Ballerina Sarah Lamb on Jealousy and Forgiveness
As she prepares to add the lead role of Hermione to her enviable portfolio, The Royal Ballet’s Sarah Lamb tells us about the ins and outs of The Winter's Tale
Sarah Lamb ©ROH
The American ballerina Sarah Lamb brings her fierce intelligence to bear on every role she performs; and in her 20 years with the Royal Ballet (18 as a principal) that’s pretty much every major role in the repertoire.
Sarah Lamb in Serenade, The Royal Ballet © 2014 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
This means her every performance throws new light on the character she’s dancing, something which struck me forcibly in a recent performance of Swan Lake. She brought poignant clarity to the fragile swan princess Odette; and her spare Odile showed that seduction doesn’t have to be flamboyant or over the top to be lethally effective: a sly look, a tilt of the head, and, of course! 32 impeccable fouettés, and Reece Clarke's Siegfried was well and truly bamboozled.
Sarah Lamb as Odile in Swan Lake, The Royal Ballet © 2018 ROH. Photo: Bill Cooper
We met to talk primarily about The Winter’s Tale, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s take on Shakespeare’s ‘problem play’, in which she is preparing to take on the lead role of Hermione, the wife who Leontes, King of Sicily, unjustly accused of adultery. As a voracious reader, who makes a point of acquainting herself with the sources on which ballets are based, Lamb’s Hermione is informed by Shakespeare’s own words.
‘Reading the text again recently, what I see is her extreme lack of agency, yet being able to rise above it, which, I suppose, is in some ways heroic, but is also unfortunate. She is not believed, and how do you prove your innocence? She says, I have nothing but what I say in my defence and you won’t believe it!
‘And then we have her at the end as this beatific, serene, abstract concept of forgiveness – almost divine forgiveness; so, I think for Hermione the injustice is not a shock, but it’s still something that she rages against, she denies, she denies, she denies. Act III brings the understanding of what time has wrought. It has finally given Leontes perspective; and her re-appearance is solace for them both. To quote Shakespeare, “in our faults by lies we flattered be.”
For the current run, which marks the 10th anniversary of Wheeldon's The Winter’s Tale, Lamb’s Leontes is first soloist Nicol Edmonds, he, too, debuting in the role; and I have no doubt her knowledge of the play and insights into the character are of tremendous help to him in shaping his interpretation.
‘Leontes’s switch is so abrupt, so startling, it almost seems like a psychotic break, to be so paranoid and so sure of himself. I think that’s probably the hardest thing to show, and yet to keep a little bit of the audience’s sympathy with his character….’
She says this hesitantly, bearing in mind Leontes’s jealous violence towards Hermione, and his order the baby daughter he’s convinced is not his be ‘disappeared’. However, Sarah Lamb goes on,
‘I think he is very sympathetic at the end – he’s self-flagellated for 16 years! but at the end of Act I it’s very hard to feel he has any right to do what he did.’
Sarah Lamb is debuting as Hermione, but this is not her first contact with The Winter’s Tale: in fact, the role of Hermione’s long lost daughter, Perdita, found and brought up by a shepherd in sunny Bohemia, was originally created on her.
Sarah Lamb as Perdita, Vadim Muntagirov as Florizel in The Winter's Tale © 2018 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Asked to compare the two roles, she was at first amused:
‘I feel like it’s a natural progression, it’s 10 years since, obviously as she would grow she would probably become more like her mother – don’t we all, in some ways?’ She laughs. But more seriously,
‘They’re very different physically, because Hermione is older. The Perdita role is very very active, and I would say in terms of stamina was a little bit more concentrated, a bit more tiring, in a way. In Act I, Hermione being through so much emotionally, you are more overwrought – that’s a different kind of exhaustion.’
A classical ballerina with limpid technique and rare glamour, Sarah Lamb was trained in her native Boston by the famed Madame Tatiana Legat, with all the exacting rigour of the Russian Vaganova ballet school. Yet she’s become one of the go-to dancers for contemporary dance makers such as Wayne McGregor, whose choreographic language, with its contractions, splayed lifts and hyper-extensions is in many ways antithetical to that of classical ballet.
Sarah Lamb in Chroma. The Royal Ballet © 2010 ROH. Photo: Bill Cooper
‘It’s very interesting because when my teacher was rehearsing something contemporary, she embraced the shift of weight, the extension of the movement… so I understood gradually that this type of movement has its own clarity and exactitude, and that’s what I find alluring and also enticing to explore.’
She says nothing quite compares to having something created on you - ‘I suppose it would be like haute couture just for you’– but one piece created on her was indeed very special: Illustrated ‘Farewell’ by the influential American choreographer Twyla Tharp.
Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb in Illustrated 'Farewell' © 2017 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Therein lies a tale.
‘My mother did a little modern dance and she was at University in the US when Twyla Tharp had a residency. She loved to see Twyla work. So, one of the first times I went to the theatre, my mum brought me to see Baryshnikov dance Twyla Tharp in Boston. I went to the stage door, and they came out, there were a few people asking for autographs. My mum never was a pushy mother, absolutely never, but she said, go, go, they’ll stop because you’re a child! So I ran after and I got their signatures, and I’ve had that since I was 10-years-old.
“Many many years later, Kevin [O’Hare, Royal Ballet director] said, I’m bringing in Twyla Tharp to do a thing for you and Steven [McRae], I felt we'd come full circle – it was an absolute honour for me to be able to tell Twyla, how lucky I am to be working with you.’
Over her two decades with The Royal Ballet, which she joined after a hugely successful few years in the smaller Boston Ballet, Sarah Lamb has danced with many partners; but she feels a special affinity with Steven McRae.
‘Steven and I linked quite easily, and the way we worked without needing any communication… we just have a parallel thought process, something almost like siblings'.
At 43-years-old Sarah Lamb is at the top of her game, her technical ability complemented by her deeply intelligent approach to her characters and a fiery passion for dance. The Royal Ballet is lucky to have her.
Sarah Lamb dances Hermione in The Winter's Tale on 21st and 28th May and 1st June at 19:30 at the Royal Opera House. Tickets here
Sarah Lamb in Serenade, The Royal Ballet © 2014 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
This means her every performance throws new light on the character she’s dancing, something which struck me forcibly in a recent performance of Swan Lake. She brought poignant clarity to the fragile swan princess Odette; and her spare Odile showed that seduction doesn’t have to be flamboyant or over the top to be lethally effective: a sly look, a tilt of the head, and, of course! 32 impeccable fouettés, and Reece Clarke's Siegfried was well and truly bamboozled.
Sarah Lamb as Odile in Swan Lake, The Royal Ballet © 2018 ROH. Photo: Bill Cooper
We met to talk primarily about The Winter’s Tale, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s take on Shakespeare’s ‘problem play’, in which she is preparing to take on the lead role of Hermione, the wife who Leontes, King of Sicily, unjustly accused of adultery. As a voracious reader, who makes a point of acquainting herself with the sources on which ballets are based, Lamb’s Hermione is informed by Shakespeare’s own words.
‘Reading the text again recently, what I see is her extreme lack of agency, yet being able to rise above it, which, I suppose, is in some ways heroic, but is also unfortunate. She is not believed, and how do you prove your innocence? She says, I have nothing but what I say in my defence and you won’t believe it!
‘And then we have her at the end as this beatific, serene, abstract concept of forgiveness – almost divine forgiveness; so, I think for Hermione the injustice is not a shock, but it’s still something that she rages against, she denies, she denies, she denies. Act III brings the understanding of what time has wrought. It has finally given Leontes perspective; and her re-appearance is solace for them both. To quote Shakespeare, “in our faults by lies we flattered be.”
For the current run, which marks the 10th anniversary of Wheeldon's The Winter’s Tale, Lamb’s Leontes is first soloist Nicol Edmonds, he, too, debuting in the role; and I have no doubt her knowledge of the play and insights into the character are of tremendous help to him in shaping his interpretation.
‘Leontes’s switch is so abrupt, so startling, it almost seems like a psychotic break, to be so paranoid and so sure of himself. I think that’s probably the hardest thing to show, and yet to keep a little bit of the audience’s sympathy with his character….’
She says this hesitantly, bearing in mind Leontes’s jealous violence towards Hermione, and his order the baby daughter he’s convinced is not his be ‘disappeared’. However, Sarah Lamb goes on,
‘I think he is very sympathetic at the end – he’s self-flagellated for 16 years! but at the end of Act I it’s very hard to feel he has any right to do what he did.’
Sarah Lamb is debuting as Hermione, but this is not her first contact with The Winter’s Tale: in fact, the role of Hermione’s long lost daughter, Perdita, found and brought up by a shepherd in sunny Bohemia, was originally created on her.
Sarah Lamb as Perdita, Vadim Muntagirov as Florizel in The Winter's Tale © 2018 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Asked to compare the two roles, she was at first amused:
‘I feel like it’s a natural progression, it’s 10 years since, obviously as she would grow she would probably become more like her mother – don’t we all, in some ways?’ She laughs. But more seriously,
‘They’re very different physically, because Hermione is older. The Perdita role is very very active, and I would say in terms of stamina was a little bit more concentrated, a bit more tiring, in a way. In Act I, Hermione being through so much emotionally, you are more overwrought – that’s a different kind of exhaustion.’
A classical ballerina with limpid technique and rare glamour, Sarah Lamb was trained in her native Boston by the famed Madame Tatiana Legat, with all the exacting rigour of the Russian Vaganova ballet school. Yet she’s become one of the go-to dancers for contemporary dance makers such as Wayne McGregor, whose choreographic language, with its contractions, splayed lifts and hyper-extensions is in many ways antithetical to that of classical ballet.
Sarah Lamb in Chroma. The Royal Ballet © 2010 ROH. Photo: Bill Cooper
‘It’s very interesting because when my teacher was rehearsing something contemporary, she embraced the shift of weight, the extension of the movement… so I understood gradually that this type of movement has its own clarity and exactitude, and that’s what I find alluring and also enticing to explore.’
She says nothing quite compares to having something created on you - ‘I suppose it would be like haute couture just for you’– but one piece created on her was indeed very special: Illustrated ‘Farewell’ by the influential American choreographer Twyla Tharp.
Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb in Illustrated 'Farewell' © 2017 ROH. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Therein lies a tale.
‘My mother did a little modern dance and she was at University in the US when Twyla Tharp had a residency. She loved to see Twyla work. So, one of the first times I went to the theatre, my mum brought me to see Baryshnikov dance Twyla Tharp in Boston. I went to the stage door, and they came out, there were a few people asking for autographs. My mum never was a pushy mother, absolutely never, but she said, go, go, they’ll stop because you’re a child! So I ran after and I got their signatures, and I’ve had that since I was 10-years-old.
“Many many years later, Kevin [O’Hare, Royal Ballet director] said, I’m bringing in Twyla Tharp to do a thing for you and Steven [McRae], I felt we'd come full circle – it was an absolute honour for me to be able to tell Twyla, how lucky I am to be working with you.’
Over her two decades with The Royal Ballet, which she joined after a hugely successful few years in the smaller Boston Ballet, Sarah Lamb has danced with many partners; but she feels a special affinity with Steven McRae.
‘Steven and I linked quite easily, and the way we worked without needing any communication… we just have a parallel thought process, something almost like siblings'.
At 43-years-old Sarah Lamb is at the top of her game, her technical ability complemented by her deeply intelligent approach to her characters and a fiery passion for dance. The Royal Ballet is lucky to have her.
Sarah Lamb dances Hermione in The Winter's Tale on 21st and 28th May and 1st June at 19:30 at the Royal Opera House. Tickets here
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