It could so easily have been another nightmare at the Opéra. As the backstage workers downed tools and half the audience stayed away because of transport difficulties, Dorothée Gilbert must having been ruing the fate that had cast her first night as Clara in The Nutcracker to coincide with the Paris strikes.

But despite the difficulties the 23-year-old dancer was determined to show her star quality. In the finest tradition of “the show must go on” she turned out a stunning performance that left the ballet-lovers, who had struggled to turn up, gasping and led the Paris Opéra director, Gérard Mortier, to promote her to the rank of étoile at the 155-strong company.

The move took everyone by surprise. “We thought that Mortier was going to thank us for our patience in putting up with the strike-damaged show,” a member of the audience said.

Gilbert, who had to perform on Monday night on a naked set with poor lighting and a corps de ballet in casual costumes, now joins the 17 other étoiles in the company.

The 2,700-seat Bastille Opéra was nearly half empty after the management offered refunds because of the transport chaos and walk-out by technicians striking over public sector pension rights.

Gilbert, who has been an Opéra soloist since becoming a first ballerina in 2005, was in her long-scheduled first night as Clara in the Tchaikovsky work choreographed by the late Rudolf Nureyev.

Etoiles are chosen by Brigitte Lefèvre, ballet director of the 346-year-old company, and are announced as a surprise. “Brigitte decided recently that the moment had come for Dorothée and her decision was approved,” an Opéra source said. “She did brilliantly despite the trouble with the strike.”

Gilbert, from Toulouse, has won a number of awards and international acclaim since emerging from the corps de ballet in 2002. She has danced as soloist in several Nureyev ballets, including La Bayadère, Swan Lake, Cinderella and Don Quixote.

Gilbert has made herself the darling of the Paris ballet scene with her elegance and precision, even when playing coquettish roles. Reviewing a recent performance in La Fille Mal Gardée, a Frederick Ashton ballet, le Figaro said: “With her flirtatious grace and expressive force, she is the marvelous incarnation of the unwatched girl.”

The opera and ballet have been forced to cancel several performances over the past week of strikes to resist President Sarkozy’s plan to end the so-called special regime pensions. These are mainly enjoyed by railway and power workers but their oldest beneficiaries are staff and artists of the Opéra and other state theatres. The two opera houses – the Garnier and the Bastille - employ more than 1,600 staff.

Gilbert, though not a striker, recently cited the Opéra’s lavish employment terms, created by Louis XIV in 1698, as one of its big attactions. Dancers of the Opéra ballet can retire, after a minimum of ten years in service, from the age of 40, and must do so by 42, and members of the Opéra choir can retire at 50.

“They take you on immediately with a permanent contract until you are 42, the retirement age,” Gilbert said. “No other ballet company in the world offers such conditions. That way, we can concentrate all our energy and attention on the profession.”

Gilbert’s attachment to terms of employment is shared by the thousands of railway and Paris transport workers who have been making life a misery since they started their strike last Wednesday. The ballet dancers’ retirement age of 42 is the lowest in all the “special regimes”, beating even the train drivers, who are fighting to keep pensions that begin at 50.

The dancers and railway workers are using the same argument to keep their privileges: “la pénibilité de l’emploi”, or the arduousness of the job. Mr Sarkozy has promised to take tough conditions into consideration in negotiations, opening today, that he hopes will win the unions’ agreement to raising the retirement age to the national level of 60. “SuperSarko”, whose taste is more rock’n’roll than ballet, is nevertheless expected to make an exception for the suffering feet of les danseuses de l’opéra.

Breakthrough roles

Darcey Bussell She was a virtual unknown when Kenneth MacMillan cast her in the leading role of his Prince of the Pagodas at Covent Garden in 1989. Immediately after her performance, the 20-year-old, right, was promoted to principal

Sylvie Guillem She was only 19 when Rudolf Nureyev made her an etoile, after her first performance as Odette in Swan Lake. But unlike her fellow stars at the Paris Opera Ballet, Guillem left the company five years later

Alina Cojocaru The Romanian dancer was stunned to hear that Anthony Dowell, then Royal Ballet director, was promoting her to principal after the opening night of her Giselle. She was only 19 at the time

Source: Times database

Break a leg . . .

— Jack Palance got his big break as Marlon Brando’s understudy in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949. He is said to have deliberately broken Brando’s nose in a sparring session to get the lead

— When tenor Roberto Alagna deserted the stage at La Scala Opera House in Milan amid loud boos, his jeans-clad understudy Antonello Palombi finished the performance in Franco Zefirelli’s production of Aida. Though Alagna later offered to return, Palombi kept the part

— Catherine Zeta-Jones started as second understudy for the lead role of Peggy Sawyer in the musical 42nd Street. When the star and understudy were both ill, and with the show’s producers watching, she took to the stage, wowed the audience and was given the role for the rest of the run

— Stan Laurel was understudy to Charlie Chaplin in the Fred Karno Comedy Troupe.

Sources: www.imdb.com ; www.london.broadway.com; www.playbillarts.com

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