Ismene Brown

The bitchy world of ballet

Aged 90, the grand old man of ballet is delightfully indiscreet — about Nureyev (a thief), Moira Shearer (an annoying little madam) and that ‘old cow’ Dame Marie Rambert, among many others

Memoirs of old men, baldly, tend to be tricky. Sir Peter Wright, one of the founding pillars of the British ballet establishment, is now 90, and a charmingly chatty man; but I’ve personally never found him reluctant to get to the point when asked. As inaugural director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, director of Sadler’s Wells Ballet and associate director of the Royal Ballet, he has spent more than half a century inside the amazing British ballet story.

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