Chapter X: Part 10

Here, at last, was great ballet. The art of pantomime, so long dormant in ballet in America, had been restored in all its clarity and simplicity of meaning. The high quality of the dancing by the principals, soloists, and _corps de ballet_, the settings, the costumes, the lighting, all literally transported me to another world. I knew then, in a great revelation, that great ballet was here to stay.

“This is Ballet!” I said, almost half aloud.

After the performance, back at the Savoy Grill once more, at supper I met, once again, Ninette de Valois, whose taste and drive and determination and abilities have made Sadler’s Wells the magnificent institution it is.

“Madame,” I said to her, “I think you’re ready to go to the States.”

“Are we?”

“Yes,” I replied, “you are ready.”

The supper was gay and charming and animated. I was filled with enthusiasm and was a long time falling asleep that night.

After that evening, there was no longer any attitude of “to hell with ballet” on my part. Ballet, I realized, with a fresh conviction solidifying the revelation I had had the night before, was here to stay. “To hell with ballet” had given way to “three cheers for ballet!”

After breakfast, the next morning, I telephoned David Webster to invite him to luncheon so that I might discuss details of the proposed American venture with him. During the course of the luncheon we went into all the major points and problems. Webster, I found, shared my enthusiasm for the idea and agreed in principle.

But, in accordance with the traditionally British manner, the thought and care and consideration that is given to every phase and every department, every suggestion, every idea, such matters do not move as swiftly as they do in the States. Before I started out for my usual London “constitutional” backwards and forwards across Waterloo Bridge, from where one looks up the Thames towards the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, mother of all our freedoms, I sent flowers to Margot Fonteyn with a note of appreciation for her magnificent performance of the night before and for the great pleasure she had given me.

There followed extended discussions with Ninette de Valois, the Director of whom, perhaps, the outstanding characteristic is that her outlook is such that her greatest ambition is to see the Sadler’s Wells Ballet become such an institution in its own right that, as she puts it, “no one will know the name of the director.” However, before any decisions could be reached, it became necessary for me to get home. So, with the whole business still very much up in the air, I returned to New York.

No sooner was I back in my office than there came an invitation from Mayor William O’Dwyer and Grover Whalen for me to take over the direction of the dance activities for the Festival for the One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the City of New York. I accepted the honor in the hope that I might be able to organize a completely international and representative Dance Festival, wherein the leading exponents of ballet and other forms of dance would have an opportunity to demonstrate their varied repertoires and techniques. To that end, I sent invitations in the name of the City of New York to all the leading dance organizations in the world, seeking their participation in the Festival. The response was unanimously immediate and enthusiastic; but, unfortunately, many of the organizations, possessing interesting repertoires and styles, were not in a position to undertake the costs of travel from far distant points, together with the heavy expenses for the transportation of scenery, equipment, and costumes. Among these was the newly-organized San Francisco Civic Ballet.

The Sadler’s Wells organization accepted the invitation in principle, as 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.

The Council, in its turn, supports the arts of the country by giving financial assistance or guarantees to organizations, companies, and societies; by directly providing concerts and exhibitions; or by directly managing and operating a company or theatre. The recipient organizations, for their part, must be non-profit or charitable trusts capable of helping carry out the Council’s purpose of bringing to the British people entertainment of a high standard. Such organizations must have been accepted as non-profit companies by H. M. Commissioners of Customs and Excise, and exempted by them from liability to pay Entertainments Duty.

An example of the help tendered may be gathered from the fact that in 1950, eight festivals, ten symphony orchestras, five theatres, twenty-five theatre companies, seven opera and ballet companies, one society for poetry and music, two art societies, four arts centers, and sixty-three clubs were being helped. In addition, two theatres, three theatre companies, and one arts center were entirely and exclusively managed by the Arts Council. Some of the best-known British orchestras, theatres, and companies devoted to opera, ballet, and the drama are linked to the Arts Council: The Hallé Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, Covent Garden Opera Trust, Covent Garden Opera Company, and the Sadler’s Wells Companies are among them. Also the Old Vic, Tennent Productions, Ltd., and the Young Vic Theatre companies.

Government assistance to opera in twentieth century Britain did not begin with the Arts Council. In the early ’thirties Parliament granted a small subsidy to the Covent Garden Opera Syndicate for some two years to help present grand opera in Covent Garden and the provinces at popular prices. A total of £40,000 ($112,000) had been paid when the grant was withdrawn after the financial crisis of 1931, and it was more than ten years before national opera became a reality.

In the meantime, some ballet companies and an opera company began to receive C. E. M. A. support. The Sadler’s Wells Opera Company and Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company, for instance, began their association with C. E. M. A. in 1943. C. E. M. A. was also interested in plans stirring in 1944 and 1945 to reclaim the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a national center for ballet and opera. I have pointed out how this great theatre in London, with a history dating back to the eighteenth century, was leased in 1944 by the international music firm of Boosey and Hawkes, who, in turn, rented it to the newly formed Covent Garden Opera Trust. The Trust, an autonomous body whose original chairman was Lord Keynes, is a non-profit body which devotes any profits it may make to Trust projects. Late in 1949, H. M. Ministry of Works succeeded Boosey and Hawkes as lessees, with a forty-two-year lease.

The Arts Council, in taking over from C. E. M. A., inherited C. E. M. A.’s interest in using Covent Garden for national ballet and opera. The Council granted Covent Garden £25,000 ($70,000) for the year ended 31 March, 1946, and £55,000 ($154,000) for the following year. At the same time, it was granting Sadler’s Wells Foundation £10,000 ($28,000) and £15,000 ($42,000) in those years.

The Covent Garden Opera Trust, in the meantime, had invited the Sadler’s Wells Ballet to move to Covent Garden from their famous ballet center, Sadler’s Wells. This it did, early in 1946, leaving behind another company called the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. Ninette de Valois continued to direct both groups.

It was a year later the Covent Garden Opera Company gave its first presentation under the Covent Garden Opera Trust, and the two chief Covent Carden companies, opera and ballet, were solidly settled in their new home.

The Trust continues to receive a grant from the Arts Council (£145,000 [$406,000] in 1949-1950), and it pays the rent for the Opera House and the salaries and expenses of the companies. So far as the ballet company is concerned, the Sadler’s Wells Ballet pretty well pays its own way, except for that all-besetting expense in ballet, the cost of new productions. The opera company requires relatively more support from the Trust grant, as it has re-staged and produced every opera afresh, not using any old productions. Moreover, the attendance for ballet is greater than that for opera.

The aim of Covent Garden and its Administrator, David Webster, is to create a steady audience, and to appeal to groups that have not hitherto attended ballet and opera, or have attended only when the most brilliant stars were appearing. Seats sell for as little as 2s 6d (35¢), rising to 26s 3d ($3.67) and the ballet-and-opera-going habit has grown noticeably in recent years. It is interesting to note the audience for opera averaged eighty-three per cent capacity, and for the ballet ninety-two per cent.

The two British companies alternately presenting ballet and opera provide most of the entertainment at Covent Garden, but foreign companies such as the Vienna State Opera with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, La Scala Opera, the Paris Opéra Comique, the Ballet Theatre from New York, the New York City Ballet Company, the Grand Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas, and Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballets Russes have had short seasons there.

The Arts Council is in association with the two permanent companies coincidentally operating at Sadler’s Wells--the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company. Other opera and ballet companies associated with the Arts Council are the English Opera Group, Ltd., and the Ballet Rambert, while the Arts Council manages the St. James Ballet Company.

All these companies tour in Britain, and some of them make extended tours abroad. The Ballet Rambert, for instance, has made a tour of Australia and New Zealand, which lasted a year and a half, a record for that area.

The Sadler’s Wells Ballet has made long and highly successful tours of the European continent. Its first visit to America occurred in the autumn of 1949, when the Covent Garden Opera Trust, in association with the Arts Council and the British Council, presented the group at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, and in various other centres in the United States and Canada, under my management. A second and much longer visit took place in 1950-1951, with which visits this chapter is primarily concerned.

Sadler’s Wells has a ballet school of something more than two hundred students, including the general education of boys and girls from ten to sixteen. Scholarships are increasing in number; some of these are offered by various County Councils and other local authorities, and a number by the Royal Academy of Dancing.

In addition to the Arts Council, I have mentioned the British Council, and no account of Britain’s cultural activities could make any pretensions to being intelligible without something more than a mention of it. It should be pointed out that the major part of the British Council’s work is done abroad.

Established in 1934, the British Council is Britain’s chief agent for strengthening cultural relations with the rest of the British Commonwealth, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, the United States, and Latin America. It is responsible for helping to make British cultural achievements known and understood abroad, and for bringing to the British, in turn, a closer knowledge of foreign countries.

Like many other British cultural bodies, the British Council derives its main financial support from the Government (through grants from the Foreign Office, plus certain sums on the Colonial and Commonwealth votes), and is a body corporate, not a Government organization. Its staff are not civil servants and its work is entirely divorced from politics, though the Council has a certain amount of State control because nine of the Executive Committee (fifteen to thirty in number) are nominated by Government departments.

The British Council’s chief activities concern educational exchanges with foreign countries of students, teachers, and technicians, including arranging facilities for these visitors in Britain; they include supporting libraries and information services abroad where British books and other reading materials are readily available, and further include the financing of tours of British lecturers and exhibitions, and of theatrical, musical, and ballet troupes abroad. Sadler’s Wells Ballet has toured to Brussels, Prague, Warsaw, Poznau, Malmö, Oslo, Lisbon, Berlin, and the United States and Canada under British Council auspices with great success. The Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet has toured the United States and Canada, under my management, with equal success, and is soon to visit Africa, including Kenya Colony. The Old Vic Company, the Boyd Neel String Orchestra, and the Ballet Rambert toured Australia and New Zealand, and the Old Vic has toured Canada. John Gielgud’s theatre company has visited Canada. In addition, the British Council has sponsored visits abroad of such distinguished musicians as Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Maggie Teyte.

One of the British Council’s important trusts is the responsibility for the special gramophone recordings of distinguished musical works and of the spoken word. This promotion is adding notably to record libraries, and is helping to make the best music available to listeners all over the world. It is also the Government’s principal agent for carrying out the cultural conventions agreed upon with other members of the United Nations. These provide, in general, for encouraging mutual knowledge and appreciation of each other’s culture through interchanging teachers, offering student scholarships, and exchanging books, films, lectures, concerts, plays, exhibitions, and musical scores.

The relationship between the British Council and the Arts Council is necessarily one of careful collaboration. In the time of C. E. M. A. many tasks were accomplished in common, such as looking after foreign residents in Great Britain. Now the division of labor of the two Councils is well defined, with clear-cut agreement on their respective responsibilities for the various entertainment groups that come to or go from Britain. The British Council helps British artists and works of art to go ahead; the Arts Council assists artistic activities in Britain, including any that may come from abroad. Both bodies have a number of committee members in common, and the feeling between the groups is close and friendly.

It is, I feel, characteristic of the British that, without a definite, planned, long-term programme for expanding its patronage of the arts, the British Government has nevertheless come to give financial aid to almost every branch of the art world. This has developed over a period of years, with accumulated speed in the last twelve because of the war, because the days of wide patronage from large private incomes are disappearing if not altogether disappeared, and also perhaps because of an increasing general realization of the people’s greater need for leisure-time occupation.

In all of this I must point out quite emphatically that it is the British Government’s policy to encourage and support existing and valuable institutions. Thus the great symphony orchestras, Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Covent Garden Opera, and various theatre companies are not run by the Government, but given grants by the Arts Council, a corporation supported by Government money.

What is more, there is no one central body in Britain in charge of the fine arts, but a number of organizations, with the Arts Council covering the widest territory. Government patronage of the arts in Britain, as has frequently been true of other British institutions, has grown with the needs of the times, and the organization of the operating bodies has been flexible and adaptable.

The bodies that receive Government money, such as the Arts Council, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the British Council are relatively independent of the Government, their employees not being civil servants and their day-to-day business being conducted autonomously.

There is no attempt on the part of the Government to interfere with the presentations of the companies receiving State aid, though often the Government encourages experimentation. A very happy combination of arts sponsorship is now permissible under a comparatively recent Act of Parliament that allows local government authorities to assist theatrical and musical groups fully. Now, for instance, an orchestra based anywhere in Britain may have the financial backing of the town authorities, as well as of the Arts Council and private patrons.

While accurate predictions about the future course of relations between Government and the arts in Britain are not, of course, possible, it seems likely, however, that all of mankind will be found with more, rather than less, leisure in the years to come. In the days of the industrial revolution in Britain a hundred-odd years ago, the people, by which I mean the working classes, had little opportunity for cultivating a taste for the arts.

Now, with the average number of hours worked by British men, thanks to trade unionism and a more genuinely progressive and humanitarian point of view, standing at something under forty-seven weekly, there is obviously less time devoted to earning a living, leaving more for learning the art of living. It may well be that the next hundred years will see even more intensive efforts made to help people to use their leisure hours pleasantly and profitably. As long ago as the early 1930’s, at a time when he was so instrumental in encouraging ballet through the founding of the Camargo Society, Lord (then J. Maynard) Keynes wrote that he hoped and believed the day would come when the problem of earning one’s daily bread might not be the most important one of our lives, and that “the arena of the heart and head will be occupied, or reoccupied, by our real problems--the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.” Then, “for the first time since his creation,” Lord Keynes continued, “man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem--how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure science and compound interest will have won for him to live wisely and agreeably and well.”

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Stripped to the simplest explanation possible, Sadler’s Wells leased its company to Covent Garden for a period of years. The move must have entailed a prodigious amount of work for all concerned and for Ninette de Valois in particular. Quite apart from all the physical detail involved: new scenery, new musical material, new costumes, more dancers, there was, most importantly, a change of point of view, even of direction. With a large theatre and orchestra, and large responsibilities, experimental works for the moment had to be postponed. New thinking had to be employed, because the company’s direction was now in the terms of the Maryinsky Theatre, the Bolshoi, the Paris Opéra.

The keystone of the arch that is Sadler’s Wells’s policy is the full-length productions of classical ballets. The prime example is _The Sleeping Beauty_, my own reactions to which, when I first saw it, I have already recounted. In the production of this work, the company was preeminent, with Margot Fonteyn as a bright, particular star; but the “star” system, if one cares to call it that, was utilized to the full, since each night there was a change of cast; and it must be remembered that in London it is possible to present a full-length work every night for a month or more without changing the bill, whereas in this country, almost daily changes are required. This, it should be pointed out, required a good deal of audience training.

The magnificent production of _The Sleeping Beauty_ cost more than £10,000, at British costs. What the costs for such a production as that would have been on this side of the Atlantic I dislike to contemplate. The point is that it was a complete financial success. Another point I should like to make is that while _The Sleeping Beauty_ was presented nightly, week after week, there was no slighting of the other classical works such as the full-length _Swan Lake_, _Coppélia_, _Les Sylphides_, and _Giselle_; nor was there any diminution of new works or revivals of works from their own repertoire.

It was in 1948 I returned to London further to pursue the matter of their invasion of America. It was my very dear friend, the late Ralph Hawkes of the music publishing firm of Boosey and Hawkes, the leaseholders of Covent Garden, who helped materially in arranging matters and in persuading the Sadler’s Wells direction and the British Arts Council that they were ready for America and that, since Hawkes was closely identified with America’s musical life, that this country was ready for them.

Meanwhile, Ninette de Valois grew increasingly dubious about full-length, full-evening ballets, such as _The Sleeping Beauty_ and _Swan Lake_, in the States, and was convinced in her own mind that the United States and Canadian audiences not only would not accept them, much less sit still before a single work lasting three and one-half hours. Much, of course, was at stake for all concerned and it was, indeed, a serious problem about which to make a final, inevitable decision.

The conferences were long and many. Conferences are a natural concomitant of ballet. But there was a vast difference between these conferences and the hundreds I had had with the Russians, the Caucasians, the Bulgarians, and the Axminsters. Here were neither intrigues nor whims, neither suspicion nor stupidity. On the contrary, here was reasonableness, logic, frankness, fundamental British honesty. George Borodin, a Russian-born Englishman and a great ballet-lover, once pointed out that ballet is a medium that transcends words, adding “the tongue is a virtuoso that can make an almost inexhaustible series of noises of all kinds.” In my countless earlier conferences with other ballet directorates, really few of those noises, alas, really meant anything.

At last, the affirmative decision was made and we arrived at an agreement on the repertoire for the American season, to include the full-length works, along with a representative cross-section, historically speaking, of the Sadler’s Wells repertoire of their shorter works. The matter settled, I left for home.

On my return to New York, still other problems awaited me. The Metropolitan Opera House, the only possible New York stage on which Sadler’s Wells could appear, was faced with difficulties and perplexities, with other commitments for the period when the British visitors would be here.

However, thanks to the invaluable cooperation and assistance of Edward Johnson, Alfred P. Sloan, and Mrs. August Belmont, it was decided that a part of the season should be given to Sadler’s Wells. Had it not been for their friendly, intelligent, and influential offices, New York might not have had the pleasure and privilege of the Sadler’s Wells visit.

The road at last having been cleared, our promotional campaign was started and was limited to four weeks. The response is a matter of theatrical history.

Here, for the first time in the United States, was a company carrying on the great tradition in classical ballet, with timely and contemporary additions. Here was a company with a broad repertoire based on and imbedded in the full-length classics, but also bolstered with modern works that strike deep into human experience. Here were choreographers who strove to broaden the scope of their art and to bring into their works some of the richness of modern psychology and drama, always balletic in idiom, with freedom of style, who permitted their dramatic imaginations to guide them in creating movement and in the use of music.

By boat came the splendid productions, the costumes, the properties, loads and loads of them. By special chartered planes came the company, and the technical staff, the entire contingent headed by the famous directorial trio, Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton, and Constant Lambert, with the executive side in the capable hands of David Webster, General Administrator. The technical department was magnificently presided over by Herbert Hughes, General Manager of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, and the late Louis Yudkin, General Stage Director.

It was an American _ballerina_, Nora Kaye, who hustled Margot Fonteyn from the airport to let her have her first peek at the Metropolitan Opera House. The curtain was up when they arrived, revealing the old gold and red auditorium. Margot’s perceptive eyes took it all in at a glance. She took a deep breath, clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank goodness,” she said, “it’s old and comfortable and warm and rich, as an opera house should be.” She paused for a reflective moment and added, “I was so afraid it would be slick and modern like everything else here, all steel and chromium, and spit and polish. I’m glad it’s old!”.

On an afternoon before the opening, my very good friend, Hans Juda, publisher of Britain’s international textile journal, _Ambassador_, together with his charming wife, gave a large and delightful cocktail party at Sherry’s in the Metropolitan Opera House for a large list of invited guests from the worlds of art, business, and diplomacy. Hans Juda is a very helpful and influential figure in the world of British textiles and wearing apparel. It was he, together with the amiable James Cleveland Belle of the famous Bond Street house of Horrocks, who arranged with British designers, dressmakers, textile manufacturers, and tailors to see that each member of the Sadler’s Wells company was outfitted with complete wardrobes for both day and evening wear; the distaff side with hats, suits, frocks, shoes, and accessories; the male side with lounge suits, dinner jackets, shoes, gloves, etc. The men were also furnished with, shall I say, necessaries for the well-dressed man, which were soon packed away, viz., bowler hats (“derbies” to the American native) and “brollies” (umbrellas to Broadway).

The next night was, in more senses than one, the _BIG_ night: a completely fabulous _première_. The Metropolitan was sold out weeks in advance, with standees up to, and who knows, perhaps beyond, the normal capacity. Hundreds of ballet lovers had stood in queue for hours to obtain a place in the coveted sardine space, reaching in double line completely round the square block the historic old house occupies on Broadway, Seventh Avenue, Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Streets. The orchestra stalls and boxes were filled with the great in all walks of life. The central boxes of the “Golden Horseshoe,” draped in the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, housed the leading figures of the diplomatic and municipal worlds.

Although the date was 9 October, it was the hottest night of the summer, as luck would have it. The Metropolitan Opera House is denied the benefit of modern air-conditioning; the temperature within its hallowed walls, thanks to the mass of humanity and the lights, was many degrees above that of the humid blanket outside.

Despite all this, so long as I shall live, I shall never forget the stirring round of applause that greeted that distinguished figure, Constant Lambert, as he entered the orchestra pit to lead the orchestra in the two anthems, the Star Spangled Banner and God Save the King. The audience resumed their seats; there was a bated pause, and then from the pit came the first notes of the overture to _The Sleeping Beauty_, under the sympathetic baton of that finest of ballet conductors. So long as I shall live I shall never forget the deafening applause as the curtains opened on the first of Oliver Messel’s sets and costumes. That applause, which was repeated and repeated--for Fonteyn’s entrance, increasing in its roar until, at the end, Dame Ninette had to make a little speech, against her will--still rings in my ears.

I have had the privilege of handling the world’s greatest artists and 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.