We Like it Foreign

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 61, 23 August 1940, Page 6

We Like it Foreign

XCEPT for great names like Melba, the Continent does supply most of the big operatic stars. In fact, so deeply rooted is this idea, that many English singers, and musicians, too, have changed ' their

names for professional work. Not only is this an accepted fact on the Continent, but the British music public, too, believes in the superiority of foreign opera singers. You may call it an affectation, but there it is. A plain John Smith would never

draw the same audience as a foreigner in the leading roles. And it’s the same with the Ballet -the Russian Ballet. Russia was the home of the Ballet, and the Ballet School was sponsored by the Russian Royal House. . . Later when an attempt was made to train English ballet dancers, when Sadler’s Wells Theatre started its own ballet company,

even the critics were very scornful about it. They said that the English lacked the right temperament to become great dancers. And so it was that many of the most promising young English dancers changed their names to something Russian, something usually ending in "ski" or "ova." I believe the great Markova’s real name is Alice Marks. And Anton Dolin, probably the finest male dancer we have produced, is really an Irish boy. His name wasn’t actually Doolan, but something equally Irish. And because of this-this inferiority complex, shall we call itin England, we don’t get full credit for the best we _have produced.-(Nelle Scanlan, "Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax’).