Leslie E. Spatt

Monday 9th January 2006
Crown Court Church of Scotland Hall, W.C.2

Michael Ludgate welcomed our first guest of 2006, the distinguished American ballet photographer Leslie E. Spatt, and the interview was conducted by Robin Key. Leslie brought along a selection of her photographs, which were used as illustrations for her talk, and members were delighted to have the opportunity of seeing these lovely photographs in close up at the end of the interview.

Robin introduced Leslie's work by displaying her 2006 colour photo calendar of the Stuttgart Ballet, full of stunning photographs of young dancers, mostly unknown in this country. She described how she came to work with Stuttgart Ballet, after having seen the company for the first time in London in the 1970s, when they made such a striking impression on her. When invited to go to Stuttgart and photograph the company, she jumped at the opportunity. She described some of the ballets she first worked on, which included Balanchine's "La Valse", "The Hamlet Case" by John Neumeier and MacMillan's "Requiem". She was always made welcome in Stuttgart and could visit any rehearsal or class at short notice. She spoke of the depth of talent in the company and their wide ranging repertoire which includes the Cranko heritage ballets, as well as works by choreographers unknown in this country.

Leslie then told us how her interest in photography began at the age of 6, with the present of a "box Brownie" from her father. Both her parents were keen amateur photographers and she used to help them develop and print their pictures when she was a small child. She had been to ballet classes, along with many other activities, but gave up dancing to concentrate on piano and art. She went back to ballet later in life, starting at Ballet Russe and Joffrey Ballet in New York.; later studying with  Maria Fay, Errol Addison and John O'Brien in London. All the time she continued with photography, and while at university was persuaded by a ballet fanatic friend to sleep on the streets for standing room to see the Royal Ballet at the old Metropolitan Opera House. She noticed some of the fans were taking illegal photographs during the performances to sell afterwards, from the standing room area at the back of the stalls which extended down close to the stage, so it was possible to get some good photos. When the new Metropolitan opened, the standing room area was much further away from the stage and Leslie described how she and some other fans operated from a box as that was the closest they could get to the stage, but of course they were spotted and told to stop. She learned the technique for taking ballet photographs from this experience - especially making every shot count - and did her own developing and printing. These were black and white pictures, and she commented on the gradual disappearance of black and white photography and the dominance of colour today, and also the advance of digital photography, which is now superseding film.

During the New York Royal Ballet seasons, she became friends with Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell, who remarked that nobody had produced a book about them. This led to conversations with both of them and, after finishing university and moving to London, Antoinette Sibley rnade the necessary introductions to get Leslie on to the Press list of photographers for the Royal Ballet. She described the special partnership of Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell and how they worked together so perfectly and almost instinctively, with particular reference to her photograph of them in "Afternoon of a Faun" by Jerome Robbins. Leslie's knowledge of ballet steps helped her to find the right second to take a photograph and she stressed the importance of photographing with the music to get the right pose. Some dancers are more musical than others, which adds to the difficulties of finding the right moment if they do not dance on her own idea of “the beat”, e.g. Natalia Makarova, who was very difficult to photograph for that reason. Margot Fonteyn could be photographed with Leslie's eyes closed, because she knew Fonteyn was always perfectly on the music. Working with the music is how Leslie achieves the perfect picture.

Leslie talked about her “Sleeping Beauty” book of behind the scenes pictures she took on tour with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and what she learned about the problems dancers have to cope with on tour and the many hours of work put in by the backstage team to get the show on stage. She continued to work with the Royal Ballet "new group" at the time of experiment with small scale touring, before it became Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and then Birmingham Royal Ballet. She spoke of Sir Peter Wright's productions and particularly admired his "Swan Lake" which includes so much more of the music and has effective costumes which can be seen properly, even though black is the dominant colour, because of the different material textures.

She then went on to talk about Kenneth MacMillan and his ballets. She considers that his ballets can be divided into groups, such as his "spiritual" group: "Song of the Earth", "Requiem", "Gloria" and "Judas Tree". There is the "fun" group: "Seven Deadly Sins", "Elite Syncopations", "Side Show". There was a middle period of "death and violence" such as "Different Drummer", and then the "lonely person" ballets: "Solitaire", "The Burrow", and also "Song of the Earth". She told us about some of the technical problems in photographing ballets with difficult lighting and choreographers whose ballets present this challenge; e.g. William Forsythe and Jiri Kylian. She has photographed stills during video recordings of the Kirov Ballet at the Maryinsky and had to have a platform specially built in the stalls so she could see the feet, and powerful lighting had to be installed for "Giselle" so it could be seen clearly. She went on to tell us about memorable moments in performances, especially with Antoinette Sibley in magical unpremeditated moments of virtuosity. Speaking once again of Kenneth MacMillan, she said he continued to alter and improve his ballets as they were being performed and probably would have altered "Isadora" if he had had the opportunity to continue working on it. She had great respect for his integrity, and also for Nureyev whom she considers one of the greatest figures in 20th century ballet.

Leslie has worked with many other companies, including English National Ballet and Dutch National Ballet, and then showed us her own personally produced Royal Ballet calendar for 2006, and gave us the background of each remarkable photo.

Leslie then answered some questions from members, and told us some wonderful stories about Nureyev and his reaction to photographers in general (especially being too close to him!), unco-operative conductors, and his behaviour and appearance on and off stage. She pointed out that although Nureyev could be demanding with the dancers, he never expected them to work without being there himself, giving them his total support and not sparing himself in any way. Leslie had the greatest respect for him.