most distinguished attractions; my career has been punctuated with
stirring opening performances of my own, and I have been at others quite
as memorable. However, so far as the quality of the demonstrations and
the manifestations of enthusiasm are concerned, the _première_ of the
Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, on 9 October,
1949, was the most outstanding of my entire experience.
Dame Ninette de Valois, outwardly as calm as ever, but, I suspect,
inwardly a mass of conflicting emotions, was seated in the box with
Mayor O’Dwyer. As the curtains closed on the first act of _The Sleeping
Beauty_, and the tremendous roar of cheers and applause rose from the
packed house, the Mayor laid his hand on “Madame’s” arm and said, “Lady,
you’re _in_!”
Crisply and a shade perplexed, “Madame” replied:
“In?... Really?”
Genuinely puzzled now, she tried unsuccessfully to translate to herself
what this could mean. “Strange language,” she thought, “I’m _in_?... In
what?... What on earth does that mean?”
We met in the interval. I grasped her hand in sincere congratulation.
She patted me absently as she smiled. Then she turned and spoke.
“Look here,” she said, “could you translate for me, please, something
His Lordship just said to me as the curtain fell? Put it into English, I
mean?”
It was my turn to be puzzled. “Madame” was, I thought, seated with Mayor
O’Dwyer. Had she wandered about, moved to another box?
“His Lordship?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Your Lord Mayor, with whom I am sitting.”
I hadn’t thought of O’Dwyer in terms of a peer.
“Yes, yes,” she continued, “as the applause, that very surprising
applause rang out at the end, the Lord Mayor turned to me and said,
‘Lady, you’re _in_!’ Just like that. Now will you please translate for
me what it is? Tell me, is that good or bad?”
Laughingly I replied, “What do you think?”
“I really don’t know” was her serious and sincere response.
The simple fact was that Dame Ninette de Valois, D.B.E., D. Litt., to
whose untiring efforts Sadler’s Wells owes its success, its existence,
its very being, honestly thought the company was failing in New York.
This most gala of gala nights was crowned by a large and extremely gay
supper party given by Mayor O’Dwyer, at Gracie Mansion, the official
residence of the Mayor of the City of New York. It was a warm and balmy
night, with an Indian Summer moon--one of those halcyon nights all too
rare. Because of this, it was possible to stage the supper in that most
idyllic of settings, on the spacious lawn overlooking the moon-drenched
East River, with the silhouettes of the great bridges etched in silver
lights against the glow from the hundreds of colored lights strung over
the lawn. Beneath all this gleamed the white linen of the many tables,
the sparkle of crystal, the gloss of the silver.
Two orchestras provided continuous dance music, the food and the
champagne were ineffable. It was a party given by the Mayor: to honor
the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and to cement those cultural ties between the
two great world centers, London and New York. What better means are
there for mutual understanding and admiration?
There was, however, a delay on the part of the company in leaving the
Metropolitan Opera House, a quite extended delay. Three large buses
waited at the stage door, manned by Police Department Inspectors in
dress uniforms, with gold badges. But this was the first time the
company had worn the new evening creations I have mentioned. It took
longer to array themselves in these than it did for them to prepare for
the performance. As a matter of fact, Margot Fonteyn and Moira Shearer
were the last to be ready, each of them ravishing and stunning, the
dark, flashing brunette beauty of Fonteyn in striking contrast to the
soft, pinkish loveliness of Shearer.
Then it was necessary for our staff and the police to form a flying
wedge to clear a path from the stage door to the waiting buses through
the tightly-packed crowd that waited in Fortieth Street for a glimpse of
the triumphant stars.
Safe aboard at last, off the cavalcade started, headed by a Police
Department squad car, with siren tied down, red lights flashing,
together with two motorcycle police officers fifteen feet in advance and
the same complement, squad car and outriders, bringing up the rear of
the procession, through the red traffic lights, thus providing the
company with yet another American thrill.
There was a tense instant as the procession left the Metropolitan and
the police sirens commenced their wail. The last time the company had
heard a siren was in the days of the blitz in London, when, no matter
how inured one became, the siren’s first tintinnabulation brought on
that sudden shock that no familiarity can entirely eradicate. It was
Constant Lambert’s dry wit that eased the situation. “It’s all right,
girls,” he called out, “that’s the ‘all clear.’”.
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 the _corps de ballet_ girls 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_; and
_Checkmate_. 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 title _The 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-length _Swan Lake_ (_Le Lac des Cygnes_), actually in four
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 increased
_corps 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 Lake_
is, 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, was _Cinderella_, which took up every inch on the
great stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. _Cinderella_ was 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 the _Pavane_, the
_Minuet_, the _Saraband_, and the _Gaillard_.
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
of _Job_ occurs 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.
_Façade_ represented 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.
_Façade_ was 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 settings and
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.
_Apparitions_ perhaps bore too close a resemblance in plot to Massine’s
treatment of the Berlioz _Symphonie 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 Gorbals_ is 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.
Like _The Rake’s Progress_, _Miracle in the Gorbals_ is also a sort of
morality play, with strong overtones of a sociological tract. Bearing
plot and theme resemblances to Jerome K. Jerome’s _The 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 strictly down-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 was _Hamlet_, staged by him two years before
_Miracle in the Gorbals_, in 1942. Utilizing the Tchaikowsky
fantasy-overture, its tremendously effective scenery and costumes are by
Leslie Hurry.
_Hamlet_ was 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 Bouquet_ is 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 thwarted spinster
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.
_Checkmate_ was the first British ballet to have its _première_ outside
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 give a 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.