Viviana Durante reveals the secrets of the role of Anastasia (The Royal Ballet)

Darcey Bussell and Viviana Durante, both Former Principal dancers of The Royal Ballet, share their insights into performing dramatically demanding roles such as the lead in MacMillan’s Anastasia. Find out more: http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/ana... Kenneth MacMillan created the one-act ballet Anastasia for Deutsche Oper Ballet in 1967. He was inspired by the true story of Anna Anderson. Anderson was a woman who believed herself to be Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and the only survivor from the assassination of the Romanovs in 1918. Leaving the audience to decide the legitimacy of Anna’s claims, MacMillan created a haunting, expressionist work to Martinů’s Sixth Symphony, in which Anna is visited by confused nightmares of her life from the time of the massacre to her discovery in Berlin in 1920. The ballet won widespread acclaim on its premiere, particularly for the central performance of Lynn Seymour in the anguished title role. As MacMillan said in 1971, ‘I found in [Anna’s] story a theme that has sometimes appeared in my work before: the Outsider figure. Anastasia seems to me to be a supreme example of this’.