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‘I didn’t miss being on stage or the applause. I missed feeling alive’: Ballerina Alessandra Ferri on coming out of retirement and playing Juliet at 53
By JANE MULKERRINS FOR YOU MAGAZINE

PUBLISHED: 23:20 GMT, 21 May 2016 | UPDATED: 23:20 GMT, 21 May 2016

     

The ballerina has come out of a six-year retirement to return to the spotlight. As she prepares to break the mould by playing the traditionally teenage heroine in Romeo and Juliet at the age of 53 – she tells Jane Mulkerrins why she's living in the moment

'When I stopped, I realised that I’d switched off the light inside me. And after a while I felt depressed,' says Alessandra
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'When I stopped, I realised that I’d switched off the light inside me. And after a while I felt depressed,' says Alessandra

'Once you realise it’s never really over until it’s over, every chapter of life can be exciting,’ says ballet superstar Alessandra Ferri.

‘We are so used to limitations that are not even our own, limitations that have been imposed on us by education and society and history.

'And if we can somehow dare to be a little more free of them, and try not to limit ourselves, who knows what we can do?’

Italian-born Alessandra is vibrant, dynamic proof that some limitations are, perhaps, entirely arbitrary, and that age truly is but a number.

The most celebrated ballerina of her generation, she became a principal at the Royal Ballet – the highest position one can reach in a company – aged just 19.

At the other end of her career, after a six-year retirement, the mother of two returned to dancing in 2013, and now, aged 53, is preparing to reprise the role with which she is probably most closely associated: the teenage Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet.

‘Of course, there are physical limitations. And some of them are insurmountable. But some can be overcome. I work hard on my body. I’ve never taken it for granted, and I particularly don’t now,' says Alessandra
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‘Of course, there are physical limitations. And some of them are insurmountable. But some can be overcome. I work hard on my body. I’ve never taken it for granted, and I particularly don’t now,' says Alessandra

Her one-off performance, on 23 June, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, will be almost nine years to the day since she took her last bow with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), where she had been a principal dancer for 22 years.

‘Of course, there are physical limitations,’ concedes Alessandra.

‘And some of them are insurmountable. But some can be overcome.

‘I work hard on my body,’ she continues. ‘I’ve never taken it for granted, and I particularly don’t now. It’s not like it was when I was 19, obviously.

'The result that came bursting out of me naturally then doesn’t burst out that easily now. My body takes a bit more…’ she searches for the correct verbs ‘…fondling and spoiling.’

On a spring morning in Manhattan, I head to the labyrinthine offices and rehearsal rooms of the ABT, a modest and unremarkable headquarters for a company of worldwide repute – reflective, in many ways, of the dedication, grit and lack of glamour that is the backstage reality of ballet.

Alessandra arrives swathed in a large, belted cardigan, her tiny, toned legs clad in black leggings. Even without a stitch of make-up, she is a glowing picture of health.

‘There is pain, but there has been pain all my life,’ she shrugs and smiles. ‘Probably not when I was 21, but certainly for the past 20 years. I don’t think any dancer enters their 30s pain-free.’

Daily company class is a way of life for a ballet dancer.

‘I need to keep myself strong and supple,’ says Alessandra, in her rich, rolling Italian accent.

‘But I have to pace myself, too. I can’t do so many hours of rehearsal that I can’t move the next day.’

Instead, the ‘fondling and spoiling’ involves regular physiotherapy and massage, and daily pilates. Alessandra is not the first high-profile dancer to continue into her 50s.

Alessandra with dancers from the London Festival Ballet in 1986. ‘There is pain, but there has been pain all my life. Probably not when I was 21, but certainly for the past 20 years,' she says
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Alessandra with dancers from the London Festival Ballet in 1986. ‘There is pain, but there has been pain all my life. Probably not when I was 21, but certainly for the past 20 years,' she says

‘Margot [Fonteyn] did,’ she nods; the legendary ballerina celebrated her 60th birthday by performing at the Royal Opera House.

And Mikhail Baryshnikov – the Russian superstar of the 1970s and 80s, who, as artistic director, recruited Alessandra to join the ABT at 21 – still makes occasional guest appearances on stage at 68.

‘I think what is unusual in my case is that I did stop; for almost seven years I did nothing, and then I came back to it,’ says Alessandra, twisting her mane of wavy black hair on top of her head, before releasing it again to swish past her shoulders.

In 2013, she choreographed and performed in The Piano Upstairs at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, before taking on the role of Léa in Chéri – the story of an older woman who separates from a younger lover, played by Herman Cornejo, now 35 – in London and New York.

Last year, she returned to London to perform Woolf Works, a three-act ballet by Wayne McGregor based on the writings of Virginia Woolf; Alessandra recently won an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance for her performances in Chéri and Woolf Works.

‘It wasn’t something that I planned or expected,’ she says of her comeback.

‘But one thing led to another… And I only wanted to do new things – things I’d never done before.’

So when Kevin McKenzie, ABT’s current artistic director, approached her to reprise the role of Juliet – a teenager in Shakespeare’s original play – opposite Cornejo as Romeo, she had reservations.

‘I said, “Oh my God, Kevin. I think that’s a bit of a stretch,”’ she laughs.

‘I thought about it for a good few months before I gave him an answer. And then I thought, why not?

'Stop judging yourself, stop wondering if it’s right or wrong; life is wonderful, you have an opportunity. That’s how I am taking it now: a wonderful opportunity, a gift to myself.’

‘It always came very naturally to me. I never thought that I would have to do anything else,' Alessandra says (pictured in rehearsal for ABT’s production of Romeo and Juliet in 1991)
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‘It always came very naturally to me. I never thought that I would have to do anything else,' Alessandra says (pictured in rehearsal for ABT’s production of Romeo and Juliet in 1991)

Alessandra was born in Milan; her father worked for the tyre company Pirelli, while her mother was a teacher turned housewife.

Though she’s unsure where her devotion to ballet came from, Alessandra’s first memories of dancing are to her mother’s classical music records at home, before she even started school.

Once she began taking ballet lessons, however, her aptitude was clear.

‘It always came very naturally to me,’ she nods. ‘I never thought that I would have to do anything else.’

Her father, however, wasn’t so sure. When, at just ten years old, his only daughter informed him of her desire to dance at Milan’s famous opera house La Scala, he sat her down for a serious talking-to.

‘He said, “This is not really a career, you know. It’s fun, but you’re never going to make a living out of it.” My father wasn’t in the arts, so he had no idea,’ Alessandra shrugs.

‘He thought I was wasting my time.’

Her mother was more supportive.

‘When I decided to come to London at 15 – and that was a big thing – my mother said, “We have to support her dream.”’

Alessandra’s move, to join the Royal Ballet School, was ‘the start of my life,’ she enthuses.

She became the muse of Kenneth MacMillan, the legendary choreographer, and was promoted to principal at 19.

But, less than two years later, she left London to join the ABT at the request of Baryshnikov. It was not an easy transition, she admits.

‘I’m not saying that people weren’t nice, but the pressure was very different. I came in as a principal dancer at 21; nobody comes in as a principal at that age, and there were other people who, I’m sure, wanted to be a principal.

‘I was much more lonely,’ she says, without self-pity.

Alessandra with her then husband Fabrizio in 2009. ‘I’m a romantic; I totally believe in love. I would like to be in love again, but I don’t want, and I don’t need, a companion,' she says
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Alessandra with her then husband Fabrizio in 2009. ‘I’m a romantic; I totally believe in love. I would like to be in love again, but I don’t want, and I don’t need, a companion,' she says

New York, she found, was wholly different from London or Milan.

‘It felt like I’d landed on Mars. But what is nice about New York, which I understood after a while, is that you can build your own life as you wish,’ she says.

‘You can mould the city to what you want it to be.’

Her two daughters by her now ex-husband, the photographer Fabrizio Ferri (coincidentally they share the same surname), are ‘completely Italian. They’re bilingual, of course, because they grew up here in New York, but they’re Italian, one hundred per cent.’

Neither of them dances, she tells me with a laugh.

While Emma, 14, lives with her mother on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Matilde, now 18, is living and studying back in Milan.

‘Of course I miss her, but I was like her,’ Alessandra says. ‘I left home early. And I know how beautiful it is to have your own life in your hands and live it.’

Living her life back on stage is clearly suiting Alessandra; she sparkles whenever she mentions performing, which begs the question of why she retired in the first place, aged 44.

‘My children had reached an age where it was painful for me to leave them,’ she explains (Matilde and Emma were ten and six at the time).

‘I was travelling a lot, and I would go away for maybe a month at a time. I felt guilty and I was not happy,’ she confesses.

‘I guess for a moment I believed that dance was taking me away from what I loved.’

Her unhappiness was beginning to affect her performances, too.

‘I started to get very anxious about going on stage,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why, but something felt strange inside – it didn’t feel as joyful as it did before.’

The conclusion she came to was that it was time to stop. And, for a couple of years, she felt content – but it didn’t last.

Dancing, she says, has always been something almost spiritual to her, a ‘path of light.

'When I stopped, I realised that I’d switched off the light inside me. And after a while I felt depressed.’

It wasn’t so much that she missed dancing in and of itself.

‘I didn’t miss being on stage, or the applause. I missed feeling alive,’ she says simply.

‘I missed myself. I was just a phantom. I was a body, being the role of a mother, being the role of a wife.’

With her daughters Matilde and Emma in 2013. They are 'completely Italian. They’re bilingual, of course, because they grew up here in New York, but they’re Italian, one hundred per cent,' she says
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With her daughters Matilde and Emma in 2013. They are 'completely Italian. They’re bilingual, of course, because they grew up here in New York, but they’re Italian, one hundred per cent,' she says

From many people, this might sound melodramatic, but from Alessandra, it simply comes across as honest.

‘I was there for my children – I was picking them up from school every day and being there while they did their homework, but that’s not really being a mother,’ she asserts.

‘The physical presence is important, but what’s more important is to be fully present as yourself, as your soul, as a guide.

‘I also think it’s important for my children to see that their mother doesn’t have to give up who she is in order to make them do their homework.’

And, I add, to see her happy and fulfilled, which she certainly wasn’t in retirement.

‘For a moment I believed in the dream of dedicating yourself to the family, where we’re all sitting happily around the dinner table,’ she muses.

‘But I do believe that we have to find that happiness inside ourselves.’

For Alessandra, this is a particularly pertinent point.

‘I went through a very painful separation,’ she says, frankly but gently.

Three years ago, Fabrizio left her after 15 years together.

‘That experience was devastating,’ she confesses. ‘I was destroyed. You think, “Oh my God, I must be somebody you can just dispose of.”

'Then I thought, wait a minute. I’m not a woman who has been left destroyed.

'I am that woman who was full of light when dancing. I want to go back to that, because that is me. And that is going to save me.’

The couple first met when Fabrizio was photographing Alessandra’s close friend, the actress Isabella Rossellini, whom he had known since his youth in Rome.

‘She said, “Come and see me on the set”, so I came and I met him,’ she recalls.

‘It was love at first sight.’

The pain of their break-up has not put her off potentially marrying again in the future.

‘I’m a romantic; I totally believe in love,’ she cries. ‘I would like to be in love again, but I don’t want, and I don’t need, a companion.

'I don’t want somebody just to have somebody – I’m totally fine on my own,’ she says firmly.

‘I couldn’t date,’ she adds, looking horrified at the very notion. ‘I don’t understand the concept. You go out with somebody, but for what? No, I can’t do that.

'For me, it either happens or it doesn’t.’

And, for now at least, her plate is more full than she ever could have predicted. She will be dancing in Japan this July, in Italy in August, and back in New York in the autumn.

And she is already booked up for much of 2017, performing in London again with Woolf Works, with the Hamburg Ballet in Germany, and in another production with the Royal Ballet, although she cannot yet reveal details. She is also the face of the new Boots No 7 skincare campaign.

‘I don’t know how long I will dance for now,’ she shrugs. ‘People sometimes ask me to say yes to things for 2018…we’ll see. I hope I’m there.’

Right now, she is living for the moment. ‘Once you put the label on something, once you say that it’s going to be for ever, you screw yourself up,’ she believes.

‘But if we could say about everything, that it’s just for now – then you never know, it might end up being for ever,’ she concludes.

‘I think that’s the secret of life.’

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