'Bravura' Classical Ballerina Nadia Nerina

New York Times dance critic John Martin wrote that Ms. Nerina "steps into the front rank as both dancer and comedian" and praised her for an astonishing technique that recalled "all the bravura of a Soviet ballerina."

Her coloring and lightness did not automatically translate to darker works, but she made several valiant efforts, notably in Kenneth MacMillan's "Noctambules," a dark tale of a hypnotist in which she played a veiled woman pursued by suitors.

Nadine Judd was born in Oct. 21, 1927, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and received private tutoring as a child after her mother died.

She had weak feet as a girl, and a doctor urged her to take ballet. She became a student with a disciple of Anna Pavlova's and intensified her studies when her talent became clear.

In 1946, she traveled to England and, having initially adopted the name Nadia Moore, joined Sadler's Wells. Among her outside teachers was former Russian Imperial Ballet dancer Olga Preobrazhenskaya, from whom she learned the pas de trois solo in "Swan Lake."

She advanced rapidly at Sadler's Wells. In 1953, Martin wrote of her appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as Princess Aurora in "The Sleeping Beauty": "She is as pretty as a picture, has great charm and can dance like a million dollars. When Miss Nerina has developed a musical phrase to equal her command of the physical medium, we shall all be fighting to drink champagne out of her slippers."

After her triumph in "La Fille Mal Gardée," Ms. Nerina continued to dance in leading roles and was a guest artist with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad.

By the mid-1960s, she had reduced her contribution to the Royal Ballet to focus on other dance projects. She retired to France with her husband, merchant banker Charles Gordon.

He is her only immediate survivor.