Heading the receiving line at Gracie Mansion, as the company descended the wide stairs into the festive garden, were the Mayor and Grover Whalen, Sir Oliver and Lady Franks, Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Honorable Trygve Lie, President Romulo. There was a twinkle in Mayor O’Dwyer’s eye, as some of thecorps de balletgirls curtsied with a “Good-evening, your Lordship.”
Toasts were drunk to the President of the United States, the King of England, Dame Ninette de Valois, to the Mayor, to Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer, and the other principals. The party waxed even gayer. Dancers seem never to tire of dancing. It was three in the morning when the Mayor made a short speech to say “good-night,” explaining that he was under doctor’s orders to go to bed, but that the party was to continue unabated, and all were to enjoy themselves.
It was past four o’clock when it finally broke up, and the buses,with their police escorts, started the journey back through a sleeping Manhattan to deposit the company at their various hotels. Constant Lambert, the lone wolf, lived apart from the rest at an East Side hotel. All the rest of the company had been dropped, when three buses, six inspectors, two squad cars, four motorcycle officers, halted before the sedate hostelry after five in the morning, and Constant Lambert, the sole passenger in the imposing cavalcade, slowly and with a grave, seventeenth-century dignity, solemnly shook hands with drivers, motor police, and all the inspectors, thanked them for the extremely interesting, and, as he put it, “highly informative” journey, saluted them with his sturdy blackthorn stick, and disappeared within the chaste portals of the hotel, while the police stood at salute, and two bewildered milk-men looked on in wonder.
The New York season was limited only by the availability of the Metropolitan Opera House. We could have played for months. Also, the company was due back at Covent Garden to fulfil its obligations to the British taxpayer. Following the Metropolitan engagement, there was a brief tour, involving a special train of six baggage cars, diner, and seven Pullmans, visiting, with equal success and greeted by capacity and turn-away houses, Washington, Richmond, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Michigan State College at East Lansing; thence across the border into Canada, for engagements at Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, to honor the Commonwealth.
Before David Webster returned to London, we discussed the matter of an early return for a longer stay. I pointed out that, with such an evident success, Sadler’s Wells could not afford to delay its return for still further and greater triumphs. Now, I emphasized, was the time to take advantage of the momentum of success; now, if ever, was the time, since the promotion, the publicity, the press notices, all were cumulative in effect.
Webster, I knew, was impressed. I waited for his answer. But he shook his head slowly.
“Sol,” he said, “it’s doubtful. Frankly, I do not think it is possible.”
Meanwhile, I discussed the entire matter of the return with leading members of the company. All were of a single opinion, all of one mind. They were anxious and eager to return.
Such are the workings of the Sadler’s Wells organization, however, that it was necessary to delay a decision as to a return visit until at least the 3rd or 4th of January, 1950, in order that the matter could be properly put before the British Arts Council and the British Council for their final approval.
It should not be difficult for the reader to understand the anxiety and eagerness with which I anticipated that date.
* * *
It seems to me that during this period of suspense it might be well for me to sum up my impression of the repertoire that made up the initial season.
The Sadler’s Wells Ballet repertoire for the first American season consisted of the following works:The Sleeping Beauty;Le Lac des Cygnes(Swan Lake) in full;Cinderella, in three acts;Job;Façade;Apparitions;The Rake’s Progress;Miracle in the Gorbals;Hamlet;Symphonic Variations;A Wedding Bouquet; andCheckmate. The order is neither alphabetical nor necessarily in the order of importance. Actually, irrespective of varying degrees of success on this side of the Atlantic, they are all important, for they represent, in a sense, a cross-section of the repertoire history of the company.
The Sleeping Beauty, in its Sadler’s Wells form, is a ballet in a Prologue and three acts. The story is a collaboration by Marius Petipa and I. A. Vsevolojsky, (the Director of the Russian Imperial Theatres at the time of its creation), after the Charles Perrault fairy tale. The music, of course, is Tchaikowsky’s immortal score. The scenery and costumes are by Oliver Messel. The original Petipa choreography was reproduced by Nicholas Serguëeff.
It was the work which so brilliantly inaugurated the company’s occupation of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 20th February, 1946. Sadler’s Wells had previously revived the work in 1939, on a smaller scale, under the titleThe Sleeping Princess.
My unforgettable memories of the present production are topped by the inspired interpretation of the title role by Margot Fonteyn, who alternated moods of subtlety and childlike simplicity with brilliant fireworks, always within the ballet’s frame. There is the shining memory of Beryl Grey’s magnificent Lilac Fairy, the memory of the alternating casts, one headed by Moira Shearer, entirely different in its way. There is, as a matter of fact, little difference between the casts. Always there were such ensemble performances as the States had never before seen. Over all shone the magnificence of Oliver Messel’s scenery and costumes.
The full-lengthSwan Lake(Le Lac des Cygnes), actually infour acts, was a revelation to audiences for years accustomed to the truncated second act version. Its libretto, or book, is a Russian compilation by Begitschev and Geltser. It was first presented by Sadler’s Wells in the present settings and costumes by Leslie Hurry, with the original choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, reproduced by Nicholas Serguëeff, on 7th September, 1943.
This production replaced an earlier one, first done at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, on 20th November, 1934, with Alicia Markova as the Swan Queen, and the scenery and costumes by Hugh Stevenson.
On the 13th April, 1947, it came to Covent Garden, with an increasedcorps de ballet, utilizing the entire Covent Garden stage, as it does at the Metropolitan Opera House.
As always, Margot Fonteyn is brilliant in the dual role of Odette-Odile. In all my wide experience of Swan Queens, Fonteyn today is unequaled. With the Sadler’s Wells company, there is no dearth of first-rate Swan Queens: Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer, Beryl Grey, Violetta Elvin. Altogether, in case the reader has not already suspected it,Swan Lakeis, I think, my favorite ballet. It is not only a classical ballet; it is a classic. The haunting Tchaikowsky score, its sheer romanticism, its dramatic impact, all these things individually and together, give it its pride of place with the public of America as well as with myself. Here my vote is with the majority.
The third full-length work, so splendid in its settings and so bulky that its performances had to be limited by its physical proportions only to the largest stages, wasCinderella, which took up every inch on the great stage of the Metropolitan Opera House.Cinderellawas the first full evening ballet in the modern repertoire of Sadler’s Wells. A three-act work, with choreography by Frederick Ashton, to the score by Serge Prokofieff, its scenery and costumes are by the French painter, Jean-Denis Malclès.
Here was an instance where the chief choreographer of Sadler’s Wells, Frederick Ashton, had the courage to tackle a full-length fairy story, the veritable stuff from which true ballets are made in the grand tradition of classical ballet: a formidable task. The measure of his success is that he managed to do it by telling a beautiful and thrice-familiar fairy tale in a direct and straightforward manner, never dragging in spectacle for the sake of spectacle. Moreover, he was eminently successful in avoiding, on the one hand, those sterilities of classicism that lead only to boredom, and the grotesqueries of modernism, on the other.
For music, Ashton took the score Prokofieff composed for the Soviet ballet of the same name, but created an entirely new work to the music. The settings and costumes by Malclès could not have been more right, filled as they are with the glamor of the fairy tale spirit and utterly free from any trace of vulgarity.
I shall always remember the Ugly Sisters of Ashton and Robert Helpmann, in the best tradition of English pantomime. Moreover, the production was blessed with three alternating Cinderellas, each individual in approach and interpretation: Fonteyn, Shearer, and Elvin.
Job, the reader will remember, is not called a ballet but “A Masque for Dancing.” The adaptation of the Biblical legend in the spirit of the William Blake drawings is the work of a distinguished British surgeon and Blake authority, Geoffrey Keynes. It was the first important choreographic work of Ninette de Valois. Its scenery and costumes were the product of John Piper; its music is one of the really great scores of that dean of living British composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams.
In the music, completely modern in idiom, Vaughan Williams has followed the overall pattern of the sixteenth and seventeenth century “Masques,” using period rhythms (but not melodies) such as thePavane, theMinuet, theSaraband, and theGaillard.
The production itself is on two levels, in which all the earthly, material characters remain on the stage level, while the spiritual characters are on a higher level, the two levels being joined by a large flight of steps.
One character stands out in domination of the work. That is Satan, created by Anton Dolin, and danced here by Robert Helpmann. The climax ofJoboccurs when Satan is hurled down from heaven. The whole thing is a work of deep and moving beauty—a serious, thoughtful work that ranks as one of Ninette de Valois’ masterpieces.
Façaderepresented the opposite extreme in the Sadler’s Wells repertoire. There was considerable doubt on the part of the company’s directorate that it would be acceptable on this side of the Atlantic, because of its essential British humor; it was also feared that it might be dated. As matters turned out, it was one of the most substantial successes among the shorter works.
Façadewas originally staged by Ashton for the Camargo Society in 1931, came to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1935, was lost in the German invasion of Holland, and was restored in the present settingsand costumes of John Armstrong in 1940. It is, of course, freely adapted from the Edith Sitwell poems, with the popular score by Sir William Walton.
Fresh, witty, and humorous throughout, there is no suggestion of either provincialism or of being dated. Its highlights for me were the Tango, superbly danced by Frederick Ashton and Moira Shearer, who alternated with Pamela May, and the Yodelling Song with its bucolic milkmaid.
Apparitionsperhaps bore too close a resemblance in plot to Massine’s treatment of the BerliozSymphonie Fantastique, although the former is a much earlier work, having been staged by Ashton in 1933. Its story is by Constant Lambert; its music, a Lambert selection of the later music of Franz Liszt, re-orchestrated by Gordon Jacob. Cecil Beaton designed the extremely effective scenery and costumes. It was taken into the Sadler’s Wells repertoire in 1936.
It provided immensely effective roles for Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann.
Strikingly successful was Ninette de Valois’The Rake’s Progress. This is a six-scene work, based on William Hogarth’s famous series of paintings of the same name. Its story, like its music, is by Gavin Gordon. Its setting, a permanent closed box, subject to minor changes during the action, scene to scene, with an act-drop of a London street, is by the late Rex Whistler, as are the costumes, Hogarthian in style.
It is a highly dramatic work, in reality a sort of morality play, perhaps, more than it is a ballet in the accepted sense of the term, but a tremendously important work in the evolution of the repertoire that is so peculiarly Sadler’s Wells.
Miracle in the Gorbalsis another of the theatre pieces in the repertoire. The choreographic work of Robert Helpmann, it is based on a story by Michael Benthall, to a specially commissioned score by Sir Arthur Bliss. Its setting and costumes are by the British artist, Edward Burra. It was a wartime addition to the repertoire in the fall of 1944.
LikeThe Rake’s Progress,Miracle in the Gorbalsis also a sort of morality play, with strong overtones of a sociological tract. Bearing plot and theme resemblances to Jerome K. Jerome’sThe Passing of the Third Floor Back, it puts the question: “What sort of treatment would God receive if he returned to earth and visited the slums of a twentieth century city?”
A realistic work, it deals with low-life in a strictlydown-to-earth manner. As a spectacle of crowded tenement life, it mingles such theatrical elements as the raising of the dead, murder, suicide, prostitution. The Bliss music splendidly underlines the action.
With all of its drama and melodrama, it was not, nevertheless, one of my favorite works.
The other Helpmann creation wasHamlet, staged by him two years beforeMiracle in the Gorbals, in 1942. Utilizing the Tchaikowsky fantasy-overture, its tremendously effective scenery and costumes are by Leslie Hurry.
Hamletwas not an attempt to tell the Shakespeare story in ballet form. Rather is it a work that attempts to portray the dying thoughts of Hamlet as his life passes before him in review. Drama rather than dance, it is a spectacle, linked from picture to picture by dances, a work in which mime plays an important part.
Symphonic Variations, set to César Franck’s work for piano and orchestra of the same title, was Ashton’s first purely dance work in abstract form.
A work without plot, it employed only six dancers, three couples, on an immense stage in an immensely effective setting of great simplicity by Sophie Fedorovich. The six dancers were: Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer, and Pamela May; Michael Somes, Henry Danton, and Brian Shaw. There is no virtuoso role. It is a lyric work, calm, ordered, in which the classical spirit is exalted in a mood of all for one, one for all.
A Wedding Bouquetis certainly the most genuinely witty work in all modern ballet repertoire. The work of that genuine wit and gentleman of impeccable taste in music, literature, and painting, the late Lord Berners, it was staged by Ashton in 1937. Utilizing a text by Gertrude Stein, spoken by a narrator seated at a table at the side of the stage, its music, its scenery, its costumes, all are by Lord Berners. At the Metropolitan Opera House, the narrator was the inimitable Constant Lambert. In later performances, the role was taken over by Robert Irving, the chief conductor.
The work, a collaboration between Ashton, Berners, and Gertrude Stein, is the most completely sophisticated ballet I know. The amazing thing about it to me is that with its utterly integrated Stein text, it goes as well in large theatres as it does in the smaller ones. The text is as important as the dancing or the music.
For me, aside from the hilarity of the work itself, was the pleasure I derived from the performance of Moira Shearer as the thwartedspinster who loved her dog, and June Brae, who danced the role of Josephine, who was certainly not fitted to go to a wedding, as Gertrude Stein averred. As the Bridegroom, Robert Helpmann provided a comic masterpiece.
Checkmatewas the first British ballet to have itspremièreoutside the country, having been first presented as a part of the Dance Festival at the International Exposition in Paris, in the summer of 1937. Both music and book are by Sir Arthur Bliss, with scenery and costumes by the Anglo-American artist, E. McKnight Kauffer.
The concerns of the ballet are with a game of chess, with the dancers pawns in the game. It appeals to me strongly, and I feel it is one of Ninette de Valois’ finest choreographic achievements. It is highly dramatic, leading to a grim tragedy. Its music is tremendously fine and McKnight Kauffer’s settings and costumes are striking, effective, and revolutionary. This is a work of first importance in all ballet repertoire.
I embarked upon a continuing bombardment of Ninette de Valois and David Webster by cables and long-distance telephone calls. I never for a instant let the matter out of my mind.
As I counted off the days until a decision was due, the old year ran out. It was on New Year’s Eve, while working in my office, that I was taken ill. I had not been feeling entirely myself for several days, but illness is something so foreign to me that I laughed it off as something presumably due to some irregularity of living.
Suddenly, late in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, I found myself doubled up with pain. I was rushed to hospital. A hasty blood-count revealed the necessity for an immediate appendectomy. Before the old year was greeted by the new, I had submitted to surgery. The doctors said it was just in time—a case of “touch and go.” A good many things in my life have been that.
A minimum of a week’s hospitalization was imperative, the doctors said, and after that another fortnight of quiet recuperation. I remained in hospital the required week.
Very soon after, against the united wishes of Mrs. Hurok and my office, I was on a plane bound for London.
At the London airport I was met by David Webster, who took me as quickly and as smoothly as possible to my old stamping-ground, the Savoy Hotel, where, on Webster’s firm insistence, I spent the next twelve hours in bed. There followed extended consultations with Ninette de Valois and Webster; but neither was able to givea definite answer on the all-important matter of the second American tour.
I pointed out to them that, in order to protect all concerned, bookings were already being made across the United States and Canada: bookings involving in many instances, definite guarantees. As I waited for a decision, my office was daily badgering me. I was at a loss what to reply to them. There were daily inconclusive trans-Atlantic telephone conversations with my office and daily inconclusive conversations with the Sadler’s Wells directorate.
At last there came a glimmer. Webster announced that he believed a final decision could be reached at or about 16th February. He required, he said, that much further time in order to be able to figure out the precise costs of the venture and to determine what, if anything, might be left after the payment of all the terrific costs. In other words, he had to determine and calculate the precise nature of the risk.... Figures, figures, and still more figures.... Cables backwards and forwards across the Atlantic, with my New York office checking and rechecking on the capacities of the auditoriums, theatres, opera houses, and halls in which the bookings had been made.
The 16th February passed and still no decision was forthcoming. On 19th February, all that could be elicited from Webster was: “I simply can’t say at this juncture.” He added that he appreciated my position and regretted the daily disappointments to which I was being subjected.
There came the 22nd of February, in the United States the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. This year in London, the 22nd of February was the eve of the General Election. Most of the afternoon I spent with Webster at his flat, going over papers. We dined together and, as we parted, Webster’s only remark was: “See you at the performance.”
Meanwhile the pressure on me from New York increased.
“Whatisgoing to happen?” became the reiterated burden of the daily messages from my office.
Other matters in New York were requiring my attention, and it had become necessary to inform Webster that it would be impossible for me to remain any longer in London and that I was sailing in theQueen Maryon Friday.
Election Eve I went to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to watch another Sadler’s Wells performance. In the main foyer I ran into Webster.
“Can you guarantee us our expensesanda profit?” he asked.
“I can.”
“It’s a deal.”
It was eight-thirty in the evening of the 22nd February that the verbal deal was made. Five hours difference in time made it three-thirty in the afternoon in New York. I hurried back to the Savoy and called Mae Frohman.
“What’s going to happen?”
“It’s all set,” I replied.
Back to Covent Garden I went. In the Crush Bar, Webster and I toasted our deal with a bottle of champagne.
During Election Day, Webster, “Madame,” and I worked on repertoire and final details; but, for the most part, we gave our attention to the early returns from the General Election. After the performance that night at the Garden, David Webster and his friend James Cleveland Belle, joined me at the Savoy and remained until four in the morning, with one eye and one ear on the returns.
The next day I sailed in the goodQueen Maryand had a lovely crossing, with my good friend, Greer Garson, on board to make the trip even more pleasant.
Mrs. Hurok, my daughter Ruth, Mae Frohman, and my office staff met me at the Cunard pier; and I told the whole story, in all its intricate detail, to them.
But there were still loose ends to be caught up, and April found me again back in London. The night following my arrival, I gave a big party at the Savoy, with Ninette de Valois, Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer and David Webster as the guests of honor. We toasted the success of the first American season; drank another to the success of the forthcoming and much more extended tour.
While in London, we clarified and agreed upon many details, including the final repertoire for the second American venture—which was to reach, not only from coast to coast, but to dip into the far south as well as far to the north.
Back in New York for a brief stay and then, in June, Mrs. Hurok and I left for our annual sojourn in Europe. This time we went direct to London, where we revelled in the performances at Covent Garden.
I have always loved London and always have been a great admirer of London, the place, and of those things for which it stands as a symbol. I love suddenly coming upon the fascinating little squares, with their stately old houses, as often as not adorned witha fifteenth-century church. Although modernism sometimes almost encroaches, they still retain an old-fashioned dreaminess.
About all is the atmosphere of history, tradition, and the aura of a genuinely free people. The Royal Opera House itself has a particular fascination for me. So far as I am concerned, there is not the slightest incongruity in the fact that its façade looks out on a police station and police court and that it is almost otherwise surrounded by a garden market. A patina of associations seems to cover the fabric, both inside and out—whether it is the bare boards and iron rails of the high old-fashioned gallery, or the gilt and red plush and cream-painted woodwork, the thin pillars of the boxes, the rather awkward staircases, the “Crush” bar and the other bars, the red curtain bearing the coat of arms of the reigning Monarch. Then, lights down, the great curtain sweeps up, and once again, for the hundredth time, the tense magic holds everyone in thrall.
I love the true ballet lovers who are not to be found in the boxes alone or in the stalls exclusively. Many of them sit in the lower-priced seats in the upper circle, the amphitheatre, and in the gallery. The night before an opening or an important revival or cast change, a long queue, equipped with camp-chairs and sandwiches, waits patiently to be admitted to the gallery seats the following evening.
There is one figure I miss now at Covent Carden, one that seemed to me to be a part of its very fabric. For years, going back stage to see Anna Pavlova, Chaliapine, others of my artists, and in the days of the de Basil Ballet, it was he who always had a cheery greeting. In 1948, Tom Jackson closed his eyes in the sleep everlasting, to open them, one hopes, at some Great Stage Door. He was the legendary stage door-keeper, was Tom Jackson, and certainly one of the most important persons in Covent Garden. He was a gentleman in the best sense of the word. Many were the celebrated artists he saw come and go during his long regime. Everybody spoke to him in their own tongue, although Jackson invariably replied in English. He was, I remember, in charge of the artists’ mail, and knew everyone, and remembered every name and every face. Jackson was not only interested in his stage door, but took deep interest in the artistic aspect of Covent Garden. Immediately after a performance of either ballet or opera, he made up his mind whether it had been good or bad.
Sometimes it fell to Jackson’s lot to regulate matters outsidethe Garden. The gallery queues, as is the London custom, attract all sorts of itinerant musicians and entertainers to the Floral Street side where they display and reveal their art to the patiently waiting galleryites. If the hurdy-gurdies and public acclamations grew so loud that they might disturb any in the offices above, Jackson, with infallible tact, stopped the disturbance without offending the queuers or the entertainers by his interference.
Jackson guarded the Garden inexorably and was relentless on questions of admission. With unerring instinct, he distinguished between friend and foe, and was renowned for his treatment of the yellow press and its columnists, with its nose for gossip and scandal. He is said once to have unceremoniously deposited an over-enthusiastic columnist in the street, after having refused a considerable sum of money for permission to photograph a faintingballerina. He was once seen chasing a large woman who was brandishing a heavy umbrella around the outside of the building. The large woman, in turn, was chasing Leonide Massine running at full tilt. The woman, obviously a crackpot, had accused Massine of stealing her idea for a ballet. Jackson caught the woman and disarmed her.
The London stage doorkeeper is really a breed unto himself.
I love opening nights at Covent Garden, when it becomes, quite apart from the stage, a unique social function in the display of dresses and jewels, despite the austerity. It is always a curious mixture of private elegance and public excitement. The excitement extends to all streets of the district, right down to the Strand, making a strange contrast with the cabbage stalls, stray potatoes, and the odor of vegetables lingering on from the early market. The impeccable and always polite London police are in control of all approaches, directing the endless stream of cars without delay as they draw up in the famous covered way under the portico. Ceremoniously they take care of all arriving pedestrians, and surprisingly hold up even the most pretentious and important traffic to let the pedestrian seat-holder through. The richly uniformed porters keep chattering socialites from impeding traffic with a stern ritual all their own, and announcing waiting cars in stentorian tones.... Ever in my mind Covent Garden is associated with that sacred hour back stage before a ballet performance, the company in training-kits, practising relentlessly. Only those who know this hour can form any idea of the overwhelming cost of the dancers’ brief glamorous hour before the public.
Particularizing from the general, from the very beginning, in all contacts with the British and with Sadler’s Wells, the relations between all concerned have been like those prevailing in a kind and understanding family, and they remain so today.
And now at the Savoy is the best smoked salmon in the world—Scottish salmon. When I am there, a special large tray of it is always ready for me. It is a passion I share with Ninette de Valois, who insists it is her favorite dish. The question I am about to ask is purely rhetorical: Is there anything finer than smoked Scottish salmon, with either a cold, dry champagne or Scotch whiskey?
The repertoire for the second American-Canadian tour of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet included, in addition toThe Sleeping Beauty, the four-actLe Lac des Cygnes(Swan Lake),Façade,A Wedding Bouquet,The Rake’s ProgressandCheckmate, the following works new to America: their own production ofGiselle,Les Patineurs,Don Quixote, andDante Sonata.
Giselle, in the Sadler’s Wells version, with its Adam score, has scenery and costumes by James Bailey, and was produced by Nicholas Serguëeff, after the choreography of Coralli and Perrot.
The original Wells production was at the Old Vic, in 1934, with Alicia Markova in the title role. The production for Covent Garden dates from 1946, with Margot Fonteyn as Giselle.
It requires no comment from me save to point out that Fonteyn is one of the most interesting and effective interpreters of the role in my experience, and I have seen a considerable number of Giselles.
Les Patineurshad been seen in America in a version danced by Ballet Theatre. The Sadler’s Wells version is so much better that there is no real basis for comparison. This version, by Frederick Ashton, dates back to 1937. It has an interesting history. It is my understanding that the original idea was that Ninette de Valois would stage it. The story has it that, one night at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Ashton, whose dressing-room adjoined that of Constant Lambert, heard the latter working out dance rhythms from two Meyerbeer operas,Star of the NorthandThe Prophet. The story goes on that Ashton was moved by the melodies and that because “Madame” was so occupied with executive and administrative duties, the choreographic job was given to him. Ashton states that he composed this ballet, which is exclusively concerned with skating, without ever having seen an ice-rink.
I find it one of the most charming ballets in the repertoire,with something in it for everyone. In these days of so-called “ice-ballets,” which have little or no relation to ballet, however much they may have to do with ice, I find here an academic ballet, which is very close to skating.
Don Quixotewas seen in but a few cities. It was the most recent work, at that time, to be shown. Choreographed by Ninette de Valois, it was a ballet in five scenes with both its scenario and its music by Robert Gerhard, with scenery and costumes by Edward Burra.
The story, of course, was the Cervantes tale. It was not a “dancing” ballet, in the sense that it had no virtuoso passages. But it told its story, nevertheless, through the medium of dance rather than by mime and acting. My outstanding impressions of it are the splendid score, Margot Fonteyn’s outstanding characterization of a dual role, and the shrewdly observed Sancho Panza of the young Alexander Grant.
Dante Sonatawas, in a sense, a collaborative work by Frederick Ashton and Constant Lambert. Its date is 1940. Its scenery and costumes are by Sophie Fedorovich. The music is the long piano sonata by Franz Liszt,D’après une lecture de Dante, utilizing the poem by Victor Hugo. The orchestration of the piano work by Lambert, with its use of Chinese tam-tam and gong, is singularly effective.
At the time of its production, there was a story in general circulation to the effect that Ashton found his inspiration for the work in the sufferings of the Polish people at the hands of the Nazi invaders. This appears not to have been the case. The truth of the matter seems to have been that at about the time he was planning the work, Ashton was deeply moved by the death of a close and dear relative. The chief influence would, therefore, seem to be this, and thus to account for the choreographer’s savagery against the inevitability and immutability of death.
It is not, in any sense, a classical work, for Ashton, in order to portray the contorted and writhing spirits, went to the “free” or “modern” dance for appropriate movements. While, in the wide open spaces of America, it did not fulfil the provincial audiences’ ideas of what they expected from ballet, nevertheless it had some twenty-nine performances in the United States and Canada.
The second American season opened at the Metropolitan Opera House, on Sunday evening, 10th September, 1950. Again it washot. The full-lengthLe Lac des Cygnes(Swan Lake) was the opening programme. The evening was a repetition of the previous year: capacity, cheering houses, with special cheers for Fonteyn.
The demand for seats on the part of the New York public was even greater than the year before, with a larger number consequently disappointed and unable to get into the Metropolitan at all.
From the company’s point of view, aside from hard work—daily classes, rehearsals, and eight performances a week—there was a round of entertainment for them, the most outstanding, perhaps, being the day they spent as the guests of J. Alden Talbot at Smoke Rise, his New Jersey estate.
The last night’s programme at the Metropolitan season wasThe Sleeping Beauty. The final night’s reception matched that of the first. Ninette de Valois’ charming curtain speech, in which she announced another visit on the part of the company to New York—“but not for some time”—couldn’t keep the curtain down, and the calls continued until it was necessary to turn up the house lights.
Following the New York engagement, Sadler’s Wells embarked on the longest tour of its history, and the most successful tour in the history of ballet.
The New York season extended from 10th September to 1st October. The company appeared in the following cities: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Denver, Lincoln, Des Moines, Omaha, Tulsa, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Memphis, St. Louis, Bloomington, Lafayette, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, Winnipeg, Boston, White Plains, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec.
Starting on the 10th September, in New York, the tour closed in Quebec City on 28th January, 1951.
In thirty-two cities, during a period of five months, the people of this continent had paid more than two million and one-half dollars to see the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. On Election Eve in London, David Webster had asked me if I could guarantee them their expenses and a profit.
On the first tour the company covered some ten thousand miles. On the second tour, this was extended to some twenty-one thousand.
The box-office records that were broken by the company could only add to the burden of statistics. Suffice it to say, they weremany. History was made: the sort of history that can be made again only by the next Sadler’s Wells tour.
Some idea of the magnitude of the transportation and railroading problems involved in an extended tour of this sort may be gathered from the fact that the “Sadler’s Wells Special” consisted of six Pullman sleeping cars, six baggage cars, and two dining cars, together with a club-bar-lounge car on long journeys.
I made it a point to be with the company at all the larger cities. I left them at Philadelphia, and awaited their arrival in Los Angeles. Neither I nor Los Angeles has ever seen anything like the opening night of their engagement at the enormous Shrine Auditorium, or like the entire engagement, as a matter of fact.
Because of a company rule that, on opening nights and in the case of parties of official or semi-official greeting nature, the entire personnel of the company and staff should attend in a body, an unfortunate situation arose in Los Angeles. A Beverly Hills group had announced a large party to which some of the company had been invited, without having cleared the matter in advance. The resultant situation was such that the advertised and publicized party was cancelled.
The sudden cancellation left the company without a party with which to relieve the strain of the long trek to the Pacific Coast, and the tense excitement of the first performance in the world’s film capital. As a consequence, I arranged to give a large party to the entire company and staff, in conjunction with Edwin Lester, the Director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association, and the local sponsor of the engagement. The party took place at the Ambassador Hotel, where the entire company was housed during the engagement, with its city within a city, its palm-shaded swimming-pool.
As master of ceremonies and guest of honor, we invited Charles Chaplin, distinguished artist and famous Briton. Among the distinguished guests from the film world were, among many others, Ezio Pinza, Edward G. Robinson, Greer Garson, Barry Fitzgerald, Gene Tierney, Cyd Charisse, Joseph Cotton, Louis Hayward.
Chaplin was a unique master of ceremonies, urbane, gentle, witty. As judge of a ballroom dancing contest, Chaplin awarded the prize to Herbert Hughes, non-dancer and the company’s general manager.
At the end of this phenomenal engagement, the company badeau revoirto Los Angeles and the many friends they had made in the film colony, and entrained for San Francisco for an engagement at that finest of all American opera houses, the War Memorial. I have an especial fondness for San Francisco, its atmosphere, its spirit, its people, its food. Yet a curious fact remains: of all the larger American cities, it is coolest in its outward reception of all forms of art. Even with Sadler’s Wells, San Francisco followed its formal pattern. It was the more startling in contrast with its sister city in the south. The demonstrations there were such that they had to be cut off in order to permit the performances to continue and thus end before the small hours; the Los Angeles audiences seemed determined not to let the company go. By contrast, the San Francisco audiences were perfunctorily polite in their applause. I have never been able quite to understand it.
In the case of the Sadler’s Wellspremièreat the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, the company was enchanted with the building: a real opera house, a good stage, a place in which to work in comfort. The opening night audience had been attracted not only by interest in the company, but as charity contributors to a home for unmarried mothers. The bulk of the stalls and boxes were socially minded. They arrived late, from dinners and parties.The Sleeping Beautymust start at the advertised time because of its length. It cannot wait for late-comers. There was an unconscionable confusion in the darkened opera house as the audience rattled down the aisles, chattering, greeting friends, and shattering the spell of the Prologue, disturbing those who had taken the trouble to arrive on time as much as they did the artists on the stage. My concern on this point is as much for the audience as for the dancers. A ballet, being a work of art, is conceived as an entity, from beginning to end, from the first notes of the overture, till the last one of the coda. The whole is the sum of its parts. The noisy and inconsiderate late-comers, by destroying parts, greatly damage the whole.
The War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, although a municipal property, has a divided executive in that its physical control is in the hands of the local chapter of the American Legion, which make the rules and regulations for its operation. I do not know of any theatre with more locked doors, more red tape and more annoying, hampering regulations.
There is, to be sure, a certain positive virtue in the rule that forbids any unauthorized person to be permitted to pass from the auditorium to the stage by ways of the pass-door between the two.But, like any rule, it must be administered with discretion. The keeper of the pass-door at the War Memorial Opera House is a gentleman known as the “Colonel,” to whom, I feel, “orders is orders,” without the leavening of either discretion or plain “horse sense.”
On the opening night of Sadler’s Wells, a list of names of the persons authorized to pass had been given to this functionary by checking the names on the theatre programme. When Dame Ninette de Valois, D.B.E., D. Litt., Director of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, attempted to go back stage after the first act ofThe Sleeping Beauty, she was stopped at the pass-door by the guardian “Colonel.”
Very simply she told him, “I am Ninette de Valois.”
That meant nothing to the “Colonel.”
“Madame’s” name, he pointed out, was not checked off. It was not even printed on the “official” staff. In another part of the programme, there it was in small type. But the “Colonel” was adamant. Horatio at the bridge could not have been more formidable. He was a composite of St. Peter at the gate and St. Michael with his flaming sword.
While all this was going on, I was in the imposing, marble-sheathed front lobby of the Opera House, in conversation with critics and San Francisco friends, sharing their enthusiasm, when I suddenly felt my coat tails being sharply pulled. The first tug I was sure was some mistake, and I pretended not to notice it. Then my coat tails were tugged at again, unmistakably yanked.
“What is it?” I thought. “Whois it?”
I turned quickly, and found a tense, white-faced “Madame” looking at me, as she might transfix either a dancer who had fallen on his face, or a Cabinet Minister with whom she had taken issue.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“The man,” she said, pointing in the direction of the pass-door, “wouldn’t let me through.” Crisply she added, “He didn’t know who I was. This is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful. Unforgivable, Imustsay.”
She turned quickly on her heel and disappeared.
I was greatly upset, and immediately took steps to have the oversight corrected. I was miserable.
I sent for “Bertie” Hughes, the able general manager of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet company, told him what had happened, explained how distressed I was over the stupid incident.
Hughes smiled his quiet smile.
“Come on, have a drink and forget it,” he said. “‘Madame’ will have forgotten all about it within five minutes of watching the performance.”
As we sipped our drink, I was filled with mortification that “Madame,” of all people, should have run afoul of a too literal interpreter of the regulations.
“Look here,” said Hughes, “cheer up, don’t be disturbed.”
But the evening had been spoiled for me.
A really splendid party followed, given by H. M. Consul General in honor of the company, at San Francisco’s Bohemian Club. The Bohemian Club is one of San Francisco’s genuine landmarks, a famous organization of artists, writers, professional and business men, whose “High Jinks” and “Low Jinks” in midsummer are among the cultural highlights of the area.
Dispirited, I went only from a sense of duty. It turned out to be one of the fine parties of the entire tour; but I was fatigued, distraught, and the de Valois contretemps still oppressed me. I helped myself to some food, and hid away in a corner. I was, to put it bluntly, in a vile mood.
Again I felt my coat tails being tugged. “Who is it this time?” I thought. It was not my favorite manner of being greeted, I decided, there and then.
Cautiously I turned. Again it was “Madame.”
“What’s the trouble?” she asked, now all solicitude. “Why are you hiding in a corner? You don’t look well. Shouldn’t you see a doctor?”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
“Surely, something is wrong with you. You look pale, and it’s not the very least bit like you to be off sulking in a corner. What’s the trouble?”
“The insult to you,” I said.
I remembered what Hughes had said, when “Madame” replied: “Insult? Insult?... What insult? Did you insult me?... What on earthareyou talking about?”
There was no point, I felt, in reminding her of the incident.
“When you want to speak to me,” I said, “must you pull my coat off my back?”
“The next time I shall do it harder,” she said with her very individual little laugh. “Don’t you think we have been here long enough?... Come along now, take us home.”
This is Ninette de Valois.
* * *
Following the San Francisco engagement, the company turned east to the Rocky Mountain area, the South and Middle West, to arrive in Chicago for Christmas.
The Chicago engagement was but a repetition of every city where the company appeared: sold-out houses, almost incredible enthusiasm.The Sleeping Beautywas the opening programme. Because of the magnitude of the production, it was impossible to present it except in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. Both public and press were loud in their praises of the company, the production, the music.
Another delightful piece of hospitality was the party given at the Racquet Club in Chicago, following the first performance by Ruth Page, the well-known American dancer and choreographer, and her husband, Thomas Hart Fisher. Not only was there a wonderful champagne supper in the Club’s Refectory, at which the members of the company were the first to be served; but this was followed by a cabaret, the climax of which came when Margot, in a striking Dior gown of green, stepped down to essay the intricate steps of a new and unknown (to her) South American ball-room rhythm. She had never before seen or heard of the dance, but it was a joy to watch the musicality she brought to it.
It is not my custom to visit artists in the theatre before a performance, unless there has been some complaint, some annoyance, some trouble of some sort, something to straighten out. However, on this opening night in Chicago, I happened to be back stage in the Opera House on some errand. Since I was so close, I felt I wanted to wish the artists good-luck for their first Chicago performance, and, passing, knocked at Margot’s dressing-room door.
No reply.
I waited.
I knocked again.
No answer.
Puzzled, I walked away to return ten minutes later.
I knocked again.
Again no answer.
Worried, I opened the door.
“Don’t you hear me, Margot?” I asked.
Without glancing up, there came two words, no more. Two words, bitten off, crisp and sharp:
“G-e-t O—u—t!”
It was utterly unlike her. What had happened? I could not imagine. We had dined together the night before, together with “Freddy” Ashton, “Bobby” Helpmann and Moira Shearer. It had been a gay dinner, jolly. Margot had been her witty, amusing self. She had, I knew, been eagerly awaiting a letter from Paris, a letter from a particular friend. Perhaps it had not come. Perhaps it had. Whatever it was, I reasoned, at least it was not my fault. I was not to blame.
We met after the performance at the party. I was puzzled.
“Are you angry at me?” I asked her.
“I?” She smiled an uncomprehending smile. “Why on earth should I be angry at you?”
“You didn’t answer when I knocked at your door several times, and then, when I spoke, you told me, in no uncertain fashion, to get out.”
“Don’t you know that, before a performance, I won’t talk to anyone?” she said sternly.
Then she kissed me.
“Don’t take me too seriously,” she smiled, patting me on the shoulder, “but, remember, I don’t want to seeanyonebefore I go on.”
MARGOT FONTEYN
In Margot Fonteyn we have, in my opinion, the greatestballerinaof the western world, the greatestballerinaof the world of ballet as we know it. Born Margaret Hookham, in Surrey, in 1919, the daughter of an English businessman father and a dark-skinned, dark-haired mother of Irish and Brazilian ancestry, who is sometimes known as the Black Queen in the company, a reference to one of the leading characters inCheckmate. Margot was taken to China as a small child, where the family home was in Shanghai. There was also an interim period when she was a pupil in a school in such a characteristically American city as Louisville, Kentucky.
Margot tells a story to the effect that she was taken as a child to see a performance by Pavlova, and that she was not particularly impressed. It would be much better “copy,” infinitely better for publicity purposes, to have her say that visit changed the whole course of her life and that, from that moment, she determined not only to be a dancer, but to become Pavlova’s successor. But Margot Fonteyn is an honest person.
Her first dancing lessons came in Shanghai, at the hands of the Russian dancer and teacher, Goncharov. Back in London, she studied with Seraphina Astafieva, in the same Chelsea studio that had produced Markova and Dolin. At the age of fourteen, her mother took her, apparently not with too much willingness on Margot’s part, up to the Wells in Islington, to the Sadler’s Wells School. Ninette de Valois is said to have announced after her first class, in the decisive manner of “Madame,” a manner which brooks no dissent: “That child has talent.”
Fonteyn, in the early days, harbored no ideas of becoming aballerina. Her idealization of that remote peak of accomplishment was Karsavina, the one-time bright, shining star of the Diaghileff Ballet. All of which is not to say that Margot did not work hard, did not enjoy dancing. In class, in rehearsal, in performance, Fonteyn developed her own individuality, her own personality, without copying or imitating, consciously or unconsciously, any other artist.
It was after Markova left Sadler’s Wells to form her own company in association with Dolin that Fonteyn began to come into her own. Ninette de Valois had a plan, to which, like all her plans, she adhered. She had been grooming Fonteyn to take Markova’s place. The fact that she has done so is a matter of history, record, and fact. This is not the place for a catalogue of Fonteyn’s roles, or a list of her individual triumphs. Margot Fonteyn is very much with us, before us, among us, at the height of her powers. She speaks for herself. I merely want to give the reader enough background so that he may know the basic elements which have gone into the making of Margot Fonteyn,prima ballerina assoluta.
As a dancer, I find her appeal to me is two-fold: first as a pure classical dancer; second as an actress-dancer, by which I mean a dancer with a fine ability to characterize. This is important, for it implies few, if any, limitations. Pavlova, as I have pointed out, was free from limitations in the same way and, I think, to a similar degree. Anna Pavlova had a wide variety: she was a superb dramatic dancer inGiselle; she was equally at home in the brittle, glamorousFairy Doll; as the light-hearted protagonist of theRondino; as the bright-colored flirt of the TchaikowskyChristmas. Tamara Karsavina ranged the gamut fromCarnaval,Les Sylphides, andPavillon d’Armide, on the one hand, toSchéhérazade,Thamar, and the Miller’s Wife inThe Three-Cornered Hat, on the other, doing all with equal skill and artistry. In the same way, Fonteyn ranges, with equalperfection from the Princess Aurora ofThe Sleeping Beauty, the title role ofCinderella, andMam’zelle Angot, the Millers wife inThe Three-Cornered Hat, the tragic Giselle, Swanilda inCoppélia, the peasant Dulcinia inDon Quixote, on the one hand, to the pure, abstract dancing appeal of her lyrical roles in ballets such asSymphonic Variations,Scènes de Ballet,Ballet Imperial, andDante Sonata, on the other.
As a dancer, Fonteyn is freer of mannerisms than any otherballerinaI have known, devoid of tricks and those stunts sometimes called “showmanship” that are so often mere vulgar lapses from taste. About everything she does there is a strange combination of purity of style with a striking individuality that I can only identify and explain by that overworked term, “personality.” She has a superb carriage, the taut back of the perfect dancer, the faultless line and the ankles of the trueballerina. Over all is a great suppleness: the sort of suppleness that can make even an unexpected fall a thing of beauty. Forballerinassometimes fall, even as ordinary mortals. One such fall occurred on Fonteyn’s first entrance in the nation’s capital, before a gala audience at the Washingtonpremièreof Sadler’s Wells, with an audience that included President Truman, Sir Oliver Franks, and the entire diplomatic corps.
The cramped, ill-suited platform of Constitution Hall, was an inadequate, makeshift excuse for a stage. As Fonteyn entered to the resounding applause of thousands, she slipped on a loose board and fell, but gracefully and with such beauty that those in the audience who did not know might easily have thought it was a part of the choreographer’s design.
On the company’s return to London, at the close of the tour, the entire personnel were the guests at a formal dinner tendered to them by H. M. Government. The late Sir Stafford Cripps, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave the first toast to Fonteyn. Turning to her, Sir Stafford, in proposing the toast, said: “My dear lady, it has been brought to my attention that, in making your first entry into the American capital, you fell flat on your face.”
The Chancellor paused for an instant as he eyed her in mock severity, then added: “I beg you not to take it too much to heart. It is not the first time, nor, I feel sure, will it be the last, when your countrymen will be obliged to assume that same prostrate position on entering that city.”
To sum up my impressions of Fonteyn, the dancer, I should be