Margot Fonteyn, RIP.

TO INTERVIEWERS' questions about the basis of her splendid career, Margot Fonteyn would reply with characteristic understatement, "I was in the right place at the right time." What she left out was the first term: "the right person" in the right and-so-ons. Whether it was as the 16-year-old fledgling swan in 1935, soon to take over the top slot at the equally fledgling Sadler's Wells (later the Royal) Ballet from the departing Alicia Markova; or, 14 years later, the ballerina in her prime leading the company's smashing U.S. tour with her Aurora in Sleeping Beauty; or, another 12 years later, the dancer beginning to think of retirement but accepting the challenge of a flamboyant Russian refugee half her age and forming with him one of the most brilliant and durable artistic partnerships of our time, Margot Fonteyn was unquestionably the right person on the spot.

Her greatest successes were in dramatic roles, not abstract ballets, but not through any lack of technique. If her bravura work was not as spectacular as some of the Russian (and, later, American) ballerinas', her line and the perfection of her pointes made up for it. Fortunately, a number of her performances are recorded on film, including her Fifties signature piece, Ondine, and her Sixties signature piece (with Nureyev), Marguerite and Armand, so that those who never saw her onstage can see, and enjoy, for themselves.

Onstage and off, her life was proof that a prima ballerina need not be a prima donna, and the quiet manner of her death was a final, characteristic understatement.