Webster, David Lumsden, B.A.—General Administrator Royal Opera House 1946—Born 3rd July, 1903—Educated Holt School, Liverpool University, Oxford University—President Liverpool Guild of Undergraduates, 1924-25—General Manager Bon Marché, Liverpool, Ltd., 1932-40—General Manager Lewis’s Ltd., Liverpool, 1940-41—Ministry of Supply Ordnance Factories, engaged on special methods of developing production, 1942-44—Chairman Liverpool Philharmonic Society, June 1940-October 1945.
Webster, David Lumsden, B.A.—General Administrator Royal Opera House 1946—Born 3rd July, 1903—Educated Holt School, Liverpool University, Oxford University—President Liverpool Guild of Undergraduates, 1924-25—General Manager Bon Marché, Liverpool, Ltd., 1932-40—General Manager Lewis’s Ltd., Liverpool, 1940-41—Ministry of Supply Ordnance Factories, engaged on special methods of developing production, 1942-44—Chairman Liverpool Philharmonic Society, June 1940-October 1945.
To be sure, the facts are there. Not only is it possible to elaborate on these facts, but to add some which may be implicit in the abovesummary, but not apparent. For example, I can add that David Webster is a cultured gentleman of taste, courage, and splendid business perspicacity. His early background of business administration, as may be gathered, was acquired in the fields of textiles and wearing apparel, and was continued, during the war, in the highly important field of expediting ordnance production.
Things that are not implicit or even suggested inWho’s Whoare the depth and breadth of his culture, his knowledge of literature and drama and poetry and music—his love for the last making him a genuine musical amateur in the best sense of the term. It was the last that was of immense value to him as Chairman of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in building it into one of Britain’s outstanding symphonic bodies. It is understandable that there was a certain amount of pardonable pride in the accomplishment, since Webster is himself a Liverpudlian.
At the end of the war, in a shell-shocked, bomb-blasted London, Webster was invited to take over the post of General Administrator at Covent Garden when the Covent Garden Opera Trust was formed at the time of the Boosey and Hawkes leasehold. Since 1946, David Webster has been responsible for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: for the Opera entirely, and for the Ballet, in conjunction with Ninette de Valois.
During this time, he has restored the historic house to its rightful place among the leading lyric theatres of the world; where private enterprise and the private Maecenas failed, Webster has succeeded. By his policies, the famous house has been saved from the ignominy of a public dance-hall in off-seasons, for now there are no longer any “off-seasons.”
David Webster is uniquely responsible for a number of things at Covent Garden. Let me try to enumerate them. He has succeeded in establishing and maintaining the Royal Opera House, Covent Carden, as a truly national opera house, restoring this great theatre and reclaiming it as a national center for ballet and opera, on a year-round basis. He has succeeded in shaking off many of the hidebound traditions and conventions of opera production. While the great standard works of opera are an essential part of the operatic repertoire, he initiated a broad policy of experimentation both in the production of standard works and in new, untried operas. He has succeeded, through his invitation to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, in making ballet an integral and important part of the Opera House andhas helped it to become a truly national ballet. In addition to striking national operas by Bliss and Vaughan Williams, it was Webster’s courage that has provided a home for three unique operas,Peter Grimes,Billy BuddandGloriana, great works by that brilliant young British composer, Benjamin Britten. While it is true the original commission for the former work came from the Natalie Koussevitsky Foundation in America, it was Webster who had the vision and courage to mount both great modern operas grandly. It was Webster who had the courage to mount the latter, based on Herman Melville’s immortal story, with Britten as conductor; and a magnificent one he turned out to be.
Britten is indisputably at the very top among the figures of contemporary music. He is a young man of exceptional gifts, and it is Webster and the permanent Covent Garden organization that have provided the composer with exceptional opportunities for the expression of them. This is only possible through the existence of a national opera house with a permanent roof over its head.
As is the case with all innovators, it has not been all clear sailing for Webster; there were sections of the press that railed against his policy. But Webster won, because at the root of the policy was a very genuine desire to break away from stale conventions, to combat some of the stock objections and prejudices that keep many people away from opera. For Webster’s aim is to create a steady audience and to appeal to groups that have not hitherto attended opera and ballet, or have attended only when the most brilliant stars were appearing.
In London, as in every center, every country, there are critics and critics. Some are captious; others are not. One of the latter variety in London once tackled me, pointing out his dislike for most of the things that were going on at Covent Garden, his disagreement with others. I listened for a time, until he asked me if I agreed with him.
My answer was simple and short.
“Look here,” I said. “A few years ago this beautiful house had what? Shilling dances. Who peopled it? Drunken sailors, among others. Bow Street and the streets adjoining were places you either avoided like the plague; or else you worried and hurried through them, if you must.
“Today, you have a great opera house restored to its proper uses. Now you have something to criticize. Before you didn’t.”
It has been thanks to David Webster’s sympathetic guidance that ballet has grown in popularity until its audiences are larger than are those for opera.
A man of firm purpose, few words, eclectic taste, and great personal charm, David Webster is a master of diplomatic skill. I can honestly say that some of the happiest days of my life have been spent working closely with him. Had it not been for his warm cooperation, his unquenchable enthusiasm, America might easily have been denied the pleasure and profit of Sadler’s Wells, and our lives would have been the poorer.
The last time I was in Webster’s office, I remarked, “We must prepare the papers for the next tour.”
Webster looked up quickly.
“No papers are necessary,” he said.
For the reader who has come this far, it should not be necessary for me to underline the difference between negotiations with the British and the years of wrangling through the intrigues and dissimulations of the Russo-Caucasian-Eastern European-New England mazes of indecision.
My respect for and my confidence in David Webster are unlimited. He is a credit to his country; and to him, also, must go much of the credit for the creation of a genuine national opera and for the solid position of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet.
ROBERT HELPMANN
It was towards the end of the San Francisco engagement of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet that there occurred a performance, gala so far as the audience was concerned, but which was not without its sadness to the company, to me, and to all those who had watched the growth and development, the rise to a position of pre-eminence on the part of British ballet. The public was, of course, completely unaware of the event. It is not the sort of thing one publicizes.
Robert Helpmann, long the principal male dancer, a co-builder, and an important choreographer of the company, resigned. His last performance as a regular member of the organization took place in the War Memorial Opera House. The vehicle for his last appearance was the grandpas-de-deuxfrom the third act ofThe Sleeping Beauty, with Margot Fonteyn. It was eminently fitting that Helpmann’s final appearance as a regular member of the company was with Margot.Their association, as first artists with the company, encompassed the major portion of its history, some fifteen years.
During this period, Helpmann had served in two capacities simultaneously: as principal dancer and as choreographer. An Australian by birth in 1909, his first ballet training came from the Anna Pavlova company when Pavlova was on one of her Australian tours. For four years he danced “down under,” and came to Britain in 1933, studying with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, while dancing in thecorps de ballet. His first important role was in succession to Anton Dolin as Satan, in the de Valois-Vaughan WilliamsJob. From 1934, he was the first male dancer of the Sadler’s Wells organization. Helpmann often took leaves of absence to appear in various plays and films, for he is an actor of ability and distinction. As a choreographer, hisHamletandMiracle in the Gorbalsare distinctive additions to any repertoire.
“Bobby” Helpmann has not given up ballet entirely. When he can spare the time from his theatrical and film commitments, he is bound to turn up as a guest artist, and I hope to see him again partnering greatballerinas. Always a good colleague, he has been blessed by the gods with a delicious sense of humor. This serves him admirably in such roles as one of the Ugly Sisters inCinderella—I never can distinguish which one by name, and only know “Bobby” was the sister which “Freddy” Ashton was not. BothHamletandMiracle in the Gorbalsrevealed his serious acting qualities.
Man of the theatre, he is resourceful. On the first night ofThe Sleeping Beauty, at the Metropolitan Opera House, there were a few ticklish moments at the beginning of the Transformation Scene, due to technical difficulties. The orchestra under Lambert went straight on. But the stage wait was covered by Helpmann’s entrance, his sure hand, his manner, his style, his “line,” his graciousness.
I have mentioned some of Helpmann’s warm personal qualities. He is one of those associated with Sadler’s Wells who has helped to number my Sadler’s Wells’ associations among my happiest experiences. Helpmann is one of those who, like the others when I am with them, compel me to forget my business interests and concerns and all their associated problems: just another proof that, with people of this sort, there is something else in life besides business.
There has been, perhaps, undue emphasis placed upon Helpmann, the actor, with a corresponding tendency to overlook his dancing abilities. From the point of view of sheer technical virtuosity, there are others who surpass him. But technical virtuosity is not by any means all of a dancer’s story. I happen to know of dancers who, in my opinion, have excelled Nijinsky and Pavlova in these departments, but they were much lesser artists. It is the overall quality in a dancer that matters. Helpmann, I feel, is a dancer of really exceptional fluency, superb lightness, genuine musicality, and admirable control. He is one of the rare examples among male dancers to be seen about us today of what is known in ballet terminology as thedanseur noble. It is thedanseur noblewho is the hero, the prince, of classical ballet. As a mime and an actor in ballet he may be compared with Leonide Massine, but the quality I have mentioned Helpmann as having is something that has been denied Massine, who is best in modern character ballets.
Sir Arthur Bliss, one of Britain’s most distinguished composers, and the creator of the scores to, among others,CheckmateandMiracle in the Gorbals, has said: “Robert Helpmann breathes the dust of the theatre like hydrogen. His quickness to seize on the dramatic possibilities of music is mercurial. I was not at all surprised to hear him sing inLes Sirènes. It would seem quite natural to see him walk on to the Albert Hall platform one day to play a violin concerto.”
It is always a pleasure to me to observe him in his varied roles and to watch him prepare for them. He leaves absolutely nothing to chance. His approach is always the product of his fine intelligence. He experiments with expression, with gesture, with make-up, coupling his reading, his study of paintings, with his own keen sense of observation.
“Bobby” Helpmann and I have one great bond in common: our mutual adoration of Pavlova. Pavlova has, I know, strongly influenced him, and this influence is apparent in the genuine aristocracy of his bearing and his movement, in the purity of his style.
There is a pretty well authenticated story about the first meeting between Helpmann and Ninette de Valois, after the former had arrived in London from Australia, and was looking for work at Sadler’s Wells. It was an audition. The choreographer at such times is personally concerned with the body of the aspirant, the extremities, the quality of movement, the technical equipment of the applicant, some revelation of his training and his style, if any. It is characteristic of Ninette de Valois’ tendency to do the unexpected that, in Helpmann’s case, she found herself regarding the “wrong end” of her subject. Her comment on this occasion has become historic.
“I can do something with that face,” she said.
She did.
It has been a source of regret to me that on the 1953 American visit of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, “Bobby” Helpmann is not a regular member of the company. It is not the same without him.
I have said that perhaps undue emphasis has been put on Helpmann, the actor. If this is true, it is only because of “Bobby’s” amazing versatility: as dancer, as choreographer, as actor, as stage-director. He can turn at will from one medium to the other. As actor, it should not be forgotten that he has appeared with equal success in revues (as a mimic); in Shakespeare (both on stage and screen); in plays ranging from Webster and Bernard Shaw to the Russian Andreyev.
Most recently, he has acted with the American Katherine Hepburn, and has scored perhaps his most outstanding directorial success to date in his superlatively fine mounting of T. S. Eliot’sMurder in the Cathedral, at the Old Vic.
I am looking forward to bringing “Bobby” to America in the not too far distant future in a great production of a Shakespeare work which I am confident will make theatrical history.
“Bobby” Helpmann, as I have pointed out, is more than a dancer: he is a splendid actor, a fine creator, a distinguished choreographer, an intelligent human being.
His is a friendship I value; he is alive and eager, keen and shrewd, with a ready smile and a glint in his eye. For “Bobby” has a happy way with him, and whether you are having a meal with him or discussing a point, you cannot help reacting to his boyish enthusiasm, his zeal for his job, his flair for doing it. My memories of dinners and suppers with the “inseparables,” to which I have often been invited, are treasured. The “inseparables” were that closely-linked little group: Fonteyn, Ashton, Helpmann, with de Valois along, when she was in town and free. The bond between the members of the group is very close.
It was in Chicago. It was mid-tour, with rehearsals and conferences and meetings for future planning. We were at breakfast. “Madame” suddenly turned to Helpmann.
“Bobby,” she said, with that crisp tone that immediately commands attention. “Bobby, I want you to be sure to be at the Drake Hotel to give a talk to the ladies at one o’clocksharp. Now, be sure to come, and be sure to be there on time.”
“How, in heaven’s name,” replied Helpmann, “can I possibly bein two places at one time? You told me I shall have to be at the Public Library at one sharp.”
De Valois regarded him for a long moment.
“You astound me, Bobby,” she finally said. “Did I tell you that? Very well, then, let it be the Public Library. I shall take the Drake Hotel. But watch out, make sure you are there on time.”
Ninette de Valois not only did something with “that face.” She also made good use of that intelligence.
I last saw “Bobby” Helpmann dance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Coronation Night, when he returned as a guest artist with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, to appear with Margot Fonteyn inLe Lac des Cygnes, Act Two.
What a pleasure it was to see him dancing once more, the true cavalier, with his perfect style and the same submerging of technique in the ebb and flow of the dance. I am looking forward to seeing him again, and, I hope, again and again.
ARNOLD L. HASKELL
Among my cherished associations with this fine organization, I cannot fail to acknowledge the contribution to ballet and the popularity of it, made through the media of books, articles, lectures, by the one-time ballet critic and now Director and Principal of the Sadler’s Wells School, Arnold L. Haskell.
Haskell, the completeballetomanehimself, has done as much, if not more, to develop the cult of theballetomanein the western Anglo-Saxon world as any one else I know. Devoted to the cause of the dance, for years he gave unsparingly of his time and means to spread the gospel of ballet.
In the early days of the renaissance of ballet, Haskell came to the United States on the first visit of the de Basil company and was of immense assistance in helping to create an interest in and a desire to find out about ballet on the part of the American people. He helped to organize an audience. Later, he toured Australia with the de Basil company, preaching “down under” the gospel of the true art with the zeal of a passionate, proselyting, non-conformist missionary.
From his untiring pen has come a long procession of books and articles on ballet appreciation in general, and on certain phases of ballet in particular—books of illumination to the lay public, of sound advice to dancers.
Arnold Haskell’s balletic activities can be divided into five departments: organizer, author, lecturer, critic, and educator. In the first category, he, with Philip J. S. Richardson, long-time editor and publisher of theDancing Times(London), was instrumental in forming and founding the Camargo Society, after the death of Diaghileff. As lecturer, he delivered more than fifteen hundred lectures on ballet for the British Ministry of Information, the Arts Council, the Council for the Education of His Majesty’s Forces. As critic, he has written innumerable critical articles for magazines and periodicals, and, from 1934 to 1938, was the ballet critic of theDaily Telegraph(London).
As critic, Haskell has rendered a valuable service to ballet. His approach is invariably intelligent. He has a sound knowledge of the dancer as dancer and, so far as dancers and dancing are concerned, he has exhibited a fine intuition and a good deal of prophetic insight.
The fifth department of Arnold Haskell’s activities, educator, is the one on which he is today most successfully and conspicuously engaged. As the active head of the Sadler’s Wells School, established in its own building in Colet Gardens, Kensington, Arnold Haskell is in his element, continuing his sound advice directly; he is acting as wise and discerning mentor to a rising generation of dancers, who live together in the same atmosphere for at least eight years.
I have a feeling of warm friendship for Arnold Haskell, an infinite respect for him as a person, and for his knowledge.
The School of which he is the head, like all other Sadler’s Wells activities, is carried on in association with the British Arts Council, thus carrying forward the Council’s avowed axiom that the art of a people is one of its signs of good health. So it has always been in the world’s history from Ancient Greece to France at the time of the Crusades, to Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England. Each one of those earlier manifestations, whatever its excellence, was confined to a limited number of people, to the privileged and the elect. The new renaissance will inevitably be the emergence of the common man into the audience of art. He has always been a part of that audience when he has had the opportunity. Now the opportunity must come in such a way that none is overlooked and the result will be fresh vigour and self-confidence in the people as a whole.
The Sadler’s Wells School is, of course, under the direct supervision of Dame Ninette de Valois, D.B.E. Its Board of Governors, which is active and not merely a list of names, numbersdistinguished figures from the world of art, music and letters.
The School was founded by the Governors of the Sadler’s Wells Foundation, in association with the Arts Council, in 1947, to train dancers who will be fitted to carry on the high tradition of Sadler’s Wells and generally to maintain and enhance the prestige of British Ballet. Over eighty-five per cent of the members of the ballet companies at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre are graduates of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. The School combines a full secondary education and a highly specialized vocational training. Boys and girls are taken from the age of nine. Pupils are prepared for what is the equivalent on this side of the Atlantic of a complete High School education; in Britain, the General Certificate of Education, and the curriculum includes the usual school subjects of English language and literature, French, Latin (for boys only), history, geography, Scripture, mathematics, science, handicraft, music, and art work. The dance training consists of classical ballet, character dances, mime. Importance is attached to character formation and to the self-discipline essential for success on the stage.
There is also an Upper School, which is open to boys and girls above school-leaving age. After taking the General Certificate of Education, the American equivalent of graduation from high school, students from the Lower School pass into the Upper School if they have reached a standard which qualifies them for further training in the senior ballet classes. The Upper School is also open to students from other schools. Entry is by interview, and applicants are judged on general intelligence, physical aptitude, and standard attained. Entrants are accepted on one term’s trial. Here the curriculum includes, in post-education: classes in English and French language and literature, history, art, music, lecture courses, and Dalcroze Eurhythmics. In ballet—the classical ballet, character dances, mime, tuition in the roles of the classical ballets and modern works in the repertoire of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Companies. It is important to note that all ballet classes for boys are taken by male teachers.
The School is inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools, and is licensed as a first-class educational institution. The pupils number about one hundred ten in the Lower School, with about thirty in the Upper School.
So splendidly has the School developed that now a substantialphysical addition is being made to the premises in Colet Gardens, in the form of a new building, to provide dormitories and living quarters so that it may become a full-time boarding school, as well as a day-school; and thus obviate the necessity for many students to live outside the school, either at home or, as so often the case if the students come from distant places, in the proverbial London “digs.”
One of the most interesting and significant things about the School to me is the number of boys enrolled and their backgrounds. Such is the feeling about male dancing in our Anglo-Saxon civilization that many of the boys have had to be offered scholarship inducements to enroll. The bulk of the boys come out of working-class families in the North of England and the Midlands. They are tough and manly. It is from boys such as these that the prejudice against male dancing will gradually die out, and the effeminate dancer will become, as he should, a thing of the past.
MOIRA SHEARER
Although, to my regret, due to personal, family, and artistic reasons, Moira Shearer is not present with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet on its 1953-1954 North American tour, I know her devotion to the Sadler’s Wells institution remains unchanged.
The simple fact is that Moira Shearer is preparing to enter a new and different aspect of the theatre, a development with which I hope I shall have something to do in the near future.
Among the personalities of the company during the first two Sadler’s Wells tours, American interest and curiosity were at their highest, for obvious reasons, in Moira Shearer. The film,Red Shoes, had stimulated an interest in ballet on the part of yet another new public, and itsballerinastar had acquired the questionable halo of a movie star. This was something that was anything but pleasing to the gentle, intelligent Moira Shearer; and was, moreover, something she deplored.
Born in Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1926, Moira Shearer came to ballet at an early age, having had dance lessons in Rhodesia as a child at the hands of a former Diaghileff dancer. It was on her return to England, when she was about eleven, that her serious studies began with Madame Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat. In 1940 she joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, remaining briefly, however,because of the blitz. But, early in 1941, she turned up with the International Ballet, another British ballet organization, dancing leading roles at the age of fourteen, another example of the “baby”ballerina. In 1942, she left that company to rejoin Sadler’s Wells School.
In 1943, Shearer became a member of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, achieving an almost instant success and a marked popularity with audiences. What impresses me most about Moira Shearer, the dancer, is a fluidity of movement that has about it a definite Russian quality; she has a fine polish in her style, coupled with great spontaneity and a gentle, easy grace.
Distinctive not only for her Titian-coloring and her famed auburn-haired beauty and her slender grace, Shearer is equally noteworthy for her poise and an almost incredible lightness; for her assurance and classical dignity; for her ability to dominate the stage. The “Russian” quality about her dancing I have mentioned, I suspect stems from her early indoctrination and her training at the hands of Madame Legat; there is something Russian about her entrances, when she immediately commands the stage and becomes the focus of all eyes. All of these qualities are particularly apparent inCinderella.
Moira Shearer’s reputation had preceded her across the United States and Canada, as I have pointed out, because of the exhibition of spontaneity, beauty and charm that had been revealed to thousands in the motion picture,Red Shoes. There is no denying this film was highly successful. I suppose it can be argued successfully thatRed Shoesbrought ballet to a new audience, and thus, in that sense, was good for ballet. Whatever it may have been, it was not a true, or good, or honest picture of ballet. I happen to know how Moira Shearer feels about it, and I share her feelings. Although she dislikes to talk or hear very much aboutRed Shoes, and was not very happy with it or about it, she was, I fancy, less disturbed by her role inThe Tales of Hoffman, with “Freddy” Ashton, “Bobby” Helpmann, and Leonide Massine. Best of all her film excursions, Moira feels, was her sequence inMy Three Loves, which Ashton directed for her in Hollywood.
Once, on introducing her to one of those characteristic, monumental California salads, her comment was: “My, but it’s delicious; yet it looks like that Technicolor mess I should like to forget.” Shearer feelsRed Shoeswas rather a sad mess, a complete travestyof the ballet life which it posed as portraying; that it was false and phoney throughout, and that, perhaps, the phoniest thing about it was its alleged glamor. On the other hand, she does not regard the time she spent making it wasted, for, as she says, she was able to sit at the feet of Leonide Massine and watch and learn and observe the concentration with which he worked, the intelligence he brought to every gesture, and the vast ingenuity and originality he applied to everything he did.
I happen to know Shearer has no illusions about the film publicity campaign that made her a movie star overnight. She was amused by it, but never taken in, and was hurt only when the crowds mobbed for autographs and Americans hailed her as “thestar” of Sadler’s Wells.
Cultured and highly intelligent, Moira Shearer is intensely musical, both in life and in the dance. This musicality is particularly apparent in her portrayal of the Princess Aurora inThe Sleeping Beauty, and in the dual role of Odette-Odile inSwan Lake. Again it is markedly noticeable in a quite non-classical work, for of all the dancers I have seen dance the Tango inFaçade, she is by far the most satiric and brilliant. She is well-nigh indispensable toWedding Bouquet.
Aside from the qualities I have mentioned, there is also a fine romanticism about her work. Intelligence in a dancer is something that is rare. There are those who argue that it is not necessarily a virtue in a dancer. They could not be more wrong. It is, I think, Moira Shearer’s superior intelligence that gives her, among other things, that power of pitiless self-criticism that is the hallmark of the first-class artist.
Moira Shearer has been as fortunate in her private life as in her professional activities. She lives happily in a lovely London home with her attractive and talented writer-husband, Ludovic Kennedy. During the second Sadler’s Wells American tour, her husband drove across the continent from New York to Los Angeles to join Moira for the California engagement, discovering, by means of a tiny Austin, that there were still a great many of the wide-open spaces left in the land Columbus discovered.
In her charming London flat, with her husband, her books, her pictures, and her music, she carries out one of her most serious ambitions: to be a good mother; for the center of the household is her young daughter, born in midsummer, 1952.
The depth of Moira Shearer’s sincerity I happen to know not only from others, but from personal experience. It is a genuine and real sincerity that applies to every aspect of her life, and not only in art and the theatre.
A loyal colleague, she has a highly developed sense of honor. As Ninette de Valois once remarked to me: “Anything that Moira has ever said or promised is a bond with her, and nothing of a confirming nature in writing is required.”
A splendid artist,ballerina, and film star, it is my profound hope that Moira may meet with the same degree of success in her new venture into the legitimate theatre.
There seems little doubt of this, since I am persuaded that she will make good in anything she undertakes.
BERYL GREY
Another full-fledgedballerinaof the company, is Beryl Grey, who alternates allballerinaroles today with Fonteyn, Violetta Elvin, Nadia Nerina and Rowena Jackson. Beryl Grey’s American success was assured on the opening night of the first season at the Metropolitan Opera House, with her gracious and commandingly sympathetic performance of the Lilac Fairy inThe Sleeping Beauty.
In a sense, Grey’s and Shearer’s careers have followed a similar pattern, in that they were both “baby ballerinas.” Born Beryl Groom, at Muswell Hill, in London’s Highgate section, in 1927, the daughter of a government technical expert and his wife, Beryl Grey’s dancing studies began very early in life in Manchester, and at the age of nine, she won a scholarship at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. In 1941, she joined the company, and so rapid was her growth as an artist that she danced leading roles in some half-dozen of the one-act ballets in the repertoire, in place of Margot Fonteyn who had been taken ill. Even more remarkable is the fact that she danced the full-lengthSwan Lakein London on her fifteenth birthday.
The term, “baby ballerina,” has become a part of ballet’s language, due to its association with the careers of Baronova and Toumanova in the early ’thirties. In Grey’s case, however, she was privileged to have a much wider experience in classical ballets than herémigréRussian predecessors. She was only seventeen when she danced the greatest of all classical roles in the repertoire of the trueballerina, Giselle.
My feeling about Beryl Grey, the dancer, is that she possessesstrikingly individual qualities, both of style and technique. She has been greatly helped along the path to stardom by Frederick Ashton who, as I have pointed out, likes nothing better than to discover and exploit a dancer’s talents. It was he who gave Grey her first big dramatic parts.
Beryl Grey is married to a distinguished Swedish osteopath, Dr. Sven Svenson, and they live in a charming Mayfair flat in London. Here again one finds that characteristic of fine intelligence coupled with an intense musicality. Also rare among dancers, Grey is an omnivorous reader of history, biography, and the arts. She feels, I know, that, apart from “Madame” and Ashton, who have been so keenly instrumental in shaping her career, a sense of deep gratitude to Constant Lambert for his kindness and help to her from her very early days; for his readiness to discuss with her any aspect of music; and she gratefully remembers how nothing was too inconsequential for his interest, his advice and help; how no conductor understood what the dancer required from music more than he did. She is also mindful of the inspiration she had from Leonide Massine, of his limitless energy, his indefatigable enthusiasm, his creative fire; she learned that no detail was too small to be corrected and worked over and over. As she says: “He was so swift and light, able to draw with immediate ease a complete and clear picture.” Also, she points out, “He was quiet and of few words, but had a fine sense of humor which was often reflected in his penetrating brown eyes. His rare praise meant a great deal.”
Beryl Grey is the star in the first three-dimensional ballet film ever to be made, based on the famous Black Swanpas de deuxfromLe Lac des Cygnes.
From the point of view of a dancer, Beryl Grey had one misfortune over which she had to triumph: she is above average height. This she has been able to turn into a thing of beauty, with a beautifully flowing length of “line.” Personally, she is a gentle person, with a genuine humility and a simple unaffected kindliness, and a fresh, completely unspoiled charm. Her success in all the great roles has been such as to make her one of the most popular figures with the public.
I find great pleasure in her precision and strength as a dancer, in her poised, statuesque grace, in her clean technique; and in her special sort of technical accomplishment, wherein nothing ever seems to present her any problems.
During the American tours of Sadler’s Wells, she is almost invariably greeted with flowers at the station. She seems to have friends in every city. How she manages to do this, I am not sure; but I feel it must be a tribute to her genuine warmth and friendliness.
VIOLETTA ELVIN
Violetta Elvin, another of the talentedballerinasof the “fabulous” Sadler’s Wells company, is in the direct line of Russian ballet, for she is a product of the contemporary ballet of Russia.
The daughter of a pioneer of Russian aviation, Vassili Prokhoroff, and his wife, Irina Grimousinkaya, a Polish artist and an early experimenter with action photography, Violetta Prokhorova became a pupil at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, at the age of nine. It is interesting to note that she was one of a class of fifty accepted out of five hundred applicants; it is still more interesting, and an example of the rigorous Russian training, that, when she finished the course nine years later, out of the original fifty there were only nine left: three girls and six boys. Of the three girls, Prokhorova was the only one who attained ballet’s coveted rank ofetoile.
Violetta finished her training at the time Moscow was being evacuated against the Nazi invasion, and was sent on a three-thousand mile journey to be aballerinaat the ballet at Tashkent, Russian Turkestan. Here, at the age of eighteen, she danced the leading roles in two works,The Fountain of Bakchissarai, based on Pushkin’s famous poem, andDon Quixote, the Minkus work of which contemporary American balletgoers know only the famouspas de deux, but which I presented in America, during the season 1925-1926, staged by Laurent Novikoff, with settings and costumes by the great Russian painter, Korovin.
Another point of interest about Elvin is that she was never a member of thecorps de ballet, for she was transferred from Tashkent to the Bolshoi Ballet, which had been moved, for safety reasons, to Kuibyshev, some five hundred miles from Moscow. In the early autumn of 1943, when the Nazi horde had been driven back in defeat, the Ballet returned to the Bolshoi, and Prokhorova danced important roles there.
It was in Moscow, in 1945, that Violetta Prokhorova married Harold Elvin, an architect associated with the British Embassy, and came with him to London. On her arrival in London she became a member of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, first as a soloist, and later asballerina.
My own impressions are of a vibrant personality and a great beauty. Her feet are extraordinarily beautiful, and, if I am any judge of the female figure, I would say her body approximates the perfect classical proportions. In her dancing, her Russian training is at all times evident, for there is a charm of manner, a broad lyricism, coupled with a splendid poise that are not the common heritage of all western dancers.
It begins to sound like an overworked cliché, but again we have that rare quality in a dancer: intelligence. Once again, intelligence coupled with striking beauty. Elvin’s interests include all the classics in literature, the history of art, philosophy, museums, and good Russian food.
Already Elvin has had a film career, two motion pictures to date:Twice Upon a Time, by the makers ofRed Shoes, and the latest, the story of the great British soprano, Nellie Melba, the title role of which is played by Patrice Munsel.
While engaged on the second American tour of the Sadler’s Wells company, Violetta met an American, whom she has recently married.
Talented far beyond average measure, Elvin is a trueballerinain the tradition of the Russian school and is ever alert to improve her art and to give audiences something better than her best.
NADIA NERINA
I cannot fail to pay my respects to the young Nadia Nerina, today another of the alternatingballerinasof the company, with fullballerinastanding, whom I particularly remember as one of the most delightful and ebullient soloists of the company on its two American visits.
An example of the wide British Commonwealth base of the personnel of the Sadler’s Wells company, Nadia Nerina is from South Africa, where she was born in 1927. It was in Cape Town that she commenced her ballet studies and had her early career; for she was a winner of theSouth African Dancing TimesGold Medal and, when she was fifteen, was awarded the Avril Kentridge Shield in the Dance Festival at Durban. Moreover, she toured the Union of South Africa and, when nineteen, went to London to studyat the Sadler’s Wells School. Very soon after her arrival, she was dancing leading roles and was one of theballerinasof the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet.
Such was her success in Rosebery Avenue, and such the wisdom of Ninette de Valois, that, within the year, Nerina was transferred to Covent Carden. Today, as I have pointed out, she has been promoted to fullballerinastatus.
It is a well-deserved promotion, for Nerina’s development has been as sure as it has been steady. I have seen her inLe Lac des Cygnessince her ascendancy to fullballerinarank, and have rejoiced in her fine technical performance, as I have in the quality of her miming—something that is equally true in Delibes’Sylvia.
It is characteristic of Ninette de Valois that she gives all herballerinasgreat freedom within the organization. One is permitted to go to Denmark, Norway, Sweden. Another to La Scala, Milan. Yet another to films. An example of this desire on “Madame’s” part to encourage her leading personnel to extend their experience and to prevent any spirit of isolation, is the tour Nerina recently made through her native South Africa, in company with her Sadler’s Wells partner, Alexis Rassine, himself a South African.
The outstanding quality in Nerina’s dancing for me is the sheer joy she brings to it, a sort of love for dancing for its own sake. In everything she does, there is the imprint of her own strong personality, her vitality, and the genuine elegance she brings to the use of her sound technique.
ROWENA JACKSON
During the first two American tours of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, a young dancer who attracted an unusual amount of attention, particularly in the Ashton-LambertLes Patineurs, for her remarkable virtuosic performance and her multiple turns, was Rowena Jackson.
Today, Rowena Jackson is the newest addition to the Sadler’s Wells list ofballerinas.
Rowena Jackson is still another example of the width of the British Commonwealth base of the Sadler’s Wells organization, having been born in Invercargil, New Zealand, on the 24th March, 1926, where her father was postmaster. Her first ballet training was at the Lawson-Powell School, in New Zealand. It was in 1947 that the young dancer joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet.
This rise of the British dancer more than fulfils the prophecy of The Swan. It was thirty years ago that Pavlova said: “English women have fine faces, graceful figures, and a real sense of poetry of dancing. They only lack training to provide the best dancers of the world.” She went on: “If only more real encouragement were given in England to ballet dancers the day would not be far distant when the English dancer would prove a formidable rival to the Russians.”
Now that the British dancer has been given the encouragement, the truth of Anna Pavlova’s prophecy is the more striking.
As I have said, Rowena Jackson attracted attention throughout North America inLes Patineurs, gaining a reputation for a surpassing technical brilliance in turns. These turns, known asfouetées, I have mentioned more than once. Legend has it that Jackson can do in excess of one hundred-fifty of them, non-stop. It is quite incredible.
Brilliance is one thing. Interpretation is another. When I saw Jackson inLe Lac des Cygnes, my admiration for her and for Ninette de Valois soared. Jackson’s Swan Queen proved to me that at Sadler’s Wells anotherballerinahad been born. (I nearly wrote “created”; butballerinasare born, not made). As the Swan Queen she was all pathos and softness and tenderness and protectiveness; to the evil Black Swan, Odile, she brought the hard brittleness the role demands.
Rowena Jackson’s future among the illustrious of the world of ballet seems assured, and I shall watch her with interest, as I am sure will audiences.
SADLER’S WELLS THEATRE BALLET
While I was in London after the close of the first American tour of the Sadler’s Wells Covent Garden Ballet, I paid a visit to the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the cradle of the organization.
The Sadler’s Wells Theatre is in Rosebery Avenue, in the Borough of Islington, now a middle-class residential section of London, but once a county borough. For nearly three hundred years, the site of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre has been used for entertainment purposes. Several theatres have stood on the site, and while the dance has always been prominent in its history, everything from tight-rope and wire-walking exhibitions to performing dogs and dance troupes has been seen there.
It was in 1683 that a certain Thomas Sadler, who was, apparently, a Highway Surveyor, lived there in what was then Clerkenwell, and found a well, actually a spring, having medicinal properties, in his garden. It soon was regarded as a holy well, with healing powers attributed to it. Hither came the halt, the blind and the sick to be cured, and Mr. Sadler determined to commercialize his property. On his lawn he built his Musik House, a long room with a stage, orchestra and seats for those partakers of the waters who desired refreshments as well during their imbibing—and he also provided entertainment. The well is still there today, preserved under the present theatre, but is no longer used, and the theatre’s water supply is from the municipal mains.
Rebuilt, largely by public subscription, the present theatre was opened in 1931, alternating opera and Shakespeare with the Old Vic, but eventually it became the exclusive home and base of the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company and the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company. In 1946, when Ninette de Valois accepted the invitation of the Covent Garden Opera Trust to move the Sadler’s Wells Ballet company to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, another company (actually the revival of another idea, the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet) was established at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, and called the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet.
Here, in a fine, comfortable, modern theatre, I saw a fresh young company, with seasoned artists, first-class productions, and some first-rate dancing: a company I felt America should know.
There was an extensive repertoire of modern works by Frederick Ashton, Ninette de Valois, and the rising young John Cranko, and others. The Ashton works includeFaçade, the RavelValses Nobles et Sentimentales;Les Rendez-Vous, to Auber music arranged by Constant Lambert; and the charmingCapriol Suite, to the music by Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), inspired by Arbeau’sOrchesographie. There were three works by Andrée Howard:Assembly Ball, to the Bizet Symphony in C;Mardi Gras; andLa Fête Etrange. Celia Franka had an interesting work,Khadra, to a Sibelius score, with charming Persian miniature setting and costumes by Honor Frost. The young South African John Cranko, who had been a member of the Covent Garden company in the first New York season, had a number of extremely interesting works, includingSea Change; and Ninette de Valois had revived herThe Haunted Ballroom, to a Geoffrey Toye score, and the Lambert-BoyceThe Prospect BeforeUs. There were also sound classics, includingSwan Lake, in the second act version.
The company, under the direction of Ninette de Valois, had a fine dancer, Peggy van Praagh, as ballet mistress.
It occurred to me that, by adding new elements and reviving full length works, it would be an excellent thing to bring the company to the United States and Canada for a tour following upon that of the Covent Garden company.
I discussed the matter with Ninette de Valois and David Webster, both of whom were favorable to the idea; and, since it was impossible for the Covent Garden company to come over for a third tour at that time, they urged me to give further consideration to the possibility.
On my next visit to London, I went over matters in detail with George Chamberlain, Clerk to the Governors of Sadler’s Wells, and himself the opposite number at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre to David Webster at Covent Garden. I found Chamberlain equally cooperative and helpful, despite the fact he has a wide variety of interests and responsibilities, including the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company, the Old Vic, and the Sadler’s Wells School. We have become close friends. Following our initial conferences, we went into a series of them, in conjunction with Ursula Moreton, at the time “Madame’s” assistant at Sadler’s Wells, and Peggy van Praagh, the company’s ballet mistress.
As a result of these discussions, it was agreed to increase the size of the dancing personnel of the company from thirty-two to thirty-six, and to bring to North America a repertoire of fourteen ballets, including one full-length work, and to add to the roster one or two more principal dancers.
Handshakes all round sealed the bargain, and a contract was signed for a twenty-two week season for 1951-52.
It was on my return to London, in March, 1951, that I saw thepremièreof the first of their new productions,Pineapple Poll, a ballet freely adapted from the Bab Ballad, “The Bumbeat Woman’s Story,” by W. S. Gilbert, with music by Arthur Sullivan, arranged by a young Australian, Charles Mackerras, a conductor at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. The scenery and costumes were by Osbert Lancaster, noted architectural historian and cartoonist, and the choreography by John Cranko, who had worked in collaboration with Lancaster and Mackerras.
The work had its first performance at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre on the 13th March, 1951. The entire programme I saw that night was made up of Cranko works, and I found myself seated before a quartet of works, highly varied in content and style, all of which interested me, some, to be sure, more than others. The evening commenced with Cranko’sSea Change. A tragic work in a free style, a character ballet whose story was moving, but a ballet in which I never felt music and movement quite came together. The score was the orchestral piece,En Saga, by Jan Sibelius.
The new work,Pineapple Poll, was the second ballet of the evening. I was enchanted with it. I had always been a Sullivan admirer, and here were pieces from nigh on to a dozen of the Sullivan operas, woven together with great skill and brilliant orchestration into a marvelous integral whole by Charles Mackerras, a complete score in itself, as if it might have been directly composed for the ballet. I watched the dancers closely, and it was impossible for me to imagine a finer interpretation. Elaine Fifield, in the title role, was something more than piquant; she was a genuineballerina, with a fascinating sense of character, her whole performance highly intelligent. There was no “mugging,” no “cuteness”; on the contrary, there were both humor and wit, and I noted she was a beautifully “clean” dancer. David Blair was a compelling officer, and his “hornpipe” almost on points literally brought the house down. Three other dancers impressed me: Sheillah O’Reilly, Stella Claire and David Poole. Osbert Lancaster’s sets were masterful, both as sets and as architecture. This, I decided, was a Cranko masterpiece, and it impressed me in much the same way as some of Massine’s gay ballets.
Pineapple Pollwas followed by a delicate fantasy by Cranko,Beauty and the Beast, an extendedpas de deux, set to some of Ravel’sMother Goose Suite, and beautifully danced by Patricia Miller and David Poole, who were, I learned, a pair of South Africans from the Sadler’s Wells School.
The closing piece on the programme was another new ballet by Cranko,Pastorale, which had been given its first performance earlier in the season, just before Christmas. It was the complete antithesis of the Sullivan ballet. This was a Mozart work, hisDivertimento No. 2, and choreography was Mozartian in feeling. It was a work of genuine charm, delicacy and real humor that revealed to me the excellence of a half-dozen of the principals of the company: Elaine Fifield and Patricia Miller, whom I have already mentioned, andyoung Svetlana Beriosova, the daughter of Nicholas Beriosoff, a former member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Svetlana was born in Lithuania in 1932, and had been brought to America by her parents in 1940, when, off and on, she toured with them in the days of my management of the Massine company, and frequently appeared as the little child, Clara, inThe Nutcracker. Now rapidly maturing, she had been seen by Ninette de Valois in a small English ballet company, and had been taken into the Sadler’s Wells organization. The three ballerinas had an equal number of impressive partners inPastorale: Pirmin Trecu, David Poole and David Blair.
I decided thatPineapple Poll,PastoraleandBeauty and the Beastmust be included in the repertoire for America, and that the first of these could be a tremendous American success, a sort of BritishGaîté Parisienne.
In further conversations and conferences, I pressed the matter of a full-length, full-evening ballet. The work I wanted was Delibes’Sylvia. This is the famous ballet first given in Paris in 1876. I recognised there would be problems to be solved over the story, but the Delibes score is enchanting, delicate, essentially French; and is it not the score which Tchaikowsky himself both admired and appreciated? Moreover, a lot of the music is very well-known and loved.
We agreed uponSylviain principle, but “Freddy” Ashton, who was to stage it, was too occupied with other work, and it was at last agreed to substitute a new production of Delibes’Coppélia, in a full-length, uncut version, never seen in North America except in a truncated form. It was, however, difficult indeed to achieve any progress, since every one was occupied with work of one kind or another, and continuously busy. Moreover, Dame Ninette was away from London in Turkey and Jugoslavia, lecturing, teaching, and checking on the national ballet schools she has organized in each of those countries, at the request of their respective governments, with the cooperation of the British Council.
It was not until three o’clock one morning several weeks later that we all managed to get together at one time and place to have a conference on repertoire. The following day I saw another performance at the Wells, and was a bit distressed. It was clear to me that it was going to be necessary to increase the size of the company still further, and also to be more selective in the choice and arrangement of the repertoire.
There followed a period of intense preparation on the part ofthe entire organization, with all of its attendant helter-skelter, and with day and night rehearsals. Meanwhile, I discussed and arranged for the production of a two-act production or version ofThe Nutcracker. The opening scene of this Tchaikowsky classic has always bothered me, chiefly because I felt it was dull and felt that, during its course, nothing really happened. There is, if the reader remembers, a rather banal Christmas party at which little Clara receives a nutcracker as a present, goes to bed without it, comes downstairs to retrieve it, and is forthwith transported to fairyland. I felt we would be better off to start with fairyland, and to omit the trying prologue. Moreover, I felt certain the inclusion of the work in this form would give added weight to the repertoire for the North American tour, sinceThe Nutcrackerand Tchaikowsky are always well-liked and popular, as the box-office returns have proven.
On this visit I spent three weeks in London, flying back to New York only to return to London three weeks later, to watch the company and to do what I could to speed up the preparations so that the company might be ready for the Canadian opening of the tour, the date of which was coming closer and closer with that inevitability such matters display.
The Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and its entire organization showed really tremendous energy and application, and did everything possible to prepare themselves to follow the great American success of their sister company, something that was, admittedly, a very difficult thing to do.
Just before the company’s departure for the North American continent, it gave a four-week “American Festival Season” at Sadler’s Wells, consisting of the entire repertoire to be seen on this side of the Atlantic. This season included another Cranko work I have not before mentioned. It isHarlequin in April, a ballet commissioned for the Festival of Britain by the Arts Council. While I cannot say that it is the sort of piece that appeals to audiences by reason of its clarity, there is no gainsaying that it is a major creation and a greatly to be commended experiment, and, withal, a successful one. The choreographic work of John Cranko, in collaboration with the composer, Richard Arnell, and the artist-designer, John Piper, it was that much desired thing in ballet: a genuine collaboration between those individuals responsible for each aspect of it.
Although there was no attempt to use it as a plot idea, for it is in no sense a “literary” work, the idea forHarlequin in Aprilpresumably stemmed from the following lines from T. S. Eliot’sThe Waste Land: