A Canadian
ballerina who was a star of the
Royal Ballet in the late 1950s to 1970s, and is especially associated with the works created by their choreographer
Kenneth MacMillan in those years. She created
Juliet in his 1965
Romeo and Juliet and the lead roles in the one- and three-act versions of
Anastasia, 1967 and 1971. She was also the creator of
Natalia Petrovna in
Ashton's 1976 ballet
A Month in the Country She was renowned for both drama and comedy.
Born Lynn Springbett on 8 March 1939, in Wainwright in Alberta, she studied in Vancouver then at Sadler's Wells in London. She became a soloist with the Royal Ballet in 1958 and a principal the following year. She returned to London as principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet between 1971 and 1978, after a stint (1966-69) as prima ballerina in Berlin, where she had followed MacMillan, who had become director there.
Her favourite regular partners included Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Helpmann. Dame Ninette de Valois said, "Lynn Seymour will go down in the history of the first fifty years of the Royal Ballet as the greatest dramatic dancer of that era."
In 1978 she became art director of the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich. I'm not sure how long this lasted but it was apparently not very successful. She was invested with the CBE in 1976.
She has appeared in various film versions of ballets, including Giselle, and played Keynes's wife the dancer Lydia Lopokova in Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein (1993).
Bio and de Valois quote: http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume6/202-203.htm
A few photos and bio: www.ballerinagallery.com/seymour.htm
More chatter at: www.ballet.co.uk/old/legend_js_lynn_seymour.htm