Irina Baronova, the last of the three “baby ballerinas” whose international careers were launched by choreographer George Balanchine, has died. She was 89.
Baronova died in her sleep Saturday at her home in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia, according to the Australian News.
Baronova came to fame at the age of 12 when Balanchine cast her in a 1931 Paris staging of composer Jacques Offenbach’s operetta “Orpheus in the Underworld.” French critic Andre Levinson wrote, “The sensation of the evening was the tiny child Baronova, who went through the final galop (gallop) like a whirlwind.”
A year later, Balanchine recruited Baronova, Tamara Toumanova, 14, and Tatiana Riabouchinska, 15, to be the stars of a new Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, successor to the Ballets Russes de Diaghilev.
The three dancers were dubbed the “baby ballerinas” by British critic Arnold Haskell and promoted as such by impresario Sol Hurok for their first U.S. tour in 1933.
In 2005, she wrote her autobiography, “Irina: Ballet, Life and Love.”
Fortune teller was a Springsteen subject
Fortune teller Madam Marie, a figure of rock ‘n’ roll mythology, thanks to Bruce Springsteen, has died. She was in her mid-90s.
Sally Castello told New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press that her great-grandmother, Marie Castello, died Friday. The psychic reader and adviser began telling fortunes on the Asbury Park Boardwalk in New Jersey in the 1930s.
Madam Marie became famous in 1973 when Springsteen paid homage to her in the song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).”
His lyric, “Did you hear, the cops finally busted Madam Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do,” cemented her fame.
From Herald news services
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