Maffre moving on
Allan Ulrich

Sunday, January 21, 2007

After May, the San Francisco Ballet roster will no longer list the name of one of its most popular and unusual principal dancers. But until the end of the company's 74th season, which opens Wednesday, Muriel Maffre will do everything in her power to banish the word "retirement" from news releases about her. She has already struck terror into the heart of the Ballet's publicity department. A gala evening is in the planning for Maffre in the spring, yet the honoree, who is trying to avoid "the melodrama of it all," remains somewhat dubious about the attendant hoopla.

Adieu, Mademoiselle Maffre. Ballet bids farewell to one of its best.
Rachel Howard, Chronicle Dance Correspondent
Tuesday, May 8, 2007



Muriel Maffre raised her impossibly long arms toward the War Memorial Opera House ceiling Sunday night, then let them drop -- clunk -- hopelessly into her shoulder joints like the limbs of an abandoned marionette. The image was famous -- Anna Pavlova's "Dying Swan" -- and yet in one keenly considered movement, Maffre had made us see it anew. The standing ovation came instantly: This was a charged evening at the San Francisco Ballet, a farewell gala for a dancer of international singularity.

Some ballerinas are especially loved for their charisma, some for their musicality, some for their technical prowess. During her 17 years at the Ballet, Maffre has been something else. A majestic presence at more than 6 feet tall en pointe, she has neither fought her height nor relied on the length of her legs for sheer spectacle, though they certainly provide that. Instead, she has rallied her formidable intelligence to investigate every mechanical possibility of her unorthodox physicality. Each role she tackled in her parting sampling of short showpieces offered a stunning study in kinesthetic logic.

Emotions high for Maffre farewell
Principal dancer gives her usual 110 percent Sunday in final performance with S.F. Ballet after 17 years
By Mary Ellen Hunt
TIMES CORRESPONDENT

Article Launched: 05/08/2007 03:06:50 AM PDT


In a weekend full of dramatic performances, San Francisco Ballet concluded its season at the War Memorial Opera House on Sunday night with a superb gala performance in which Muriel Maffre bid farewell to the company after 17 years as a principal dancer.
If emotions ran high for the final shows of the company's 74th season, the atmosphere for Sunday night's celebration for Maffre -- surely San Francisco Ballet's most respected artist -- was at a fever pitch. Audience members seemed to be conflicted, torn between anticipating the unrivaled feast of seeing Maffre reinvent six of her best-known roles, and dreading the knowledge that her commanding presence will no longer grace the Opera House stage.