On the fateful night in 1930 when the first German bombs fell on Poland, young Nina Novak, one of Poland’s most promising dancers, was performing in the Opera House in Warsaw. Two days later the Opera House was destroyed by bombs. Nina’s whole life had been devoted to ballet. Now her world collapsed around her. In the dark years that followed, it seemed that she would never dance again, much less become one of the world’s leading ballerinas. But Nina had courage—and a dream that began when she was very young.
Nina was born in Warsaw and spent the early years of her childhood there; Her first school teacher noticed little Nina’s grace and told her she should study dancing, Nina delightedly reported the teacher’s words at home, but her mother fought the idea, saying that no daughter of hers was going to be a dancer. Nina, however, was a determined child. She had made up her mind to be a really great ballerina no matter what the cost, and she worked toward this goal with her whole being. She coaxed and raged until her mother finally gave in and let her enroll at the Polish Opera Ballet School.
Her first appearance on stage came three years later, when she was allowed to dance the part of a slave girl in the opera Aida. Shortly after this, Nina became a real professional, dancing for two years as prima ballerina of the Children’s of Warsaw.
When she was thirteen, she was taken into the Polish Opera Company. She was the youngest dancer ever to become a member of its corps de ballet. The following year, she started out with the company on a long European tour. She spent two exciting years dancing in the capitals of Europe, and she rose from her humble place in the corps de ballet all the way to soloist.
She had just returned to Warsaw after this tour when the Polish State Ballet was invited to dance at the World’s Far in New York early in 1929. But while she was dancing gaily in New York, war clouds were darkening over her native country. Nina had been home for only a month when Hitler marched into Poland.
The invading Germans decreed that anyone who did not have a job would be sent to a work camp. At great risk, Nina refused to dance at the large theater that the Germans had taken-over. Instead, she joined a group of Polish dancers in a small, ill-equipped theater where they gave performances only for their own countrymen.
The dark years of World War II wore on. One by one, the members of Nina’s large and wealthy family were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Her adored older brother was taken first, then her father, then Nina and her other brothers and sisters. They were separated and sent to different camps. Nina frantically asked for news of her family from each prisoner who came to her camp. Dreary month dragged by before the tragic news reached her that her beloved brother had been killed from anti-Nazi activities. Her father, too, was dead—of starvation.
Dazed with grief, she no longer cared whether she lived or died. Six months later, when liberating troops arrived and threw open the prison gates, she was so thin that she could hardly walk.
Barely aware that the war was over, Nina listlessly began to pick up the threads of her life. She was reunited with what was left of her family, and they tried to make some sort of life for themselves in war-torn Poland. She began to feel vague stirrings of the old, familiar desire to dance, but she was still too depressed and weak to practice. Her younger brother tried to encourage her. He began to practice with her, and soon they had built up a charming little dance routine of their own. Together they found dancing engagements in many Warsaw night spots. The family decided that the best future for Nina as a dancer was in the United Sates, and they started saving money for her to make the trip.
Nina arrived in New York in 1947—a slight girl whose tragic dark eyes held the only hint of the heartbreak she had been through. She sent about learning to speak English and took intensive ballet lessons to retrain her still-frail body. She applied for a position in the corps de ballet of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1948, and was accepted. She worked hard, determined to rise to the top. Four years later, she had made the grade—she was the top-ranking ballerina with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
The bitter war had brought Nina heartbreak and had driven her to the verge of physical collapse. But in spite of this, she says today, “Always in life, I have luck—really have luck!” She insists that it was luck that brought her two of her greatest roles. The first was Swan-Hilda in Coppelia. Nina danced that role on three days’ notice when the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was in Chicago. Replacing Danilova, who was ill, she danced so well that she got rave notices from the Chicago critics.
It was luck again, according to Nina that brought her the role in Mute wife for which she is best known. The leading ballerina had an argument with the choreographer and walked out. Nina stepped in.
She has won a leading role in almost every ballet of the Ballet Russe. Still driven by ambition, she is so dedicated to her profession that nothing else matters to her. Nina Novak has taken for her creed the words of her teacher of long ago: “If people tell you that you cannot dance, do not believe them, for you can. But if they say that you are wonderful, do not believe them either, for you must always improve.”
1.When Nina was taken into the Polish Opera Company, she was（ ）.
2.Of the following events, the first to occur was（ ）.
3.Why did Nina refuse to dance at the theater taken over by the Germans?（ ）
4.It is most accurate to say that the war（ ）.
5.Nina thinks that she（ ）.
