In 1946, the company, now renamed the Sadler's Wells Ballet, moved into the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden where Fonteyn's most frequent partner throughout the next decade was Michael Somes.

Her performance in Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty became a distinguishing role for both Fonteyn and the company, but she was also well known for the ballets created by Ashton, including Symphonic Variations, Cinderella, Daphnis and Chloe, Ondine and Sylvia.

They were most noted for their classical performances in works such as Le Corsaire Pas de Deux, Les Sylphides, La Bayadère, Swan Lake, and Raymonda, in which Nureyev sometimes adapted choreographies specifically to showcase their talents.

The pair premièred Ashton's Marguerite and Armand, which had been choreographed specifically for them, and were noted for their performance in the title roles of Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet.

[1][5] Her mother accompanied Hookham to her earliest lessons, learning the basic positions alongside her daughter in order to improve her understanding of what a ballet student needed to develop.

[7] In July 1924, at the age of five, Hookham danced in a charity concert and received her first newspaper review: the Middlesex Country Times noted that the young dancer had performed "a remarkably fine solo" which had been "vigorously encored" by the audience.

[5] Although Hookham's mother had written to her Fontes relatives, requesting their permission for her daughter to use the name for her stage career, the final response was no, possibly due to the family's wish to avoid an association with a theatrical performer.

[5] In 1936, she was cast as the unattainable muse in his Apparitions, a role which consolidated her partnership with Robert Helpmann, and the same year played a wistful, poverty-stricken flower seller in Nocturne.

[23] The following year, Fonteyn was given the comic role of Julia in A Wedding Bouquet[1][5] and was cast with Robert Helpmann performing the pas de deux, imitating Victorian ice skaters, in Ashton's Les Patineurs.

[28] By 1939 Fonteyn had performed the principal roles in Giselle, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty and was appointed as the Prima Ballerina of the Vic-Wells, soon to be renamed the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

[1][29] Her performance in Swan Lake had been a turning point in her career, convincing critics and audiences that a British ballerina could successfully dance the lead role in a full-length classical Russian ballet.

[46] Her television appearances were followed by a performance with the choreographer Léonide Massine as the miller's wife in his The Three-Cornered Hat and as the lead in the abstract debut of Scènes de ballet which Ashton wrote for her.

She recovered sufficiently to dance with Michael Somes in the Christmas presentation of the ballet,[29] and made her mark in the role of Cinderella by challenging the traditional costume for Act I, replacing the usual brown outfit with a stark black dress and a kerchief tied severely over her hair.

[1] In New York, the American showman Sol Hurok said that the Metropolitan Opera House premiere of Fonteyn's Aurora was the "most outstanding" performance he had ever facilitated, the curtain calls lasting half an hour.

[50] Upon returning to England, Fonteyn danced in George Balanchine's Ballet Imperial, before travelling to Italy with Helpmann and Pamela May as a guest star in The Sleeping Beauty.

[51] In 1949, she profiled choreographies of Sir Frederick Ashton, which were no longer in the repertoire of the Sadler's Wells Company, dancing on television with Michael Somes and Harold Turner.

[1] On an American tour in 1953, Fonteyn found herself suddenly reacquainted with Roberto "Tito" Arias – whom she had spent time with at Cambridge University in 1937 – when he surprised her with a visit to her dressing room after a performance of Sleeping Beauty.

[57] She returned from the American tour and in the 1954 season debuted in Entrada de Madame Butterfly, later called Entrée japonaise, in Granada, Spain,[58] followed by her first performance in the title role of The Firebird.

[29] On 12 December 1955, Fonteyn appeared with Michael Somes in a live U.S. television colour production of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, for the anthology series Producers' Showcase, on NBC.

[69] In April 1959, Fonteyn was arrested, detained for 24 hours in a Panamanian jail, and then deported to New York City, [70] after her husband had staged a coup d'état against Panamanin President Ernesto de la Guardia, possibly with the support of Fidel Castro.

[77] Fonteyn began her greatest artistic partnership at a time when many people, including the head of the Royal Ballet, Ninette de Valois, thought she was about to retire.

[89] On 8 June that year, while the duo were performing in Bath, they were advised that[90] a rival Panamanian politician had shot Fonteyn's husband Arias,[91] but it was unclear if he was in imminent danger.

Nureyev insisted that Fonteyn partner with him in La Bayadère and Raymonda, and wrote his own version of Swan Lake for them to perform[1] with the Vienna State Opera Ballet in 1964.

[95] On 20 January 1965, Fonteyn and Nureyev performed the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux at the inaugural ceremonies for President Lyndon B. Johnson in Washington, D. C.[96] Later that year, the couple debuted the title roles in Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan.

[1] MacMillan had intended the roles to be performed by Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable,[97] but David Webster, the manager of the Royal Opera House, insisted on Fonteyn and Nureyev.

"[103]In 1965, Fonteyn and Nureyev appeared together in the recorded versions Les Sylphides, and the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux, as part of the documentary An Evening with the Royal Ballet.

She performed with Nureyev in his summer season, taking the part of lead nymph in L'après-midi d'un faune by Vaslav Nijinsky and as the girl in Le Spectre de la rose.

[1][118] The six-part BBC2 series, explored aspects in the development of dance from the 17th to the 20th century across the world,[119] including scenes shot on location in Australia, China, France, Monte Carlo, Russia, and the United States.

[128] Fonteyn's last performance with Nureyev occurred at the Maratona-Festa a Corte, in Mantua, Italy, on 16 September 1988 in Baroque Pas de Trois, along with ballerina Carla Fracci.

[148] To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, The Theatre and Film Guild installed a commemorative blue plaque to Fonteyn at her childhood home at 3 Elm Grove Road, Ealing.