SOURCE: "Enigma Variations," in The New Republic, November 10, 1997, pp. 33-38.

[In the following essay, Aloff considers Kavanagh's contribution to an understanding of Frederick Ashton's work, comparing Secret Muses to a previous study of the same subject.]

The choreographer Frederick Ashton—one of the greatest ballet masters in history—was born in 1904, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to a couple who were natives of England. Around the age of three, he moved with his family (including three older brothers and a younger sister) to Lima, Peru, where he stayed until going to boarding school in England at the age of 15. Ashton never returned to Lima, yet over the course of his long career in the theater (which began rather late, at age 18, with ballet classes from Léonide Massine) he retained indelible memories of the dazzlingly stylish women on Lima's boulevards, of the public religious processions, and of the melancholy songs...