did the Paris Opera Ballet, through its director, Monsieur Georges
Hirsch. Ram Gopal, brilliant exponent of the dance of India, accepted
through his manager Julian Braunsweg; and, in this case, I was able to
assist him in his financial problems, by bringing him at my own expense.
Representing our native American dance were Doris Humphrey and Charles
Weidman, together with their company. I happen to feel this group is one
of the most representative of all our native practitioners of the “free”
dance, in works that often come to grips with the problems and conflicts
of life, and which eschew, at least for the time, pure abstraction. Most
notable of these works, works in this form, is their trilogy: _New
Dance_--_Theatre Piece_--_With My Red Fires_ American dance groups were
invited but for one reason or another were not able to accept.
As preparations for the Festival moved ahead, David Webster arrived from
London to investigate the physical possibilities for the participation
of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet as the national ballet of Great Britain.
The logical place for a Dance Festival of such proportions and such
significance, and one of such avowedly international and civic nature,
would have been the Metropolitan Opera House. Unfortunately, the
Metropolitan had commitments with another ballet company. My friend and
colleague, Edward Johnson, the then General Manager of the Metropolitan
Opera Company, regretted the situation and did everything in his power
to remedy the position and free our first lyric theatre for such an
important civic event. However, the other dance organization insisted on
its contractual rights and refused to give way, or to divide the time in
any way.
The only other place left, therefore, was the New York City Center, in
West Fifty-fifth Street. Webster made a thorough inspection of this
former Masonic Temple from front to back, but found the place entirely
inadequate, with a stage and an orchestra pit infinitely too small, and
the theatre itself quite unsatisfactory for a company the size of the
Covent Garden organization and productions. As a matter of fact, it
would be hard to find a less satisfactory theatre for ballet production.
As Webster and I went over the premises together, I sensed his feeling
about the building, which I shared. Nevertheless, I tried to hide my
disappointment when, at last, he turned to me and said: “It’s no go. We
can’t play here. Let us postpone the visit till we can come to be seen
on your only appropriate stage, the Metropolitan.”
We had had preliminary meetings with the British Consul General and his
staff; plans and promotion were rapidly crystallizing, and my
disappointment was none the less keen simply because I knew the reasons
for the postponement were sound, and that it could not be otherwise.
The Dance Festival itself, without Sadler’s Wells, had its successes and
left a mark on the local dance scene. The City Center was no more
satisfactory, I am afraid, for the Ballet of the Opera of Paris,
presented by the French National Lyric Theatre, under the auspices of
the Cultural Relations Department of the French Foreign Ministry, than
it would have been for the Covent Garden company. It was necessary to
trim the scenery, omit much of it, and use only part of the personnel of
the company at a time. But, on the other hand, it was a genuine pleasure
to welcome them on their first visit to the United States and Canada. In
addition to the Dance Festival Season in New York, we played highly
successful engagements in Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago.
The company was headed by a distinguished French _ballerina_ in the true
French style, Yvette Chauviré. Other principal members of the company,
all from the higher echelons of the Paris Opera, included Roger Ritz,
Christiane Vaussard, Michel Renault, Alexandre Kalioujny, Micheline
Bardin, and Max Bozzini, with Robert Blot and Richard Blareau as
conductors. The repertoire included _Ports of Call_, Serge Lifar’s
ballet to Jacques Ibert’s _Escales_; _Salad_, a Lifar work to a Darius
Milhaud creation; Lifar’s setting of Ravel’s _Pavane_; _The Wise
Animals_, based on the Jean de la Fontaine fables, by Lifar, to music by
Francis Poulenc; _Suite in White_, from Eduardo Lalo’s _Naouma_; _Punch
and the Policeman_, staged by Lifar to a score by Jolivet;
_Divertissement_, cuttings from Tchaikowsky’s _The Sleeping Beauty_;
_The Peri_, Lifar’s staging of the well-known ballet score by Paul
Dukas; _The Crystal Palace_, Balanchine’s ballet to Bizet’s symphony,
known here as _Symphony in C_; Vincent d’Indy’s _Istar_, in the Lifar
choreography; _Gala Evening_, taken from Delibes’ _La Source_, by Leo
Staats; Albert Aveline’s _Elvira_, to Scarlatti melodies orchestrated by
Roland Manuel; André Messager’s _The Two Pigeons_, choreographed by
Albert Aveline; the Rameau _Castor and Pollux_, staged by Nicola Guerra;
_The Knight and the Maiden_, a two-act romantic ballet, staged by Lifar
to a score by Philippe Gaubert; and _Les Mirages_, a classical work by
Lifar, to music by Henri Sauguet.
Serge Lifar returned to America, not to dance, but as the choreographer
of the company of which he is the head.
I happen to know certain facts about Lifar’s behavior during the
Occupation of France, facts I did not know at the time of the
publication of my earlier book, _Impresario_. Certain statements I made
in that book concerning Serge Lifar were made on the basis of such
information as I had at the time, which I believed was reliable. I have
subsequently learned that it was not correct, and I have also
subsequently had additional, quite different, and reliably documented
information which makes me wish to acknowledge that an error of judgment
was expressed on the basis of inconclusive evidence. Lifar may not have
been a hero; very possibly, and quite probably, he may have been
indiscreet; but it is now obvious to any fair-minded person that there
has been a good deal of malicious gossip spread about him.
Lifar was restored to his post at the head of the Paris Opera Ballet by
M. Georges Hirsch, Administrator, Director of the French National Lyric
Theatres, himself a war-hero with a distinguished record. The dancers
of the Paris Opera Ballet threatened to strike unless Lifar was so
restored; the stage-hands, with definite indications of Communist
inspiration, to strike if he was. Hirsch had the courage of his
convictions. I have found that Lifar did not take the Paris Opera Ballet
to Berlin during the Occupation, as has been alleged in this country,
although the Germans wanted it badly; and I happen to know numerous
other French companies did go. I also have learned that it was Serge
Lifar who prevented the Paris Opera Ballet from going. I happen to know
that Lifar did fly in a German plane to Kieff, his birthplace; as I
happen to know that he did not show Hitler through the Paris Opera
itself, as one widely-spread rumor has had it. As a matter of fact,
stories to the effect that he did both these things have been widely
circulated. I happen to have learned that Lifar made a tremendous effort
to save that splendid gentleman, René Blum, but was unable to prevail
against Blum’s patriotic but unfortunately stupid determination to
remain in Paris. I also happen to know that Lifar was personally active
in saving many Jews and also other liberals from deportation. Moreover,
I know that, as has always been characteristic of Lifar, because he was
one who had, he helped from his own pocket those who had not.
The performances of the Ballet of the Paris Opera at the City Center
were not the slightest proof of the quality of its productions or its
performance. The shocking limitations of the playhouse made necessary a
vast reduction of its personnel, its scenery, its essential quality. The
Paris Opera Ballet is, of course, a State Ballet in the fullest sense of
the term. It is an aristocratic organization, conscious of the great
tradition that hangs over it. The air is thick with it. Its dancers are
civil servants of the Republic of France and their promotion in rank
follows upon a strict examination pattern. It would be interesting one
day to see the company at the Metropolitan Opera House, where its
original setting could be approximated, although I fear the Metropolitan
has nothing comparable with the _foyer de la dance_ of the Paris Opera.
Here is ballet on a big scale and in the grand manner, with all the
scenic and costume panoply of the art at its most grandiose. It is the
sort of fine ballet that succeeds in giving the art an immense
popularity with the masses.
As a matter of fact, I am negotiating with the very able Maurice
Lehmann, the successor to Georges Hirsch as Director-General of the
Opera, and I can think of no happier result than to be able to bring
this rich example of the balletic art of France to America under the
proper circumstances and conditions, if for no other reason than to
compensate the organization for their previous visit.
* * * * *
The International Dance Festival over, my chief desire was to bring
Sadler’s Wells to this continent.
Perhaps it would be as well, for the sake of the reader who may be
unfamiliar with its background and thus disposed to regard this as
merely another ballet company, to shed a bit of light on the Sadler’s
Wells organization.
Following the death of Diaghileff, in 1929, we knew that ballet in
Britain was in a sad state of decline, from which it might well never
have emerged had it not been for two groups, the Ballet Club of Marie
Rambert and the Camargo Society. Each was to be of vital importance to
the ballet picture in Britain and, indirectly, in the world. The
offspring of the Ballet Club was the Rambert Ballet; that of the Camargo
Society, the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. As a matter of fact, the Camargo
Society, a Sunday night producing club, utilized the Ballet Club dancers
and another studio group headed by the lady now known as Dame Ninette de
Valois, D.B.E., D. Litt.
Back in 1931, at the time of the formation of the Camargo Society, the
little acorn from which grew a mighty British oak, Dame Ninette,
“Madame” as she is known to all who know her, was plain Ninette de
Valois, who was born Edris Stannus, in Ireland, in 1898. She had joined
the Diaghileff Ballet as a dancer in 1923, had risen to the rank of
soloist (a rare accomplishment for a non-Russian), and left the great
man, daring to differ with him on the direction he was taking, something
amounting to _lese majesté_. She had produced plays, in the meantime, at
Dublin’s famous Abbey Theatre and at Cambridge University’s Festival
Theatre; and had also formed a choreographic group of her own which she
brought along to the Camargo Society to cooperate. When she did so, she
was far from famous. As a matter of fact, she was, to all intents and
purposes, unknown.
One Sunday night in 1931, two things happened to Ninette de Valois: she
became famous overnight, which, knowing her as I do, was of much less
importance to her than the fact that, quite unwittingly, she laid the
foundation for a British National Ballet under her own direction.
The work she produced for the Camargo Society on this Sunday night in
1931 did it. It was not a ballet in the strictest or accepted sense of
the word. Its composer called it _A Masque for Dancing_. The work was
_Job_, a danced and mimed interpretation of the Biblical story, in the
spirit of the painter and poet Blake, to one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s
noblest scores.
From Biblical inspiration she turned to the primitive, in a production
of Darius Milhaud’s _Creation du Monde_, a noble subject dealing with
the primitive gods of Easter Island, set to the 1923 jazz of the French
composer.
Coincidental with the Camargo Society activities, Ninette de Valois was
making arrangements with another great Englishwoman, Lilian Baylis, who
had brought opera and drama to the masses at two theatres in the less
fashionable parts of London, the Old Vic, in the Waterloo Road, and
Sadler’s Wells, in Islington’s Rosebery Avenue. Lilian Baylis wanted a
ballet company. Armed with only her own determination and
high-mindedness, she had established a real theatre for the masses.
Ninette de Valois, for a penny, started in with her group to do the
opera ballets at the Old Vic: those interludes in _Carmen_ and _Faust_
and _Samson and Delilah_ that exist primarily to keep the dull
businessman in his seat with his wife instead of at the bar. However,
Lilian Baylis gave Ninette de Valois a ballet school, and it was in the
theatre, where a ballet school belonged, a part of and an adjunct to the
theatre. The Vic-Wells Ballet, soon to become the Sadler’s Wells Ballet,
was the result.
It was not nearly as easy and as simple as it sounds as I write it. It
is beyond me fully to convey to the reader those qualities of tenacity
of purpose, of driving energy, of fearless courage that this remarkable
woman was forced to draw upon in the early years. There was no money;
and before a single penny could be separated from her, it had to be
melted from the glue with which she stuck every penny to the inside of
her purse.
Alicia Markova joined the company. Anton Dolin was a frequent guest
artist. It was, in a sense, a Markova company, with the three most
popular works: _Swan Lake_, _The Nutcracker_, and _Giselle_.
But, most importantly, Ninette de Valois had that vital requisite
without which, no matter how solvent the financial backing, no ballet
company is worth the price of its toe-shoes, viz., a policy. Ninette de
Valois’ policy for repertoire is codified into a simple formula:
1) Traditional-classical and romantic works.
2) Modern works of future classic importance.
3) Current work of more topical interest.
4) Works encouraging a strictly national tendency in their creation
generally.
The first constitutes the foundation-stone, technical standard, and
historical knowledge that is demanded as a “means test” by which
the abilities of the young dancers are both developed and inspired.
The second, those works which both musically and otherwise have a
future that may be regarded as the major works of this generation.
The third, the topical and sometimes experimental, of merely
ephemeral interest and value, yet important as a means of balancing
an otherwise ambitious programme.
The fourth is important to the national significance of the ballet.
Such works constitute the nation’s own contribution to the theatre,
and are in need perhaps of the most careful guidance of the groups.
It was the classics which had, from the beginning, the place of
priority: _Swan Lake (Act II)_, _Les Sylphides_, _Carnaval_, _Coppélia_,
_The Nutcracker_, _Giselle_, and the full-length _Swan Lake_.
In 1935, Markova left Sadler’s Wells to form her own company with Dolin.
With Markova’s departure, the whole character of the Sadler’s Wells
company changed. The Company became the Star. The company got along
without a _ballerina_ and concentrated on its own personality, on
developing dancers from its school, and on its direction. Creation and
development continued.
However, during this time, there was emerging not precisely a “star,”
but a great _ballerina_. _Ballerina_ is a term greatly misused in the
United States, where any little dancer is much too often referred to
both in the press and in general conversation in this way. _Ballerina_
is a title, not a term. The title is one earned only through long, hard
experience. It is attained _only_ in the highly skilled interpretation
of the great standard classical parts. Russia, France, Italy, Denmark,
countries where there are state ballets, know these things. We in the
United States, I fear, do not understand. A “star” is not one merely by
virtue of billing. A _ballerina_ is, of course, a “star,” even in a
company that has no “stars” in its billing and advertising. A true
_ballerina_ is a rare bird indeed. In an entire generation, it should be
remembered, the Russian Imperial Ballet produced only enough for the
fingers of two hands.
The great _ballerina_ I have mentioned as having come up through the
Sadler’s Wells Company, as the product of that company, is more than a
_ballerina_. She is a _prima ballerina assoluta_, a product of Sadler’s
Wells training, of the Sadler’s Wells system, a member of that all-round
team that is Sadler’s Wells. Her name is Margot Fonteyn. I shall have
something to say about her later on.
I have pointed out that the backbone of the Sadler’s Wells repertoire is
the classics. Therein, in my opinion, lies one of the chief reasons for
its great success. There is a second reason, I believe. That is that,
along with Ninette de Valois’ sound production policy, keeping step with
it, sometimes leading it, is an equally sound musical policy. Sitting in
with de Valois and Frederick Ashton, as the third of the directorial
triumvirate, was the brilliant musician, critic, and wit, Constant
Lambert, who exerted a powerful influence in the building of the
repertoire, and who, with the sympathetic cooperation of his two
colleagues, made the musical standards of Sadler’s Wells the highest of
any ballet company in my knowledge and experience.
The company grew and prospered. The war merely served to intensify its
efforts--and its accomplishments. Its war record is a brilliant, albeit
a difficult one; a record of unremitting hard work and dogged
perseverance against terrible odds. The company performed unceasingly
throughout the course of the war, with bombs falling. Once the dancing
was stopped, while the dancers fought a fire ignited by an incendiary
bomb and thus saved the theatre. The company was on a good-will tour of
Holland, under the auspices of the British Council, in the spring of
1940. They were at Arnheim when Hitler invaded. Packed into buses, they
raced ahead of the Panzers, reached the last boat to leave, left minus
everything, but everything: productions, scenery, costumes, properties,
musical material, and every scrap of personal clothing.
Once back in Britain, there was no cessation. The lost productions and
costumes were replaced; the musical material renewed, some of it, since
it was manuscript, by reorchestrating it from gramophone recordings. As
the Battle of Britain was being fought, the company toured the entire
country, with two pianos in lieu of orchestra, with Constant Lambert
playing the first piano. They played in halls, in theatres, in camps, in
factories; brought ballet to soldiers and sailors, to airmen, and to
factory workers, often by candlelight. They managed to create new works.
Back to London, to a West End theatre, with orchestra, and then, because
of the crowds, to a larger West End playhouse.
It was at the end of the war, as I have mentioned earlier, that the
music publishing house of Boosey and Hawkes, with a splendid
generosity, saved the historic Royal Opera House, at Covent Garden, from
being turned into a popular dance hall. A common error on the part of
Americans is to believe that because it was called the Royal Opera
House, it was a State-supported theatre, as, for example, are the Royal
Opera House of Denmark, at Copenhagen, and the Paris Opéra. Among those
Maecenases who had made opera possible in the old days in London was Sir
Thomas Beecham, who made great personal sacrifices to keep it open.
When Boosey and Hawkes took over Covent Garden, it was on a term lease.
On taking possession they immediately turned over the historic edifice
to a committee known as the Covent Garden Opera Trust, of which the
chairman was Lord Keynes, the distinguished economist and art patron
who, as plain Mr. John Maynard Keynes, had been instrumental in the
formation of the Camargo Society, and who had married the one-time
Diaghileff _ballerina_, Lydia Lopokova; this committee had acted as
god-parents to the Sadler’s Wells company in its infancy. The Arts
Council supported the venture, and David Webster was appointed
Administrator.
* * * * *
A word or two about the Arts Council and its support of the arts in
Britain is necessary for two reasons: one, because it is germane to the
story of Sadler’s Wells, and, two, germane to some things I wish to
point out in connection with subsidy of the arts in these troubled
times, since I believe a parallel can be drawn with our own hit-and-miss
financing.
Under the British system, there is no attempt to interfere with
aesthetics. The late Sir Stafford Cripps pointed out that the Government
should interfere as little as possible in the free development of art.
The British Government’s attitude has, perhaps, been best stated by
Clement Atlee, as Prime Minister, when he said: “I think that we are all
of one mind in desiring that art should be free.” He added that he
thought the essential purpose of an organized society was to set free
the creative energies of the individual, while safeguarding the
well-being of all. The Government, he continued, must try to provide
conditions in which art might flourish.
There is no “Ministry of Fine Arts” as in most continental and South
American countries. The Government’s interest in making art better known
and more within the reach of all is expressed through three bodies: the
Arts Council, the British Film Institute, and the British Council.
The Arts Council was originally known by the rather unwieldy handle of
C. E. M. A. (The Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts),
originally founded by a gift from an American and Lord De La Warr, then
President of the Board of Education. In 1945, the Government decided to
continue the work, changed the name from C. E. M. A. to the Arts Council
of Great Britain, gave it Parliamentary financial support, and granted
it, on 9 August, 1946, a Royal Charter to develop “a greater knowledge,
understanding and practice of fine arts exclusively, and in particular
to increase the availability of the fine arts to the public ... to
improve the standard of the execution of the fine arts and to advise and
cooperate with ... Government departments, local authorities and other
bodies on matters concerned directly or indirectly with those objects.”
Now, the Arts Council, while sponsored by the Government, is not a
Government department. Its chairman and governors (called members of the
Council) are appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer after
consultation with the Minister of Education and the Secretary of State
for Scotland. The Chancellor answers for the Council in the House of
Commons. While the Council is supported by a Government grant, its
employees are in no sense civil servants, and the Council enjoys an
independence that would not be possible were it a Government department.
The first chairman of the Arts Council, and also a former chairman of C.
E. M. A., was Lord Keynes. His influence on the policy and direction of
the organization was invaluable. There are advisory boards, known as
panels, appointed for three years, experts chosen by the Council because
of their standing in and knowledge of their fields. Among many others,
the following well-known artists have served, without payment: Sir
Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Noel Coward, Peggy Ashcroft, J. B.
Priestley, Dame Myra Hess, Benjamin Britten, Tyrone Guthrie, Dame
Ninette de Valois, and Henry Moore.
While statistics can be dull, a couple are necessary to the picture to
show how the Arts Council operates. For example, the Arts Council’s
annual grant from the British Treasury has risen each year: in
1945-1946, the sum was £235,000 ($658,000); in 1950-1951, £675,000
($1,890,000).
Treasury control is maintained through a Treasury Assessor to the Arts
Council; on his advice, the Chancellor of the Exchequer recommends to
Parliament a sum to be granted. The Assessor is in a position to judge
whether the money is being properly distributed, but he does not
interfere with the complete autonomy of the Council.