[3] In the late 1930s, Elly came to London to study with Margaret Craske, and Antony Tudor,[2] the first British ballet expert to recognise her skills.
[2] Sir Frederick Ashton noted her stage presence even in nearly static roles, casting her as Hera, in his 1951 Tiresias, and as Demeter is his 1961 Persephone.
[1] Back in 1960, Larsen had been selected by the Russian former prima ballerina Tamara Karsavina to be personally coached to play this mime role, for a revised staging of the ballet.
[4] In 1965, Larsen created the role of Nurse in Kenneth MacMillan's Royal Ballet production of Romeo and Juliet to the music of Sergei Prokofiev.
[7] In a Royal Ballet career lasting over fifty years, Larsen made her final appearance at Covent Garden in arguably her best-known role, that of Berthe, mother of the eponymous heroine in Giselle, on her seventy-fifth birthday.