it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be
constructed. Personally, I am inclined to doubt if wars ever begin in
the minds of men, but I should be the last to dispute that it is in the
minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
It was on the 28th January, 1951, that the greatest ballet tour in North
American history came to an end in Quebec City. It was a night of mixed
feelings. The company was, of course, eager to get home to London, and
also had a longing to continue here. There were the tugs of parting on
the part of our American staff. Our American Sadler’s Wells Orchestra,
forty-odd strong, the largest orchestra to tour with a ballet company in
America, adored the company and the curtain had to be held on the last
ballet on the programme, for the entire orchestra lined up to collect
autographed photographs of their favorites, and refused to heed the
orchestra personnel manager’s frantic pleas to enter the pit before each
musician had his treasured picture. It was quite unusual, I assure you,
for musicians are not noted for their interest in a _ballerina_. A
sentimental, romantic interest between a musician and a dancer is
something quite different, and is not at all unusual.
Although it was Sunday night, when the “blue laws” of Quebec frown upon
music, gaiety, and alcohol, we managed, nevertheless, to have a genuine
farewell celebration, which took the form of an after-performance dinner
at the Chateau Frontenac. The company got into their evening-clothes for
the last time on this side of the Atlantic, piled into buses at the
theatre and returned to the hotel, while the “Sadler’s Wells Special”
that was to take them back to Montreal, waited at the station. It waited
a long time, for the night’s celebration at the Chateau lasted until
four-thirty in the morning. It was a festive affair, with as fine a
dinner as could be prepared, and the wines and champagne were both
excellent and ample. We had set up a pre-dinner cocktail room in one of
the Chateau’s private rooms, and had taken the main restaurant, the
great hall of the Chateau, for the dinner. Before the dancing
commenced--yes, despite the long tour, despite the two days the company
had spent skiing and tobogganing in Quebec, with three performances in
an inadequate theatre, they danced--the dessert was served. I should
like to list the entire menu, but the dessert will give an indication of
its nature. The lights in the great dining room were extinguished, the
orchestra struck a chord, and a long line of waiters entered each
bearing flaming platters of _Omelette Norvegienne Flambée des
Mignardires_.
The guests included the Premier of Quebec and officials of the Quebec
Government. The only note that dimmed the gaiety of the occasion was the
absence of Dame Ninette de Valois and David Webster, both in London
preparing for the new season. It was not an occasion for long speeches;
our hearts and our stomachs were too full. However, I expressed my
sincere thanks to the entire organization and, in the absence of
“Madame” and Webster, Herbert Hughes, the general manager of the Ballet,
replied, and announced to the company the figures for the tour, amidst
cheers. Then followed the touching incident of the toast to Fonteyn I
have mentioned.
Before the dancing began, a sudden mania for autographs started, with
everybody collecting every other person’s autograph on the large,
specially printed menus, which I had previously autographed. Apparently
all wanted a menu as a souvenir of a venture that had gone down in the
annals of ballet and entertainment as the greatest success of all time.
From then on the dancing was general, the gaiety waxed higher. I was
doing a _schottische_ with the two-hundred-fifty pound Cockney Chief
Carpenter, Horace Fox, when one of my staff who was responsible for
transportation slid up to the orchestra leader and whispered “The King!”
We all stood silently at attention for the last time. It was well past
four in the morning, and it was to be yet another case of “touch and go”
if the “Sadler’s Wells Special” could make Montreal in time for the
departure of the special BOAC planes which were to take the company back
to London.
The company changed into traveling clothes as quickly as possible, and
buses slithered down the steep slopes of Quebec to the Station, where
harried railroad officials were holding the train. There was yet another
delay for one person who was left behind on urgent business, finally to
be seen coming, with two porters carrying his open bags and yet another
bellboy with unpacked clothes and toilet articles. As the last of the
retinue was pushed aboard, the train started. But it was long before
sleep came, and for another two hours the party continued up and down
the length of the train, in compartments, bedrooms, washrooms, as staff,
orchestra, stage-hands broke all unwritten laws of fraternization.
All were asleep, however, when the train swayed violently and with
groaning and bumping came to a sudden stop. It was the last journey and
it, of course, simply had to happen. The flanges on the wheels of two of
the baggage cars that had made the 21,000-mile journey gave way just as
the train started the long crossing of the Three Rivers Bridge between
Quebec and Montreal. Fortunately, we were moving slowly at the approach
to the bridge, slowing down for the crossing, or else--I shudder to
think what might have occurred if we had been trying to make up
time--the greatest tour of history would have ended in a ghastly
tragedy.
As a result of the derailment taking place on the bridge, we were hours
late arriving in Montreal. But the tour was over!
Here was a tour where every record of every sort had been broken. It had
reached the point where, if there was a pair of unoccupied seats in any
auditorium from coast to coast and back again, we were all likely to
feel as if the end of the world was at hand. I have mentioned the
mundane matter of the financial returns. From a critical point of view,
I cannot attempt to summarize the spate of eulogy that greeted the
company in every city. Cynics may have something to say about this, to
the effect that the critics had been overpowered by size and glamor.
But a careful consideration of it all, a sober analysis, disproves any
suggestion that this was the result of any uncritical rush of blood to
the head. On the contrary, it reveals that the critical faculty was
carefully exercised and that the collective testimony to the excellence
of Sadler’s Wells was based on sound appreciation.
It is impossible for me to bring to a close this phase of the concise
history of the association in ballet of which I am the proudest in my
life without sketching an outline of the quartet that makes Sadler’s
Wells the great institution it is, together with a few of the
outstanding personalities that give it color and are such an important
part of it.
The list is long, and lack of space limits my consideration to a few.
First of all, let me pay tribute to that directorial triumvirate to
whom, collectively and individually, Sadler’s Wells owes its existence
and its superior place in the world of ballet in our time: Ninette de
Valois, Frederick Ashton, and Constant Lambert. Lamentably, the
triumvirate is now a duo, owing to the recent untimely passing of the
third member.
_NINETTE DE VALOIS_
I have more than once indicated my own deep admiration for Ninette de
Valois and have sketched, as best I can, her tremendous contribution. In
all my experience of artists, I have never known a harder worker, a more
single-purposed practical idealist, a more concentrated and devoted
human being. In addition to being the chief executive of Sadler’s Wells,
burdened with the responsibility for two ballet companies and a school,
she is a striking creator.
Living with her husband-physician down in Surrey, she does her marketing
before she leaves home in the morning for the Garden; travels up on the
suburban train; spends long hours at her work; goes back to Surrey,
often late at night, sometimes to prepare dinner, since the servant
problem in Britain is acute; and has been known to tidy up her husband’s
surgery for the next morning, before herself calling it a day. All this,
day in and day out, is done with zest and vigor.
An idealist she is and yet, at the same time, completely realistic.
Without wishing to cast the remotest reflection on the feminine sex, I
would say that Ninette de Valois has a masculine mind in her approach to
problems artistic or business, and to life itself. She feels things
passionately, and these qualities are apparent in everything she does.
When her mind is made up, there is no budging her. In a less intelligent
person this might be labelled stubbornness.
Like the majority of English dancers, prior to her establishment of a
British national ballet, she was brought up in the traditions of Russian
ballet. But it should be remembered that she was the first one to break
up the foundation of the Russian tradition, utilizing its richness to
create an English national school. At Sadler’s Wells, in collaboration
with Constant Lambert, she has devoted a great deal of attention to the
music of our time, although this has never taken the form of any denial
or repudiation of the tradition of the old Russian school--on the
contrary, her work at Sadler’s Wells has been a continuation and
development of that school, using the new to enrich the old.
As a person with whom to work, I find her completely fascinating. I have
never known any one even faintly like her. Her magnificent sense of
organization is but one aspect of what I have called her “masculinity”
of mind. Figures as well as _fouettés_ are a part of her life. She is
adept at handling both situations and individuals. Her dancers obey the
slightest lifting of her eyebrows, for she is a masterful person,
although quite impersonal in her mastery. She possesses the art of the
single withering sentence. Her superb organizing ability has enabled her
to surround herself with a highly able staff; but the sycophantic
“yes-man” is something for which she has no time. Hers is a
rapid-working mind, often being several leaps ahead of all others in a
conference. Sincere, honest criticism she welcomes; anything other, she
detests. I remember an occasion when a certain critic made a comment
based on nothing more than personal bias and a twisted, highly personal
approach. Her response was acid, biting, withering, and I was glad I was
not on the receiving end.
I am sure that Ninette de Valois was convinced of her mission early in
her career. That mission--to found a truly national British ballet--she
has richly fulfilled. Much of the work involved in this fulfilment has
been the exercise of great organizing and executive ability: in the
formulation of policy and plans as well as carrying them out; in the
employment of a large number of talented and efficient people; in
determining the scale on which the venture should be conducted.
I have spoken of “Madame’s” ability to handle people. This has earned
her, in some quarters, an undeserved reputation for being a forbidding
and austere person. The fact that she is, as she must be, a strict
disciplinarian with her company, does not mean that she cannot be a
genuinely gay and amusing person. In certain respects, despite her Irish
birth as Edris Stannus, she is a veritable English lady, in the best
sense of the term, with an English lady’s virtues (and they are
numerous). These virtues include, among others, a very definite,
forceful, but quiet efficiency; more than average common sense; a
passion for being fair; the inbred necessity for being economical.
Against all this is set that quality of idealism that turned a dancing
school into a great national ballet. Idealism dreamed it, practicality
brought it to fruition.
In those far-off days before the second world war, when I used to visit
the ballet in Russia, it was one of my delights to go to the classes of
the late Agrippina Vaganova, one of the greatest of ballet teachers of
all time, and to watch this wise and highly talented ballet-mistress at
work.
I noted that it was Vaganova’s invariable custom to open her classes
with a two or three minute talk, in which she would compliment the
company, and individuals in particular, on their work in the ballet
performance the night before, closing with:
“I am proud of you. Thank you very much.”
Then they would go to work in the class, subjected to the strictest
discipline, and, sometimes, to the sharpest and most caustic sort of
criticism imaginable. Then, at the end of the class, again came
individual approbation and encouragement.
This is the sort of little thing I have never observed at Sadler’s
Wells. It may, of course, be there; and again, it may not.
The Sadler’s Wells personnel love “Madame”; regard it as a high
privilege to be a part of the Wells organization; do not look on their
association merely as a “job.”
It might be that “Madame” could advantageously employ Vaganova’s method
in this regard, use her example in her own relations with her company.
Certainly, it could do no harm, as I see it. It may well be that she
does. The point is that I have never seen it in practice.
In the better part of a lifetime spent in the midst of the dance, I can
remember no one with a greater devotion to ballet, or one willing to
make more sacrifices for it, and for the spreading of its gospel.
Let me cite just one example of this devotion. It was during the second
North American tour of the Sadler’s Wells company that, despite all the
demands made upon her time and energy, she was impelled to undertake a
long lecture tour of Canada and the Northwest to spread the gospel of
ballet and the British Council.
Herbert Hughes, the general manager, came to me to point out that since
“Madame” had to do this, he felt we should send some one to accompany
her, because she was unfamiliar with the country, and with the train and
air schedules.
I fully concurred, in view of all he had said, and the possibility of
inclement weather at that time of the year.
Together we approached “Madame” with the idea. It did not meet with her
approval. It was quite unnecessary. She was quite able to take care of
herself. She did not want any one “making a fuss” over her.
Of course, she would require funds for her expenses. Hughes prevailed
upon her to accept $300 as petty cash. “Madame” stuffed the money into
her capacious reticule.
When “Madame” rejoined the company, she brought back $137 of the $300.
“This is the balance,” she said to Hughes, “I didn’t spend it.”
This entire lecture tour, in which she covered thousands of miles, was
but another example of her tirelessness and Ninette de Valois’
single-track mind.
She was due to rejoin the company at the Ambassador Hotel, in Los
Angeles, on the morning of the Los Angeles _première_ of the Sadler’s
Wells Ballet, at which time we had arranged a large breakfast
press-conference, over which “Madame” was to preside.
“Madame” was due by airplane from Vancouver early the previous evening.
Hughes suggested that he should go to the airport to greet her, or that
some one should be sent; but I vetoed the idea, remembering that
“Madame” did not want a “fuss” made over her. Although the plane was due
round about nine o’clock in the evening, midnight had produced no
“Madame.” A telephonic check with the Terminal assured us the plane had
arrived safely and on time. Hughes and I sat up until three-thirty in
the morning waiting, but in vain.
I was greatly disturbed and exercised when, at nine the next morning,
she had not put in an appearance. The press-conference was set for ten
o’clock, and “Madame” was its most important feature. Moreover, I was
concerned for her safety.
A few minutes before the start of the breakfast conference, unperturbed,
unruffled, neat and calm as always, “Madame” entered the Ambassador
foyer with her customary spirit and swift, sure gait.
We gathered round her. What had happened? Was she all right? Had
anything gone wrong?
“Don’t be silly. What _could_ go wrong?”
But what had happened? We pressed for an explanation.
“The strangest thing, my dears,” she said. “When I arrived last night, I
looked in my bag for the piece of paper on which I had noted the name of
this hotel. I couldn’t find it; nor could I, for the life of me,
remember it.”
“What did you do?”
“Do? I went to sleep at the airport.”
“And--?”
“And this morning I said to myself, ‘Come, pull yourself together.’ I
tried an old law of association of ideas. I managed to remember
the name of this hotel had something to do with diplomacy.
‘Diplomacy--Diplomacy,’ I said to myself.... ‘Embassy?... No, that’s not
it.’ I tried again.... ‘Ambassador?’ ... There, you have it. And here I
am.... Let us go, or we shall be late. Where is this press conference?”
That is Ninette de Valois.
Ninette de Valois’ work as a choreographer speaks for itself. Her
approach to any work is always professional, always intellectual, never
amateur, never sentimental. Some of her works may be more successful
than others, whether they are academic or highly original, but each
bears the imprint of one of the most distinctive, able, and agile minds
in the history of ballet.
So far as I have been able to observe, Ninette de Valois _is_ Sadler’s
Wells. Sadler’s Wells _is_ the national ballet of Britain. In looking
objectively at the organization, with its two fine companies, its
splendid school, I pray that Ninette de Valois may long be spared, for,
with all its splendid organization, Sadler’s Wells and British national
ballet are synonyms, and unless the dear lady has someone up her sleeve,
I cannot, for the life of me, see a successor in the offing.
_FREDERICK ASHTON_
Frederick Ashton, the chief choreographer of the company, is the
complete antithesis of his colleague. Where de Valois is realistic,
“Freddy” is sentimental. Where “Madame” may sometimes be rigid, Ashton
is adaptable. Some of his work is “slick” and smooth. He is a romantic,
but by that I do not necessarily mean a “neo-romantic.”
Ashton was born in Ecuador, in 1909, which does not make him Ecuadorian,
any more than the fact that he spent his childhood in Peru, makes him
Peruvian. His British parents happened to be living there at the time.
It is said that his interest in dance was first aroused upon seeing Anna
Pavlova dance in far-off Peru.
Moving to London with his parents, “Freddy” had the privilege of being
exposed to performances of the Diaghileff Company, and he had his first
ballet lessons from Leonide Massine. Massine turned him over to Marie
Rambert when he left London. It was for Rambert that he staged his first
work, _The Tragedy of Fashion_, for the Nigel Playfair revue,
_Hammersmith Nights_, in 1926. An interim in Paris with Ida Rubenstein,
Nijinska, and Massine, was followed by a long time with Marie Rambert
and her Ballet Club. The Paris interlude with Nijinska and Massine
affected him profoundly. He was a moving figure in the life of the
Camargo Society, and in 1935 he joined the Vic-Wells (later to be known
as the Sadler’s Wells Ballet), as resident choreographer.
During the years between, Ashton has become England’s great creator. He
is also a character dancer of wide variety, as witness his Carabosse in
_The Sleeping Beauty_, his shy and wistful Ugly Sister in _Cinderella_.
His contribution to ballet in England is tremendous. Nigh on to a dozen
ballets for the Ballet Rambert; something between twenty-five and thirty
for the Sadler’s Wells organization; _Devil’s Holiday_ for the Ballet
Russe de Monte Carlo, a work which, because of the outbreak of the war,
he was unable to complete, and which was never seen in this country with
its creator’s full intentions; two works in New York for the New York
City Ballet; and the original production of the Gertrude Stein-Virgil
Thomson _Four Saints in Three Acts_, in New York.
It is interesting to note the wide variety of his creative work by
listing some of his many works, which, in addition to those mentioned
above, include, among others, the following: For the Ballet Club of
Marie Rambert: _Les Petits Riens_, _Leda and the Swan_, _Capriol Suite_,
_The Lady of Shalott_, _La Peri_, _Foyer de Danse_, _Les Masques_,
_Mephisto Valse_, and several others.
For that founding society of contemporary British ballet, which I have
mentioned before, the Camargo Society: _Pomona_, _Façade_, _The Lord of
Burleigh_, _Rio Grande_ (originally known as _A Day In a Southern
Port_), and other works.
I have already mentioned some of his outstanding works for the Sadler’s
Wells Ballet. Others include _Nocturne_, to Delius’s _Paris_;
_Apparitions_, to a Liszt-Lambert score; _Les Rendez-vous_, to a
Constant Lambert score based on melodies by Auber, seen in America in
the repertoire of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet; the delicious _A
Wedding Bouquet_, to an original score by Lord Berners and a Gertrude
Stein text; _Les Patineurs_, to melodies by Meyerbeer; Constant
Lambert’s _Horoscope_; _Dante Sonata_, to Liszt works arranged by
Lambert; _The Wise Virgins_, to Bach arranged by Sir William Walton;
_The Wanderer_, to Schubert; Walton’s _The Quest_; _Les Sirènes_, by
Lord Berners; the César Franck _Symphonic Variations_; the Coronation
ballet of 1953--_Homage to the Queen_; and, in a sense, most
importantly, the full length _Cinderella_, utilizing the Prokofieff
score; and the full length production of Delibes’ _Sylvia_.
Actually, I like to think of Ashton as a dance-composer, moving freely
with dramatic or symbolic characters.
In all my experience of ballet and of choreographers, I do not believe
there is any one more conscientious, more hard-working, more painstaking
at rehearsals. While his eye misses nothing, he never raises his voice,
never loses his temper. Corrections are made firmly, but quietly, almost
in seeming confidence. Always he has a good word for something well
done. On occasion, I have noticed something to be adjusted and have
mentioned it to him.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he would say.
“Aren’t you going to tell them?”
“You tell them,” Ashton would smile. “I can’t tell them. Go on, you tell
them.”
This was in connection with a musical matter. The conductor in question
was taking a portion of the work at a too rapid tempo. It involved
“Freddy” telling the conductor the passage was being played too fast.
“No,” repeated “Freddy,” “it will work out. He will see it and feel it
for himself. I don’t want to upset him.”
An extraordinarily conscientious worker, he is equally self-deprecating.
Some of this self-deprecation can be found in his work, for there is
almost always a high degree of subtlety about all of it. Among all the
choreographers I know, there is none his superior or his equal in
designing sheer poetry of movement. Ashton is able, in my opinion, to
bring to ballet some of that quality of enchantment that, in the old
days, we found only with the Russians.
This self-deprecating quality of “Freddy’s” is at its strongest on
opening nights of his works. It is very real and sincere.
“Everything I do is always a flop here in England, you know,” he will
say. “They don’t like me.... I’ve done the best I can.... There you
are.”
Despite this self-deprecation, Ashton, once his imagination is stirred,
his inspiration stimulated, throws off a certain indolence that is one
of his characteristics, knows exactly what he wants, how to get it, and
goes about it. Like all creative artists, during the actual period of
creation, he can be alternately confident and despairing, determined and
resigned. Despite the reluctance to exercise his authority, he can, if
occasion demands, put his foot down firmly, and does.
Yet, in doing so, I am certain that never in his life has he hurt any
one, for “Freddy” Ashton is essentially a kind person.
Three British _ballerinas_ owe Ashton an immense debt: Margot Fonteyn,
Moira Shearer, and Alicia Markova. It is due in large measure to
Ashton’s tuition, his help, his sound advice, and his plastic sense that
these fine artists have matured.
Every choreographer worthy of the name stamps his works with his own
personality. Ashton’s signature is always apparent in his work. No
matter how characteristic of him his works may be choreographically,
they are equally dissimilar and varied in mood.