Red Curtain Up

(London: Secker & Warburg, 1958). 4to; original red cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xi + (i) + 84, incl. index; plates. Dustwrapper somewhat rubbed and edgeworn, with some tape stains to reverse; endpapers a little foxed, with old tape stains; trace of foxing to edges. Good condition. "Beryl Grey is the first Western ballerina to have danced at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and is the only British dancer to have done so. This magnificently illustrated book is her own vivid account of a tour which included performances in Kiev, Tiflis and Leningrad as well as at the Bolshoi, and in telling of her own experiences in rehearsals and performances, and of the many leading dancers and teachers she met and worked with, Beryl Grey gives a unique behind-the-scenes picture of the ballet in Russia. Both in her personal day-by-day story of the tour and her own immediate impressions, and in the more detailed comment which forms the second part of the book, Miss Grey has much of absorbing interest to report on the Soviet ballet as she saw it at work. Methods of training and rehearsal, differences in choreography and staging, the qualities of the leading dancers and the four companies she danced with are but a few of the many topics she discusses." .