low life and deviant sexuality, and his apparent rejection of traditional morality had made him a favourite of Left Bank intellectuals. But Genet’s criminal past still caused him problems, and in 1948 he was wanted by the police for various petty thefts. He often visited the Théâtre Marigny, partly to supervise the production of ‘adame Miroir, and partly because, in the darkness of the closed theatre, the police were less likely to find and arrest him. So writer and dancer met.
