Irina Baronova in Byron Bay
Friday, June 17th, 2005“Baby ballerina” Irina Baronova in Byron Bay
As a little girl, a child of Russian refugees who fled to Paris via Romania, Irina Baronova was not instantly captivated by ballet. But by the time George Balanchine, ballet master of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, picked Irina and two of her classmates from a ballet class run by the famous teacher Olga Preobrajenska in Paris in 1931, to make them the company’s stars, she had changed her mind.
“I felt rather excited about it,” she says, “because by then I had already had 412 years at Preobrajenska’s and I learned to like it, I learned to love it.”
Suddenly, at just 13, Baronova, along with Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska, were catapulted to [...]