On December 16th, 1935, at the age of sixteen, Margot Fonteyn danced the role of Odette for the first time in Le Lac des Cygnes. Two years later, on December 21st, 1937 she danced the dual role of Odette Odile for the first time. In her autobiography, Fonteyn wrote of her initial fear of dancing the three acts of Swan Lake...'.Odette/Odile is a formidable role, climaxed by the virtuoso feat of thirty-two consecutive fouetté turns on one leg without touching the floor with the other. Some dancers can do dozens of these turns with ease...I have always found them difficult, and frightening...How I worked and worked on this demanding ballet, and what a drama it was for the entire company, wondering how I would get through it...somehow or other I did it, never guessing that almost exactly thirty-five years were to pass before my obstinate nature would give up the battle with the fouetté turns in my last few performances of 'Swan Lake'..

In an interview with Keith Money, Fonteyn said of dancing Swan Lake ...the steps alone are so extraordinarily difficult. If one succeeds in doing a performance of Swan Lake even fairly well, then one probably derives a greater satisfaction from that than from any other work one might do.. In the words of Money: ..If Swan Lake is the Everest of classical dancing, then Fonteyn has seen the view from the summit.