Slice of history
The ballerina who inspired the pav
She was a nymph who trod ‘‘with measured steps the flower-bedecked lawn’’. Her dancing was a thing of ‘‘ecstasy and dreams’’.
She is today associated with a sickly-sweet dessert made of egg white and sugar but it was not for a dessert that a New Zealand newspaper fawned with the headline, ‘‘The Symphony that is Pavlova’’.
Anna Pavlova was arguably the world’s most loved ballerina when she visited New Zealand in 1926.
Her first performance was on May 26 that year – 91 years ago yesterday – at His Majesty’s Theatre in Auckland, before a trip through provincial New Zealand, as well as Wellington and Christchurch.
She was hailed as a delicate beauty wherever she went.
‘‘Men have likened her to a blossom on the wind, to thistledown, to an ecstatic bird, to a lambent flame, and the words appear cold and vain when one thinks of the living Anna,’’ Truth exclaimed.
But when it was Pavlova talking, the subject was more pedestrian: foot care and ways of walking.
‘‘If you want to feel that – how do you say? – vim feeling, you will not get it through taking all these patent medicines,’’ she advised in The Evening Post.
‘‘You must walk to health. Walking is the very best exercise for the whole of the body.’’
She arrived in Auckland from Australia on the Maunganui – from where a special launch ferried her to a public reception on the jetty.
Before she had even set foot on New Zealand soil, demand for seats at the Auckland show broke records.
The Press was there for the arrival.
‘‘There was a stir in the ranks of many young girls who crowded outside the railing in the wharf shed when Madame was seen coming down the gangway with her husband and members of the company.
‘‘At the foot of the gangway two tiny girls met her, and each presented her with a bouquet.
‘‘For the rest of their lives they will be able to boast that they have been kissed by Pavlova.
‘‘As she passed slowly through the shed out on to the wharf, where her car was waiting to take her to the Grand Hotel, the dancer was followed by the crowd that had waited for her.’’
A newspaper advertisement to see ‘‘the greatest dancer of all time’’ was selling dress circle and reserved stall tickets for £1, three shillings ($123 in today’s money).
The opening night would feature The Fairy Doll with Pavlova playing the doll and Laurent Novikoff in support. The Swan, Russian Dance, and Bolero would all be performed, the advertisement promised.
It was June when she got to Wellington for seven nights and two matinees at the Grand Opera House and The Evening Post described her dancing as ‘‘transcendent’’.
In Christchurch – for six nights and two matinees at the Theatre Royal – she was hailed for her ‘‘witchery’’.
‘‘The great Pavlova and her wonderful ballet won the hearts of the large audience, and captivated every member with their beautiful art.
‘‘Quite different from anything ever seen here before, the incomparable; dancer and her company, gained further applause which came frequently during the performance.’’
It was July, as Pavlova drove in Woolston, Christchurch, that she came across a motorcycle crash, where it first appeared the rider had broken his leg, newspapers reported.
‘‘Pavlova offered her car to send him to hospital but eventually he regained consciousness and it was found that he could walk.’’
Quite how Pavlova the woman and pavlova the dessert – and which country the dessert came from – became linked has been debated for years.
In 2008, it looked like we could finally put the debate to rest with the publication of The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History ,a book by Professor Helen Leach.
It said the first true pavlova recipe was Pavlova Cake from New Zealand in 1929; while a dessert named after Anna Pavlova was a four-layered jelly from a book published in 1926.
For seven years, New Zealand could be content the pavlova was ours.
That was until New Zealander Andrew Paul Wood and Australian Annabelle Utrecht – fresh from looking at the subject for two years – ‘‘categorically’’ stated the modern pavlova began life as a German torte, eventually travelling to America, where it evolved into its final form.
‘‘The idea that it was invented in New Zealand or even Australia is a total fiction, as is the notion that the first pavlova desserts are of Antipodean origin, ‘‘ Wood said.