contemporary music. He is a young man of exceptional gifts, and it is
Webster and the permanent Covent Garden organization that have provided
the composer with exceptional opportunities for the expression of them.
This is only possible through the existence of a national opera house
with a permanent roof over its head.
As is the case with all innovators, it has not been all clear sailing
for Webster; there were sections of the press that railed against his
policy. But Webster won, because at the root of the policy was a very
genuine desire to break away from stale conventions, to combat some of
the stock objections and prejudices that keep many people away from
opera. For Webster’s aim is to create a steady audience and to appeal to
groups that have not hitherto attended opera and ballet, or have
attended only when the most brilliant stars were appearing.
In London, as in every center, every country, there are critics and
critics. Some are captious; others are not. One of the latter variety in
London once tackled me, pointing out his dislike for most of the things
that were going on at Covent Garden, his disagreement with others. I
listened for a time, until he asked me if I agreed with him.
My answer was simple and short.
“Look here,” I said. “A few years ago this beautiful house had what?
Shilling dances. Who peopled it? Drunken sailors, among others. Bow
Street and the streets adjoining were places you either avoided like the
plague; or else you worried and hurried through them, if you must.
“Today, you have a great opera house restored to its proper uses. Now
you have something to criticize. Before you didn’t.”
It has been thanks to David Webster’s sympathetic guidance that ballet
has grown in popularity until its audiences are larger than are those
for opera.
A man of firm purpose, few words, eclectic taste, and great personal
charm, David Webster is a master of diplomatic skill. I can honestly say
that some of the happiest days of my life have been spent working
closely with him. Had it not been for his warm cooperation, his
unquenchable enthusiasm, America might easily have been denied the
pleasure and profit of Sadler’s Wells, and our lives would have been the
poorer.
The last time I was in Webster’s office, I remarked, “We must prepare
the papers for the next tour.”
Webster looked up quickly.
“No papers are necessary,” he said.
For the reader who has come this far, it should not be necessary for me
to underline the difference between negotiations with the British and
the years of wrangling through the intrigues and dissimulations of the
Russo-Caucasian-Eastern European-New England mazes of indecision.
My respect for and my confidence in David Webster are unlimited. He is a
credit to his country; and to him, also, must go much of the credit for
the creation of a genuine national opera and for the solid position of
the Sadler’s Wells Ballet.
_ROBERT HELPMANN_
It was towards the end of the San Francisco engagement of the Sadler’s
Wells Ballet that there occurred a performance, gala so far as the
audience was concerned, but which was not without its sadness to the
company, to me, and to all those who had watched the growth and
development, the rise to a position of pre-eminence on the part of
British ballet. The public was, of course, completely unaware of the
event. It is not the sort of thing one publicizes.
Robert Helpmann, long the principal male dancer, a co-builder, and an
important choreographer of the company, resigned. His last performance
as a regular member of the organization took place in the War Memorial
Opera House. The vehicle for his last appearance was the grand
_pas-de-deux_ from the third act of _The Sleeping Beauty_, with Margot
Fonteyn. It was eminently fitting that Helpmann’s final appearance as a
regular member of the company was with Margot. Their association, as
first artists with the company, encompassed the major portion of its
history, some fifteen years.
During this period, Helpmann had served in two capacities
simultaneously: as principal dancer and as choreographer. An Australian
by birth in 1909, his first ballet training came from the Anna Pavlova
company when Pavlova was on one of her Australian tours. For four years
he danced “down under,” and came to Britain in 1933, studying with the
Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, while dancing in the _corps de ballet_.
His first important role was in succession to Anton Dolin as Satan, in
the de Valois-Vaughan Williams _Job_. From 1934, he was the first male
dancer of the Sadler’s Wells organization. Helpmann often took leaves of
absence to appear in various plays and films, for he is an actor of
ability and distinction. As a choreographer, his _Hamlet_ and _Miracle
in the Gorbals_ are distinctive additions to any repertoire.
“Bobby” Helpmann has not given up ballet entirely. When he can spare the
time from his theatrical and film commitments, he is bound to turn up as
a guest artist, and I hope to see him again partnering great
_ballerinas_. Always a good colleague, he has been blessed by the gods
with a delicious sense of humor. This serves him admirably in such roles
as one of the Ugly Sisters in _Cinderella_--I never can distinguish
which one by name, and only know “Bobby” was the sister which “Freddy”
Ashton was not. Both _Hamlet_ and _Miracle in the Gorbals_ revealed his
serious acting qualities.
Man of the theatre, he is resourceful. On the first night of _The
Sleeping Beauty_, at the Metropolitan Opera House, there were a few
ticklish moments at the beginning of the Transformation Scene, due to
technical difficulties. The orchestra under Lambert went straight on.
But the stage wait was covered by Helpmann’s entrance, his sure hand,
his manner, his style, his “line,” his graciousness.
I have mentioned some of Helpmann’s warm personal qualities. He is one
of those associated with Sadler’s Wells who has helped to number my
Sadler’s Wells’ associations among my happiest experiences. Helpmann is
one of those who, like the others when I am with them, compel me to
forget my business interests and concerns and all their associated
problems: just another proof that, with people of this sort, there is
something else in life besides business.
There has been, perhaps, undue emphasis placed upon Helpmann, the actor,
with a corresponding tendency to overlook his dancing abilities. From
the point of view of sheer technical virtuosity, there are others who
surpass him. But technical virtuosity is not by any means all of a
dancer’s story. I happen to know of dancers who, in my opinion, have
excelled Nijinsky and Pavlova in these departments, but they were much
lesser artists. It is the overall quality in a dancer that matters.
Helpmann, I feel, is a dancer of really exceptional fluency, superb
lightness, genuine musicality, and admirable control. He is one of the
rare examples among male dancers to be seen about us today of what is
known in ballet terminology as the _danseur noble_. It is the _danseur
noble_ who is the hero, the prince, of classical ballet. As a mime and
an actor in ballet he may be compared with Leonide Massine, but the
quality I have mentioned Helpmann as having is something that has been
denied Massine, who is best in modern character ballets.
Sir Arthur Bliss, one of Britain’s most distinguished composers, and the
creator of the scores to, among others, _Checkmate_ and _Miracle in the
Gorbals_, has said: “Robert Helpmann breathes the dust of the theatre
like hydrogen. His quickness to seize on the dramatic possibilities of
music is mercurial. I was not at all surprised to hear him sing in _Les
Sirènes_. It would seem quite natural to see him walk on to the Albert
Hall platform one day to play a violin concerto.”
It is always a pleasure to me to observe him in his varied roles and to
watch him prepare for them. He leaves absolutely nothing to chance. His
approach is always the product of his fine intelligence. He experiments
with expression, with gesture, with make-up, coupling his reading, his
study of paintings, with his own keen sense of observation.
“Bobby” Helpmann and I have one great bond in common: our mutual
adoration of Pavlova. Pavlova has, I know, strongly influenced him, and
this influence is apparent in the genuine aristocracy of his bearing and
his movement, in the purity of his style.
There is a pretty well authenticated story about the first meeting
between Helpmann and Ninette de Valois, after the former had arrived in
London from Australia, and was looking for work at Sadler’s Wells. It
was an audition. The choreographer at such times is personally concerned
with the body of the aspirant, the extremities, the quality of movement,
the technical equipment of the applicant, some revelation of his
training and his style, if any. It is characteristic of Ninette de
Valois’ tendency to do the unexpected that, in Helpmann’s case, she
found herself regarding the “wrong end” of her subject. Her comment on
this occasion has become historic.
“I can do something with that face,” she said.
She did.
It has been a source of regret to me that on the 1953 American visit of
the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, “Bobby” Helpmann is not a regular member of
the company. It is not the same without him.
I have said that perhaps undue emphasis has been put on Helpmann, the
actor. If this is true, it is only because of “Bobby’s” amazing
versatility: as dancer, as choreographer, as actor, as stage-director.
He can turn at will from one medium to the other. As actor, it should
not be forgotten that he has appeared with equal success in revues (as a
mimic); in Shakespeare (both on stage and screen); in plays ranging from
Webster and Bernard Shaw to the Russian Andreyev.
Most recently, he has acted with the American Katherine Hepburn, and has
scored perhaps his most outstanding directorial success to date in his
superlatively fine mounting of T. S. Eliot’s _Murder in the Cathedral_,
at the Old Vic.
I am looking forward to bringing “Bobby” to America in the not too far
distant future in a great production of a Shakespeare work which I am
confident will make theatrical history.
“Bobby” Helpmann, as I have pointed out, is more than a dancer: he is a
splendid actor, a fine creator, a distinguished choreographer, an
intelligent human being.
His is a friendship I value; he is alive and eager, keen and shrewd,
with a ready smile and a glint in his eye. For “Bobby” has a happy way
with him, and whether you are having a meal with him or discussing a
point, you cannot help reacting to his boyish enthusiasm, his zeal for
his job, his flair for doing it. My memories of dinners and suppers with
the “inseparables,” to which I have often been invited, are treasured.
The “inseparables” were that closely-linked little group: Fonteyn,
Ashton, Helpmann, with de Valois along, when she was in town and free.
The bond between the members of the group is very close.
It was in Chicago. It was mid-tour, with rehearsals and conferences and
meetings for future planning. We were at breakfast. “Madame” suddenly
turned to Helpmann.
“Bobby,” she said, with that crisp tone that immediately commands
attention. “Bobby, I want you to be sure to be at the Drake Hotel to
give a talk to the ladies at one o’clock _sharp_. Now, be sure to come,
and be sure to be there on time.”
“How, in heaven’s name,” replied Helpmann, “can I possibly be in two
places at one time? You told me I shall have to be at the Public Library
at one sharp.”
De Valois regarded him for a long moment.
“You astound me, Bobby,” she finally said. “Did I tell you that? Very
well, then, let it be the Public Library. I shall take the Drake Hotel.
But watch out, make sure you are there on time.”
Ninette de Valois not only did something with “that face.” She also made
good use of that intelligence.
I last saw “Bobby” Helpmann dance at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, on Coronation Night, when he returned as a guest artist with the
Sadler’s Wells Ballet, to appear with Margot Fonteyn in _Le Lac des
Cygnes_, Act Two.
What a pleasure it was to see him dancing once more, the true cavalier,
with his perfect style and the same submerging of technique in the ebb
and flow of the dance. I am looking forward to seeing him again, and, I
hope, again and again.
_ARNOLD L. HASKELL_
Among my cherished associations with this fine organization, I cannot
fail to acknowledge the contribution to ballet and the popularity of it,
made through the media of books, articles, lectures, by the one-time
ballet critic and now Director and Principal of the Sadler’s Wells
School, Arnold L. Haskell.
Haskell, the complete _balletomane_ himself, has done as much, if not
more, to develop the cult of the _balletomane_ in the western
Anglo-Saxon world as any one else I know. Devoted to the cause of the
dance, for years he gave unsparingly of his time and means to spread the
gospel of ballet.
In the early days of the renaissance of ballet, Haskell came to the
United States on the first visit of the de Basil company and was of
immense assistance in helping to create an interest in and a desire to
find out about ballet on the part of the American people. He helped to
organize an audience. Later, he toured Australia with the de Basil
company, preaching “down under” the gospel of the true art with the zeal
of a passionate, proselyting, non-conformist missionary.
From his untiring pen has come a long procession of books and articles
on ballet appreciation in general, and on certain phases of ballet in
particular--books of illumination to the lay public, of sound advice to
dancers.
Arnold Haskell’s balletic activities can be divided into five
departments: organizer, author, lecturer, critic, and educator. In the
first category, he, with Philip J. S. Richardson, long-time editor and
publisher of the _Dancing Times_ (London), was instrumental in forming
and founding the Camargo Society, after the death of Diaghileff. As
lecturer, he delivered more than fifteen hundred lectures on ballet for
the British Ministry of Information, the Arts Council, the Council for
the Education of His Majesty’s Forces. As critic, he has written
innumerable critical articles for magazines and periodicals, and, from
1934 to 1938, was the ballet critic of the _Daily Telegraph_ (London).
As critic, Haskell has rendered a valuable service to ballet. His
approach is invariably intelligent. He has a sound knowledge of the
dancer as dancer and, so far as dancers and dancing are concerned, he
has exhibited a fine intuition and a good deal of prophetic insight.
The fifth department of Arnold Haskell’s activities, educator, is the
one on which he is today most successfully and conspicuously engaged. As
the active head of the Sadler’s Wells School, established in its own
building in Colet Gardens, Kensington, Arnold Haskell is in his element,
continuing his sound advice directly; he is acting as wise and
discerning mentor to a rising generation of dancers, who live together
in the same atmosphere for at least eight years.
I have a feeling of warm friendship for Arnold Haskell, an infinite
respect for him as a person, and for his knowledge.
The School of which he is the head, like all other Sadler’s Wells
activities, is carried on in association with the British Arts Council,
thus carrying forward the Council’s avowed axiom that the art of a
people is one of its signs of good health. So it has always been in the
world’s history from Ancient Greece to France at the time of the
Crusades, to Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England. Each one of
those earlier manifestations, whatever its excellence, was confined to a
limited number of people, to the privileged and the elect. The new
renaissance will inevitably be the emergence of the common man into the
audience of art. He has always been a part of that audience when he has
had the opportunity. Now the opportunity must come in such a way that
none is overlooked and the result will be fresh vigour and
self-confidence in the people as a whole.
The Sadler’s Wells School is, of course, under the direct supervision of
Dame Ninette de Valois, D.B.E. Its Board of Governors, which is active
and not merely a list of names, numbers distinguished figures from the
world of art, music and letters.
The School was founded by the Governors of the Sadler’s Wells
Foundation, in association with the Arts Council, in 1947, to train
dancers who will be fitted to carry on the high tradition of Sadler’s
Wells and generally to maintain and enhance the prestige of British
Ballet. Over eighty-five per cent of the members of the ballet companies
at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the Sadler’s Wells
Theatre are graduates of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. The School
combines a full secondary education and a highly specialized vocational
training. Boys and girls are taken from the age of nine. Pupils are
prepared for what is the equivalent on this side of the Atlantic of a
complete High School education; in Britain, the General Certificate of
Education, and the curriculum includes the usual school subjects of
English language and literature, French, Latin (for boys only), history,
geography, Scripture, mathematics, science, handicraft, music, and art
work. The dance training consists of classical ballet, character dances,
mime. Importance is attached to character formation and to the
self-discipline essential for success on the stage.
There is also an Upper School, which is open to boys and girls above
school-leaving age. After taking the General Certificate of Education,
the American equivalent of graduation from high school, students from
the Lower School pass into the Upper School if they have reached a
standard which qualifies them for further training in the senior ballet
classes. The Upper School is also open to students from other schools.
Entry is by interview, and applicants are judged on general
intelligence, physical aptitude, and standard attained. Entrants are
accepted on one term’s trial. Here the curriculum includes, in
post-education: classes in English and French language and literature,
history, art, music, lecture courses, and Dalcroze Eurhythmics. In
ballet--the classical ballet, character dances, mime, tuition in the
roles of the classical ballets and modern works in the repertoire of the
Sadler’s Wells Ballet Companies. It is important to note that all ballet
classes for boys are taken by male teachers.
The School is inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools, and is
licensed as a first-class educational institution. The pupils number
about one hundred ten in the Lower School, with about thirty in the
Upper School.
So splendidly has the School developed that now a substantial physical
addition is being made to the premises in Colet Gardens, in the form of
a new building, to provide dormitories and living quarters so that it
may become a full-time boarding school, as well as a day-school; and
thus obviate the necessity for many students to live outside the school,
either at home or, as so often the case if the students come from
distant places, in the proverbial London “digs.”
One of the most interesting and significant things about the School to
me is the number of boys enrolled and their backgrounds. Such is the
feeling about male dancing in our Anglo-Saxon civilization that many of
the boys have had to be offered scholarship inducements to enroll. The
bulk of the boys come out of working-class families in the North of
England and the Midlands. They are tough and manly. It is from boys such
as these that the prejudice against male dancing will gradually die out,
and the effeminate dancer will become, as he should, a thing of the
past.
_MOIRA SHEARER_
Although, to my regret, due to personal, family, and artistic reasons,
Moira Shearer is not present with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet on its
1953-1954 North American tour, I know her devotion to the Sadler’s Wells
institution remains unchanged.
The simple fact is that Moira Shearer is preparing to enter a new and
different aspect of the theatre, a development with which I hope I shall
have something to do in the near future.
Among the personalities of the company during the first two Sadler’s
Wells tours, American interest and curiosity were at their highest, for
obvious reasons, in Moira Shearer. The film, _Red Shoes_, had stimulated
an interest in ballet on the part of yet another new public, and its
_ballerina_ star had acquired the questionable halo of a movie star.
This was something that was anything but pleasing to the gentle,
intelligent Moira Shearer; and was, moreover, something she deplored.
Born in Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1926, Moira Shearer came to
ballet at an early age, having had dance lessons in Rhodesia as a child
at the hands of a former Diaghileff dancer. It was on her return to
England, when she was about eleven, that her serious studies began with
Madame Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat. In 1940 she joined the Sadler’s Wells
Ballet School, remaining briefly, however, because of the blitz. But,
early in 1941, she turned up with the International Ballet, another
British ballet organization, dancing leading roles at the age of
fourteen, another example of the “baby” _ballerina_. In 1942, she left
that company to rejoin Sadler’s Wells School.
In 1943, Shearer became a member of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, achieving
an almost instant success and a marked popularity with audiences. What
impresses me most about Moira Shearer, the dancer, is a fluidity of
movement that has about it a definite Russian quality; she has a fine
polish in her style, coupled with great spontaneity and a gentle, easy
grace.
Distinctive not only for her Titian-coloring and her famed auburn-haired
beauty and her slender grace, Shearer is equally noteworthy for her
poise and an almost incredible lightness; for her assurance and
classical dignity; for her ability to dominate the stage. The “Russian”
quality about her dancing I have mentioned, I suspect stems from her
early indoctrination and her training at the hands of Madame Legat;
there is something Russian about her entrances, when she immediately
commands the stage and becomes the focus of all eyes. All of these
qualities are particularly apparent in _Cinderella_.
Moira Shearer’s reputation had preceded her across the United States and
Canada, as I have pointed out, because of the exhibition of spontaneity,
beauty and charm that had been revealed to thousands in the motion
picture, _Red Shoes_. There is no denying this film was highly
successful. I suppose it can be argued successfully that _Red Shoes_
brought ballet to a new audience, and thus, in that sense, was good for
ballet. Whatever it may have been, it was not a true, or good, or honest
picture of ballet. I happen to know how Moira Shearer feels about it,
and I share her feelings. Although she dislikes to talk or hear very
much about _Red Shoes_, and was not very happy with it or about it, she
was, I fancy, less disturbed by her role in _The Tales of Hoffman_, with
“Freddy” Ashton, “Bobby” Helpmann, and Leonide Massine. Best of all her
film excursions, Moira feels, was her sequence in _My Three Loves_,
which Ashton directed for her in Hollywood.
Once, on introducing her to one of those characteristic, monumental
California salads, her comment was: “My, but it’s delicious; yet it
looks like that Technicolor mess I should like to forget.” Shearer feels
_Red Shoes_ was rather a sad mess, a complete travesty of the ballet
life which it posed as portraying; that it was false and phoney
throughout, and that, perhaps, the phoniest thing about it was its
alleged glamor. On the other hand, she does not regard the time she
spent making it wasted, for, as she says, she was able to sit at the
feet of Leonide Massine and watch and learn and observe the
concentration with which he worked, the intelligence he brought to every
gesture, and the vast ingenuity and originality he applied to everything
he did.