Michael Somes

Michael George Somes CBE (28 September 1917 – 18 November 1994), was a leading English ballet dancer. He was a principal danseur of the Royal Ballet, London, and was the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn.

Somes was born in Horsley, Gloucestershire, England. In 1934, he was awarded the first scholarship given to a male by the Royal Ballet (then known as the Vic-Wells Ballet). In 1938, he and Fonteyn created the principal rôles in the Frederick Ashton/Constant Lambert ballet Horoscope, after which he was described as "potentially the finest British male dancer of the half century".^[1] He originated rôles in 24 ballets choreographed for the company by Ashton, and was the lead male dancer for the company from 1951 until the arrival of Rudolf Nureyev in 1962. From then on, Somes appeared in character rôles, most notably as Lord Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Somes was assistant director of the company under Ashton from 1963-70.

Somes appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1954, and in television versions of Swan Lake (1954), The Sleeping Beauty (1955) and The Nutcracker (1958), as well as a film version of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (1966). All three productions starred Margot Fonteyn.

In 1959, Somes was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was married to and divorced from ballerina Dame Antoinette Sibley, and later married ballerina Wendy Ellis. He died of a brain tumour in London in 1994.

References

1. ^ Ballet magazine, 1938

External links

• Dance magazine obituary, February 1995
• Biography at Ballet.co.uk, 30 September 1997
• Michael Somes at the Internet Movie Database

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Name	Somes, Michael
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Date of birth	1917
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Date of death	1994
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