Ballet fan, I know Markova only by reputation but have been reading about her recently. Like you, I'm curious to see her on video and film.
One thing to look for in the videos is the date. During World War II, when Markova danced in NYC with Ballet Theater, she was considered by the major critic Edwin Denby to be the most important ballerina dancing in the United States.
As early as 1945, however, Denby began recording a certain lack of strength reflected in reduced "vitality, "understating the climaxes," though not yet a decline in her jumps. ("It is as though a singer were to get the mannerism of taking fortissimos in half-voice, a kind of crooning in ballet.")
By 1952, when she returned to Ballet Theater for Giselle, the Met was standing-room only. Denby reports:
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With almost no dazzle left, Markova held the house spellbound with a pianissimo, with a rest.
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But for dancing, her strength is too small for the grand work of climaxes. She cannot keep a brilliant speed, sustain extensions, or lift them slow and high; leaps from one foot begin to blur in the air, her balance is unreliable ... Once one accepts this disappointment, on can watch with interst how skillfully she disguises the absence: by cuts, by elisions, by brilliant accents, by brio, by long skirts, by scaling down a whole passage so that it will rise to a relative climax.
Let's hope there are earlier videos available so we can see Markova at her best.