These grand-scale ballets later came to dominate the international repertoire, most notably The Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892) and Swan Lake (1895). While The Sleeping Beauty is indisputably the masterwork in terms of structure and content, both The Nutcracker and the 1895 production of Swan Lake (there had been earlier versions mounted at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre between 1877–82), remain supremely popular. The later works owed much to the choreographic contribution of Petipa’s exceptional assistant, Lev Ivanov. Other Petipa ballets still widely performed include Don Quixote (1871), La Bayadère (1877) and Raymonda (1898).

‘Petipa’s long stewardship of the [Imperial Mariinsky] company had an incalculable effect on Russian ballet. He presided over the shift from romanticism to what is usually termed  ballet ‘classicism’, laid the foundations of the modern Russian school by marrying the new Italian bravura technique to its more lyrical French counterpart…and helped transform an art dominated by foreigners and identified with the West into a Russian national expression.’ (Garafola in Kant (ed.), 2007)

‘[Johansson] was the deity of the classroom…[Petipa] of the stage, and their word in their respective departments was absolute.’ These resounding words were written by Nicolai Legat, Johansson’s devoted pupil, who later became his assistant, and succeeded him as teacher of the graduate-level ‘Class of Perfection’ at the Imperial Ballet School in 1902/3.

Legat recalled that Johansson’s teaching ‘exhibited the most extraordinary versatility, ingenuity and variety. In this he differed from the Italians who taught in Russia…[Enrico] Cecchetti…had hanging on his classroom wall a sort of menu of exercises for the week…This system was severely criticized by Johanssen [sic], who declared that it …led to too mechanical development.’ (Legat, 1931) Under Johansson’s control, the different branches of ballet tradition from France, Italy and Denmark, which had fed into the training of young dancers at the Imperial Ballet School, were united in a uniquely rich and coherent form, soon recognised as the Russian School.

While Petipa’s creation of the Classical repertoire remains indisputable, the significance of Ivanov’s contribution is now better appreciated. Ivanov is credited with having choreographed the iconic ‘White Acts’ (II and IV) of Swan Lake; and the kaleidoscopic patterns of the ‘Snowflakes’ are seen as a highpoint of his choreography for The Nutcracker. Joan Lawson suggested that: ‘No choreographer before him has been so sensitive to music. Ivanov only began to set his dances when, as Fokine was to say later: “He had listened to the music and let it tell him what to do.”’ (Lawson, 1969)

Indeed, Mikhail Fokine so admired Ivanov’s choreography for the dance interludes in Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor (1890), that he used it as the basis for his own version of the Polovtsian Dances (1909). Ivanov’s work remains deeply influential: embedded not only in the first ballet Fokine created for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, but in countless productions of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker around the world - and the eventual development of abstract neo-Classical ballet. 

Signor Cecchetti, Pierina Legnani and the ‘Divine Virginia’ [Virginia Zucchi] were among a number of bravura dancers trained in the Italian School, who made an astonishing impact at the Imperial Theatres during the closing decades of the 19th century. Virginia Zucchi danced in St Petersburg from 1885–92, blazing a trail for her compatriots, Cecchetti and Legnani, who came to Russia in 1887 and 1893 respectively.

‘Zucchi was a dancer-actress rather than a virtuoso, but the Italian ballerinas who followed her owed their success to their technical accomplishments, particularly in turning and pointe work…By his example, as a virtuoso performer and mime - Enrico Cecchetti did much to restore the popularity and prestige of the male dancer in Russia.’ (Guest, 1988) Pierina Legnani became the leading ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre for eight years, from 1893, and introduced the Italian feat of turning 32 fouettés to Russia; Petipa famously incorporated these into his choreography for Legnani as Odette in Act III of Swan Lake (1895 revival).

The Imperial family’s close interest in the ballet dated back to the founding of a ballet school by the Empress Anna Ivanovna in the Hermitage Palace, St Petersburg, in 1738. For almost two centuries, generous royal patronage had ensured that the Imperial Theatres and their affiliated Schools flourished in both St Petersburg and Moscow.

Perhaps inevitably, liaisons between artists of the Imperial Theatres and their aristocratic ‘protectors’ became a recognised feature of Court life. The young Tsarevich [Prince] Nicholas had had a notorious two-year love affair with the vivacious Mariinsky ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinska, which almost certainly ended after his marriage to Princess Alexandra of Hesse in 1894. Remarkably, Kschessinska later married Nicholas’ first cousin, the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, thus becoming a Princess in her own right.

Alexander Gorsky was a great innovator who was appointed Ballet Master at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, in 1896. ‘A cultivated man with a great love of music and painting…he introduced a new system of dance notation (evolved in collaboration with Vladimir Stepanov) to the Imperial Ballet. 

In 1899 he became ballet-master at the Bolshoi Theatre [Moscow], where he began to apply his methods, upsetting the conventional rules that were stifling the ballet and introducing life, movement and realism – much to the disapproval of his former teacher, [Marius] Petipa. Gorsky’s work in Moscow is closely linked to the development of Stanislavsky’s Art Theatre, which revolutionised the stage by insisting on the importance of dramatic expression.’ (Reyna, 1965)

'Fokine formulated his ideas even before creating his first ballets. “Dancing should be expressive”, he wrote in a note submitted to the Imperial Theatres [in 1904]…“It should not degenerate into mere gymnastics. It should reflect the feelings of the character portrayed…it should be right for the place and period indicated by the subject. The dance pantomime and gestures should not be of the conventional style…but should be of a kind that best fits the style of the period. The costumes also should not be an established ballet style, but be consistent with the plot…The ballet must be uninterrupted – a complete artistic creation and not a series of separate numbers…The music should…express the story of the ballet and, primarily, its emotional content…[with] complete and harmonious artistic unity of the three elements, music, painting and movement”. Such were the principles of the choreographic revolution he [Fokine] effected…principles evolved before meeting Diaghilev and before the visit of Isadora Duncan to St Petersburg...’. (Brinson & Crisp, 1980)

Since their foundation in the early 18th century, the great ballet and opera theatres of St Petersburg and Moscow had been financed directly by the Tsar [the Emperor of Russia]. They continued to exist primarily to serve the Imperial Court, until the Revolution of 1917 finally destroyed the monarchy in Russia.

The choreographer Mikhail Fokine, and the dancer Sergei Legat, were among many recent graduates of the Imperial Ballet Schools to rebel against prevailing theatrical conventions: ballets had become spectacular fantasies reflecting back to their glittering audience the grandeur and etiquette of the Russian Court. With the glorious exception of Tchaikovsky’s scores, ballet music was too often trite, written to comply with strict instructions from the ballet master. The dances themselves were created according to a hierarchy of ballet steps and styles which were never fundamentally challenged. Costume designs followed established custom - and were often adapted to the demands of powerful ballerinas such as Mathilde Kschessinska (mistress to the Tsarevitch, the future Nicholas II). Such traditions were stifling artistic integrity and innovation.

At the turn of the 19th century, ballet in England was firmly embedded in the popular culture of music hall and pantomime; it was not seen as an elite form or as ‘high art’. The Empire Theatre of Varieties was one of London’s great music halls where Adeline Genée stood out for her exquisite artistry and execution, based on a professional training in her native Denmark.

In Denmark, Classical ballet was respected as a national theatrical form with a venerable tradition, but the situation was very different in England: ‘In  the early 1900s…there was in general no distinction made between social and theatre dance; the division was between amateur and professional dancers rather than between genres…dancers from Pavlova to Duncan tried to situate themselves within the boundaries of high culture, but the borders between this and popular entertainment were fluid, and it was not until Diaghilev arrived [in London] with the Ballets Russes in 1911, that ballet came to be considered as a more serious art form.’ (Morris in Cave & Worth (eds), 2012)

Often identified as ‘the first plotless ballet’, this eternally popular work was re-named Les Sylphides by Serge Diaghilev in 1909, when it was first performed by the Ballets Russes. It is said to have been Diaghilev’s favourite ballet. Fokine revived the work many times throughout his career, and it is still performed around the world, particularly in Russia and the United States.

Fokine’s ballet should not be confused with its namesake, the three-act narrative work La Sylphide (1832), created by Filippo Taglioni as a vehicle for his daughter the great ballerina, Marie Taglioni. First performed at the Paris Opera, it ushered in the era of French Romantic Ballet. The gauzy white bell-shaped dress of the ethereal Sylph - the La Sylphide of the title - was reputedly created for Taglioni by the artist and designer, Eugène Lami: it immediately became an enduring icon of Romanticism. For Diaghilev’s 1909 production of Les Sylphides, in which Fokine paid homage to ballet’s past, the beautiful Romantic tutus were recreated by the designer, Alexandre Benois.

Anna Pavlova’s influence on 20th century ballet was extraordinary: she introduced her art to the far corners of the globe through ceaseless touring with her own Company (between 1911–31), taking ballet to countries such as India, South Africa and Australia – often for the first time. The young Frederick Ashton, who went on to become the Founder Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, first encountered ballet when he saw Pavlova dance in Lima, Peru, in 1917. He often declared that his entire career was thereby determined, and that Pavlova remained a life-long inspiration to him.

Many English, Australian and American dancers gained professional experience while performing in Pavlova’s troupe, which was primarily a vehicle for her own unique gifts as a ballerina, but also provided a remarkable apprenticeship for its younger members. These included the celebrated dancer/actor/choreographer Robert Helpmann, and Vera Fredova (who later became an influential teacher at The Royal Ballet School under her actual name, Winifred Edwards).

Without an established national ballet school, it was difficult for British dancers to acquire a consistent training. Phyllis Bedells and Ninette de Valois (the Founder of The Royal Ballet) both ‘started at an early age learning [so-called] ‘fancy dancing’…this comprised a mixture of social dancing and dances adapted from the stage for amateurs to perform.’ (Morris, 2012)

Aspiring ballet dancers were obliged to seek out teachers from abroad who had either established private studios, or were based in British music-hall and opera theatres. Aged eleven, for example, Bedells ‘began more ‘serious’ ballet lessons in Nottingham with Theodore Gilmer, who had been with the Paris Opera. After her appointment as a soloist at the Empire in 1907, Bedells began working with Malvina Cavallazi, an Italian.’ (Morris, 2012). Like de Valois, she also went on to study with Enrico Cecchetti of La Scala, Milan, and Nicolai Legat of the Russian Imperial School, after they opened studios in London.

The Diaghilev Ballets Russes never performed in Russia, although it drew on Russian artists until the Revolution of 1917. Later, Diaghilev recruited a new generation of dancers, designers and musicians from Europe. Seminal productions from the Company’s early years included Mikhail Fokine’s ground-breaking ballets, and Vaslav Nijinsky’s even more radical works, including the first realisation of Stravinsky’s pivotal score, The Rite of Spring [Le Sacre du printemps] (1913). The 20-year span of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes can be measured by a succession of truly great and original choreographers: Fokine and Nijinsky were followed in turn by Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine.

Diaghilev ensured that all elements of his Company’s performances were of extraordinary quality; the names of dancers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina, Léonide Massine, Lydia Lopokova, Olga Spessivtseva and Serge Lifar still resonate today. Composers and designers promoted by Diaghilev were the very architects of European Modernism - including such ‘giants’ as the composers Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie; and the artists Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Jean Cocteau.

Vaslav Nijinsky was famed for an extraordinary combination of technical virtuosity and profound artistry; his spectacular leaps drew gasps from audiences used to seeing male dancers as mere ‘porteurs’ [or ‘carriers’] of the ballerina. He displayed an almost uncanny level of absorption in his roles, which was often remarked upon as a feature of his unique genius; it is possible that this attribute may have been linked to his fragile mental health, which eventually cut short his phenomenal career.

Diaghilev encouraged Nijinsky to choreograph for the Ballets Russes, thus prompting the departure of Mikhail Fokine, the Company’s resident choreographer, in whose ballets Nijinsky had created many of his greatest roles. Nijinsky found the choreographic process difficult, and made very few works: The Afternoon of a Faun (1912), Jeux (1913) The Rite of Spring (1913) and Till Eulenspiegel (1916). However, their radical and challenging originality completely repositioned ballet as a modern art form. 

Grigoriev was the longest-serving of all Diaghilev’s associates. He was later appointed régisseur [rehearsal director] of the Colonel de Basil Ballets Russes, the first of several ‘Ballets Russes’ companies to be established following the death of Diaghilev in 1929.

‘Grigoriev, with his famous memory and with the aid of his wife Lyubov [Lubov] Tchernicheva, was able to reconstruct many of the ballets from the Diaghilev repertory. A giant of a man, a quietly spoken bear, Grigoriev stayed with de Basil until the end [the de Basil Ballets Russes finally folded in 1952], then worked for other companies, including Britain’s Royal Ballet, to help keep alive the great ballets of the early Diaghilev epoch.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1992)

Lubov Tchernicheva (1890–1976) was a student of Fokine at the Imperial School, St Petersburg, graduating into the Mariinsky Theatre in 1908. The next year she married Serge Grigoriev, and from 1911 she worked alongside her husband for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes – where she became a Principal dancer and ballet mistress – and then for the de Basil Company. She and Grigoriev settled in England in 1952.

Bakst’s set and costume designs were characterised by a sumptuous orientalism combined with the vivid colours of Russian folk art. The early works Bakst created for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, particularly Cléopâtre (1909) and Shéhérazade (1910), had an immediate and lasting impact on the worlds of fashion and interior décor.

Tamara Karsavina created the role of the Firebird, with Fokine himself as Prince Ivan, who encounters the bird - a mythical creature of Russian folklore. Fokine’s wife, Vera Fokina, danced the role of the captive Princess who is freed by Ivan with the help of the Firebird’s magical feather. Karsavina’s costume was designed by Léon Bakst; it presented her in a tall plumed headdress adorned with long plaits, wearing ‘harem-style’ trousers swathed in feathery adornments.

Diaghilev later commissioned Natalia Goncharova to re-design the ballet, and this revival of 1926 introduced the designs which remain in use today. While an exotic headdress for the Firebird was retained in Goncharova’s new designs, the ballerina’s costume became a conventionally glamorous tutu, altering the role’s original depiction of the Firebird as a wholly oriental creature.

The Firebird marked Stravinsky’s first experience of composing for ballet – he went on to write several more extraordinary ballet scores for Diaghilev, and to forge a life-long and prolific artistic partnership with the Russian-American choreographer, George Balanchine.

By 1956 the magazine’s social dance sections were published separately as the Ballroom Dancing Times; the broader focus of the Dancing Times remained on all forms of theatrical dance, including national dance forms and modern dance genres. However, it increasingly placed an emphasis on the world of Classical ballet, supporting the emergence of a vigorous ballet culture in Britain.

Following Richardson’s five decades as Founding Editor, subsequent editors of Dancing Times have been A H Franks (editor 1957–63), and Mary Clarke (editor 1963–2008). Mary Clarke was named Editor Emeritus of Dancing Times, in recognition of nearly 60 years of service, having worked for the journal from 1954 until shortly before her death, in 2015. She was succeeded as editor in 2008 by Jonathan Gray.

Nijinsky and his dancers were finding it impossible to follow the counts of Igor Stravinsky’s complex score, so Diaghilev invited Marie Rambert to assist them during rehearsals for the new ballet. Rambert had studied ‘rhythmic gymnastics’ (or ‘eurhythmics’) with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze; she used his system to enable the Ballets Russes dancers to navigate the unfamiliar music, and to keep in step with its constantly shifting rhythms.  

The first night of the ballet, with Pierre Monteux conducting the orchestra, is seen as a defining moment in the advent of Modernism in Europe: a near-riot ensued in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, with opposing factions in the audience shouting their outrage or approval. Nijinsky himself stood on a chair in the wings, yelling out counts for the beleaguered dancers, who could no longer hear the orchestra above the din; while Diaghilev switched the house lights on and off, in a dubious attempt to calm the audience. Nijinsky’s ballet received only seven performances; in 1987 it was magnificently reconstructed for the Joffrey Ballet by Millicent Hodson (Nijinsky’s choreography) and Kenneth Archer (Roerich’s designs).

Rambert briefly joined the corps de ballet of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, proving herself useful to the Company in unexpected ways: Tamara Karsavina later reminded Rambert of the way she used to cue dancers for their entrance during the fugue in Act II of Giselle ‘…I remember it so well – your counting the one-two-three in the wings for each group to join in, and yourself leading a leaping platoon of ballerinas like a little drill-sergeant in tarlatans.’ (Karsavina quoted in Clarke, 1962)

Rambert at this time remained more interested in avant-garde dance, as embodied by Duncan and seen in the new ballets of Nijinsky. However, she soon became convinced that Classical ballet offered the strongest foundation for a dancer, although she was not to train with the Company ballet master, Enrico Cecchetti, until she left the Ballets Russes. After she moved permanently to London in 1914, she studied ballet with Serafina Astafieva in Chelsea, and then with Cecchetti at his London studio, later becoming a notable teacher in her own right.

The association of Jaques-Dalcroze’s pupil Marie Rambert with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes (especially her work with Nijinsky on his choreography for Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in 1913) prompted Dalcroze’s work to be of special interest to dancers and choreographers in England. As a young dancer, Ninette de Valois studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics in London.

The London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics (1913–55) was founded by Percy and Ethel Ingham; soon afterwards, in 1915, the Dalcroze Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was established by Marie Eckhard. In 2002 this became the Dalcroze Society UK, and in 2015 changed its name to Dalcroze UK.

Ninette de Valois in search of a training: the young de Valois had long aspired to achieve the standards she observed in the dancers of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, and during Anna Pavlova’s regular appearances in London. In 1915 de Valois became a pupil of Édouard Espinosa, a teacher of the venerated French School, which he had learned from his father, Léon. She also studied with Enrico Cecchetti, the ‘maestro’ of brilliant Italian technique who had also begun to teach in London. In 1923 Nicolai Legat, a teacher of the great Russian School, invited her to join his ‘Class of Perfection’ at his London studio. 

Ninette de Valois went on to establish a national ballet school and affiliated company, in a country where there was no tradition of any such institution. She intended that a uniquely English style should be developed, a fusion of the best of the old European and Russian Schools with qualities and training special to the English temperament and physique.                              

Lydia Sokolova was among the first English dancers to join the Ballets Russes; she remained with Diaghilev’s Company until 1929, aside from a brief period in 1922–23 when she performed with the Massine-Lopokova Company, and in music halls. Similarly, when little Lilian Alicia Marks became a Company member, aged just 14, Diaghilev adapted her name to that of Alicia Markova; she remained with the Ballets Russes from 1925 until Diaghilev’s death in 1929. Had he lived, Markova would undoubtedly have become his next leading English ballerina.

Not all dancers chose to make their names sound Russian, it was also acceptable to adopt a Continental style of stage-name: Patrick Healey-Kay, a rising Irish star of the Ballets Russes, became Anton Dolin. His fellow compatriot, Ninette de Valois, had started life as Edris Stannus. When she went on to found a British national ballet, she continued the tradition of giving her dancers more exotic names; most famously, the young Peggy Hookham became Margot Fonteyn.

Serafina Astafieva danced with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes from 1909–11, and remained on friendly terms with Serge Diaghilev for the rest of his life. At her word, he would come to watch lessons at her Academy, with a view to taking recommended students into his Company.

Astafieva’s most celebrated pupils not only became members of the Ballet Russes, they also went on to form the foundations of British ballet; they included Marie Rambert, Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova. Perhaps most famously, little Lilian Alicia Marks [later Markova] became Astafieva’s devoted pupil at the age of nine. Diaghilev monitored her progress in Astafieva’s Academy for four years, and in 1925 he invited her to join the Ballets Russes, when she was just 14 years old. He assigned to another of his English Soloists, Ninette de Valois, the task of being Alicia’s ‘guardian’; although de Valois initally resented the imposition, they soon forged a friendship based on mutual admiration and affection. Markova would later become the first leading ballerina of de Valois’ Vic-Wells Ballet Company, her celebrity and brilliance providing a hugely significant boost to early English ballet.   

Parade was an immediate popular success with audiences and critics alike. It was based on an idea of Picasso’s, who imagined dancers representing French and American ‘managers’, parading about as walking billboards, clad in fragments of skyscrapers, flags, faces and signs – one reading ‘PARADE’.

'Parade was a landmark not only in the history of the Diaghilev ballet but also in the career of Picasso. While drawing dancers at work in the studio, fascinated by their movements and by the groupings devised by Massine, he met his first wife, Olga Kokhlova, and they married in 1918. He designed more ballets and curtains for ballets and never lost his interest in the form.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1992)

In 1919 another Massine/Picasso collaboration proved an enduring success: Le Tricorne [The Three Cornered Hat] was a Spanish folk-comedy, set to the music of de Falla. Perhaps the most famous of all Picasso’s ‘ballet curtains’ was a stunning front-cloth for Nijinska’s Le Train Bleu (1924), dominated by two monumental female figures running, their hair streaming out behind them.

Rambert’s enterprise was profoundly influential: her students included many wonderful dancers, among them Pearl Argyle, Diana Gould, Harold Turner, Sally Gilmour and Lucette Aldous. Crucially, Rambert inspired and guided the early careers of several major choreographers and directors, including Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor and Andrée Howard; and later, Norman Morrice and Christopher Bruce.                         

Rambert’s School was initially advertised as the ‘Russian School of Dancing (Cecchetti Method)’, its impact was soon felt on the London scene. By 1926 her senior students formed the basis of a performing group called the Marie Rambert Dancers – this became the seedbed of her celebrated Ballet Club, formed in 1931, and based at the small but sophisticated Mercury Theatre. The troupe would eventually become known as Ballet Rambert (1935–87), later re-named Rambert Dance Company. Having moved into a new purpose-built home on London’s South Bank in 2013, the Company is now identified solely by the name of its founder: Rambert. 

Ursula Moreton was among Ninette de Valois’ most constant colleagues, whose varied career as a dancer, teacher and director often moved in parallel with that of de Valois’ own. She was de Valois’ close assistant from the earliest days of her School and Companies, and remained at the heart of British ballet for 40 years.

Moreton had a deep knowledge of balletic mime and the teaching of Classical ballet; also of dance history and choreography. She gave many lectures and demonstrations, including a notable series of talks for the Production Club of the Royal Academy of Dancing during the 1940s. Following her death in 1973, The Royal Ballet School’s prestigious Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award was established in her honour.

Édouard Espinosa’s Syllabus of Elementary Technique was first published in 1928. ‘The book was based on intensive work and discussions on improving the teaching of ballet, in which he had been centrally involved since publishing a rousing article in the Dancing Times in 1916. Among other things this article advocated the testing of ballet teachers, something unheard of in England at the time.’ (Linton, 2014)

Espinosa’s Syllabus codified his father’s teaching, which was founded on the Classical French School inherited by Léon Espinosa from his teachers at the Paris Opera: Jean Coralli, Filippo Taglioni and Jules Perrot. This work profoundly informed some of the earliest internationally recognised teaching ‘methods’ of Classical ballet, which were first established in London: the Royal Academy of Dance (est 1920) and the British Ballet Organisation (est 1930).

The Association of Operatic Dancing was so-called because ‘operatic dance’ was the name by which Classical ballet was then known in the English theatre. The Association was awarded a Royal Charter in 1936, becoming the Royal Academy of Dancing (later the Royal Academy of Dance). It is generally referred to by its many thousands of members worldwide as ‘the R-A-D.’

‘At the invitation of Philip Richardson, founder-editor of the Dancing Times…[who had been] goaded into action by...Espinosa…the best of the various national schools of dancing was brought together to establish…the Association of Operatic Dancing of Great Britain, with Genée as its President, which in 1936…became the Royal Academy of Dancing.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1981)

Presidents of the RAD to date have been Adeline Genée (from 1920), Margot Fonteyn (from 1954), Antoinette Sibley (from 1991) and Darcey Bussell (from 2012).

An émigré from revolutionary Russia, Nicholas Sergeyev had been the régisseur [Rehearsal Director] of the Mariinsky Theatre from 1904–1917, working in St Petersburg during the last years of Marius Petipa’s long period of service as the Principal Choreographer. Sergeyev was still dancing when Petipa and his assistant, Lev Ivanov, re-staged and rehearsed such enduring classics as The Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892) and Swan Lake (1895). 

In 1897 Sergeyev first became interested in Vladimir Stepanov’s Alphabet des mouvements du corps humaine (published in Paris, 1892), which was a system of recording dance based on the principles of anatomy and musical notation. Using the detailed system of Stepanov dance notation, Sergeyev set about recording the magnificent Tchaikovsky/Petipa/Ivanov ballets. He also recorded Petipa’s revivals of the great French Romantic ballets, such as Giselle and Coppélia (Petipa re-staged both in 1884). Consequently, these versions remain the basic texts of most present-day revivals around the world.      

The Sleeping Beauty (1890) was the original title of the ballet. With a glorious symphonic score by Tchaikovsky and perfectly structured choreography by Petipa, it is seen as the pinnacle of Imperial Russian Classical ballet. Diaghilev’s lavish production at the Alhambra Theatre introduced the full splendour of the Petipa/Tchaikovsky achievement to the West, re-clothing it in magnificent new designs by Bakst. Summed up by Sorley Walker as ‘a connoisseur’s joy but a commercial failure’, Diaghilev’s The Sleeping Princess was to have far-reaching consequences for English ballet. 

De Valois saw the revival, and later danced in Act III (presented as Aurora’s Wedding), describing it as: ‘A yardstick for the Royal Ballet to measure things by…it turned out to be the root of all our classical productions, mounted for us, along with all the others, by Nicholas Sergeyev who was responsible for the Diaghilev production.’ (de Valois in Sorley Walker, 1987) Those ‘others’ were the 19th century works later mounted by Sergeyev for de Valois’ Company between 1933–34: Coppélia, Giselle, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake; he also revived The Sleeping Princess for de Valois in 1939.

Nijinska had returned to Russia in 1914, just as it was caught up by war and revolution. In Kiev, she began to teach, and to explore radical new ideas for choreography. She was greatly influenced by the Constructivist perception of the body as a ‘machine’. After fleeing Russia in 1921, and re-joining the Ballets Russes in Europe, she went on to choreograph several highly original works for Diaghilev’s Company, including Les Noces (1923) and Les Biches (1924). 

Nijinska herself danced the central role of The Hostess in Les Biches, a part she worked out on the young Ninette de Valois, who was then a member of the Ballets Russes. De Valois, who was to become the Founder of The Royal Ballet, was profoundly impressed by Nijinska’s rigour and precision as a teacher and choreographer. Frederick Ashton, later the Founder Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, also become Nijinska’s devoted pupil. He was a dancer in Ida Rubinstein’s Company in Paris, during the late 1920s, when Nijinska was Ballet Mistress for the troupe.

The Cecchetti Method: from 1918–23 Enrico Cecchetti and his wife, Guiseppina, ran a studio in London, where their work inspired Beaumont and Idzikowsky [Idzikovsky] to undertake the recording of the Maestro’s ‘method’. On his return to Italy in 1923, Cecchetti entrusted his London students to a former pupil, Margaret Craske (1890–1990). She went on to publish The Theory and Practice of Allegro in Classical Ballet (Cecchetti Method), written with Beaumont in 1930; and the Practice of Advanced Allegro in Classical Ballet (Cecchetti Method), written with Derra de Moroda in 1956. From 1950 onwards, Craske taught Cecchetti’s work in the United States.

Cecchetti’s teaching had evolved over many years, encompassing the brilliant and bravura technique of his early Italian schooling, and his experience of the lyrical Russian style. Cecchetti taught most of the great Classical ballet dancers of his day (who in their turn became teachers); his influence was vital to the success of the fledgling British companies of the 1920s and 30s, and still resonates on the international ballet scene.

It was on the personal recommendation of her teacher, Enrico Cecchetti, that Ninette de Valois became a Soloist of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, the most innovative and exciting ballet company in the world. The three years she spent dancing under Diaghilev’s direction would serve - in de Valois’ own words - as her ‘university’ education. She would later recall that the opportunity to watch Serge Diaghilev at work, charming and cajoling, bullying and ruthless, left her with mixed impressions of his directorial approach. His determination to undertake whatever it took to achieve excellence and notoriety for his Company gave her an overriding admiration for his refusal to compromise artistic standards.

In her second volume of autobiography, Come Dance With Me (1957), de Valois wrote: ‘The main effect of Diaghilev on my dormant creative mind was to arouse an intense interest in the ballet in relation to the theatre…[I] now sensed the dignity of the dance in the theatre as an art form in unity with many things…I had come to one conclusion: the same should happen…in England.’ (de Valois, 1957)               

Bronislava Nijinska and British ballet: as a Soloist with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, Ninette de Valois had relished the chance to observe Nijinska in rehearsal and teaching daily class. Nijinska herself danced the central role of The Hostess in Les Biches, but she chose to work out the intricate and sophisticated choreography on de Valois, who later performed the part. De Valois also danced in Les Noces, writing in the Dancing Times (February 1933) that it was ‘by far the most interesting modern work I have ever danced in’. De Valois’ own choreography similarly attempted to be highly expressive within a tightly controlled framework.

Frederick Ashton became Nijinska’s devotee as a member of Ida Rubinstein’s troupe in Paris (1928–29) when she was Company Ballet Mistress and Choreographer. Her powerful and Modernist choreography still astonishes, although it was all but forgotten before Ashton invited Nijinska to revive two masterworks she had made for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, thereby saving Les Biches, mounted on The Royal Ballet in 1964, followed by Les Noces in 1966. 

Balanchine’s choreographic output was highly prolific and theatrically eclectic. During the course of a long career he created many ‘milestone’ ballets which remain in the international repertoire today; these largely plotless, one-act works effectively re-positioned the boundaries of Classical ballet. Of the ballets he made for Diaghilev, Apollo (1928) and The Prodigal Son (1929) stand out as early masterpieces; the former marked the start of his life-long collaboration with Igor Stravinsky, and is often called the first ‘neo-Classical’ ballet. 

Nicolai Legat introduced the Russian 'Class of Perfection' to London, aimed at perfecting the artistry of select professional students. While in Russia, Legat had refined the talents of such great dancers (and future teachers) as Pavlova, Preobrajenska and Vaganova. In England, he did the same for de Valois and Dolin, and many other pioneers of British Ballet. Legat was a great personality, and would conduct classes from the piano, while he accompanied the exercises. He was famous for drawing caricatures, making perceptive and amusing studies of his students and friends.

His wife, the ballerina Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat, continued the Legat legacy, teaching the 'Russian School' of Classical ballet after her husband’s death. In 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, she moved to a small village in Buckinghamshire where she opened a vocational boarding school. In 1945 the School had developed to such an extent that it moved to larger premises in Tunbridge Wells; the Legat School is now incorporated at Bede's School, East Sussex.

Diaghilev made no secret of the fact that he did not like English music, so when the aspiring young English composer, Constant Lambert (1905–1951), played him some of his music – intended for a ballet about Adam and Eve – Lambert was both delighted and apalled when Diaghilev said he would use it, but that it would now be called Romeo and Juliet.

Lambert had further misgivings when the Surrealists Max Ernst and Joan Miró were asked to design the piece: they decided the setting for the ballet would be a rehearsal studio. Their scenario had the dancers becoming so involved in their roles as the lovers that the ballet ended with their elopement by aeroplane – dressed in leather coats, caps and goggles. Choreography was by Nijinska, with an additional scene by Balanchine; the central roles were performed by Diaghilev’s glamorous new stars, Serge Lifar and Alice Nikitina.

Ashton’s choreography was full of ‘natural wit and a sense of chic’ (Bland, 1981). On Massine’s recommendation, he became an occasional student of Rambert’s in 1924, also studying with Craske, Astafieva and Legat. Ashton soon realised that Rambert had much to offer him - under her guidance, his great choreographic gift was brought to light. Rambert’s studio in London’s Notting Hill (which later became the Mercury Theatre) was an intimate venue where ballet enthusiasts could see works created and performed by her professional students. Its opening party included a performance of Ashton’s Leda and the Swan (1928).

Rambert’s dancers knew that she ‘could not [yet] offer them employment in a ballet company but she could, quite often, place them in West End productions in which a ballet formed part of the spectacle. Jew Süss…was an example.’ (Clarke, 1962) A tragi-comic play by Ashley Dukes, it included The Ballet of Mars and Venus, choreographed by Rambert and Ashton to music by Scarlatti, arranged by Constant Lambert. With Pearl Argyle as Venus, Harold Turner as Mars and Andrée Howard as a Nymph, it ran for several months at the Duke of York’s Theatre.

Ninette de Valois intended to establish a national ballet school and company; her own disjointed ballet training, and subsequent career with the Russian ballet, had made her acutely aware that Britain lacked such an institution. De Valois made a statement of intent when she named her School the ‘Academy of Choregraphic Art’ (then spelt without an ‘o’, after the French chorégraphie): besides offering classes in Classical ballet, the curriculum included choreographic ‘Composition Classes’. Having herself performed in the ground-breaking works of Nijinska and Massine, de Valois wanted to broaden the abilities of her students, and enable them ‘to tackle freer movements outside the strict classical syllabus.’ (Clarke, 1955)  

There were classes in theatre design, given by Elizabeth and Vladimir Polunin, who had worked for Diaghilev. From the start, de Valois intended to produce classically trained dancers who were versatile, and who understood the importance of ballet’s affiliated arts. The close integration of music, design and dance was the essential legacy of Diaghilev and his collaborators, and lay at the centre of de Valois’ approach to her own teaching and choreography.  

Lilian Baylis and the establishment of a national ballet: Baylis was first approached by the young Ninette de Valois in the summer of 1926. Boldly, the 28 year-old dancer proposed attaching her new school to the Old Vic Theatre, with a view to starting a small professional ballet company with her graduate students. Baylis immediately liked the young de Valois, who combined practicality and directness with a clear artistic vision. The two struck a deal: de Valois would (for no pay) provide dances for opera and drama productions at the Old Vic, performed by students from her school.

In return, Baylis promised de Valois ‘that as time went on and things got better, my more ambitious plans would receive [Baylis’] full consideration, and the eventual [re]building of Sadler’s Wells would mean the opening of a school in that building.’ (de Valois, 1977) In 1931 Baylis fulfilled her pledge, and de Valois’ Academy moved into the newly-restored Sadler’s Wells Theatre, which became the new home of her School and fledgling Company.

De Valois recalled with nostalgia how, every three months or so, she would cross the Irish Sea to spend a week overseeing the new School in Dublin, and to appear in Yeats’ innovative Plays for Dancers. She had first met the celebrated poet at the Festival Theatre, Cambridge, in 1927, where she had choreographed Terence Gray’s production of Yeats’ play, On Baile’s Strand. Yeats immediately invited de Valois to work with him at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and to set up a ballet school there. In November 1927, the School of Ballet opened, alongside a School of Acting, in a newly-formed 100-seat ‘playhouse’ within the Abbey. It was painted bright blue and called the Peacock Theatre. Although the School closed after six years, in 1933, it had a far-reaching effect in Ireland:

‘The Abbey School recruited, trained and produced an important generation of Irish choreographers, dancers and teachers. In turn they became the key-personalities behind the second wave of groundbreaking work for Irish Ballet.’ (O’Brien in Cave & Worth (eds), 2012)

From 1957, the ballet became known as Apollo, reflecting Balanchine’s continual paring down and refinement of this signature work over time. The original designs by André Bauchant were simplified: a stage set representing the ascent to Mount Parnassus was removed; the god Apollo now wore plain white, with a suggestion of Greek drapery over one shoulder, while the three Muses, Terpsichore, Calliope and Polyhymnia, were dressed alike in short white tunics.   

George Balanchine was the last in a succession of five extraordinary choreographers who created the unsurpassed repertoire of Diaghilev’s Company during its 20-year existence (1909–29). Balanchine’s rise to prominence followed earlier choreographic periods dominated in turn by Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine and Nijinska. Each was a highly innovative choreographer whose work continues to resonate today, although it was Balanchine’s reinvention of Classicism in ballet that arguably pointed most clearly to its future.

Édouard Espinosa (1871–1950) was committed to improving standards of dance teaching in England; as a teacher of many years standing, he counted Phyllis Bedells and Ninette de Valois among his many influential pupils. In 1920 he was part of the group which established the Association of Operatic Dancing, known today as the Royal Academy of Dance. Espinosa left that organisation in 1930, setting up the British Ballet Organisation (BBO) with his wife, Eve Louise Kelland.

Their children, Edward Kelland-Espinosa and Yvette Espinosa, helped to develop the BBO, and on their father’s death, Edward became Chairman (1950–86/7). John Field and Anne Heaton, distinguished dancers from The Royal Ballet, took over the directorship of the BBO (1986–91); they were followed by Peter Clegg (1992–94) and Nigel Burgoine (1994–95), after which John Travis became Director in 1995. The BBO has its own syllabus, examinations and teacher training diplomas; its qualifications are recognised internationally. 

The Camargo Society was set up by Philip Richardson and Arnold Haskell, with support from the music critic, Edwin Evans; it successfully bridged the gap between the end of the Diaghilev era and the emergence of native British companies. In a short time, with unusual speed and flexibility, 16 ballets were produced, including de Valois’ Job and Ashton’s Façade (both 1931). Also, the first British-staged (although abbreviated) productions of Giselle, Swan Lake and Coppélia, were mounted by Nicholas Sergeyev, using the notated scores which he had smuggled out of revolutionary Russia. 

When John Maynard Keynes became the Camargo Society’s treasurer in 1932, its profile was raised, resulting in a successful season at the Savoy Theatre, followed by two galas at the Royal Opera House. Camargo Society performances created a new appetite for British ballet: established British stars such as Markova and Dolin, as well as the Russians Spessivtseva and Lopokova, danced alongside rising ‘home-grown’ talent. The Society effectively launched not only the careers of many individuals, but British ballet itself.                                                             

Façade features a series of popular dance forms, which were both fashionable and familiar during the 1930s, including a ‘Polka’, ‘Foxtrot’ and ‘Tango’, further enlivened by a ‘Tarantella’ and ‘Scotch Rhapsody’. These dances, and the characters who perform them – Ashton himself did a great turn as a thoroughly disreputable Tango dancer – are affectionately lampooned and satirised in Ashton’s youthful masterpiece.

The early development of both Marie Rambert’s and Ninette de Valois’ Schools and emerging Companies was often intertwined, but always distinctly separate. The Camargo Society was the clearest example of their occasional inter-dependence: between 1930–33 Camargo productions regularly featured dancers from both establishments. When the Society closed, several of its ballets entered the repertoire of de Valois’ Vic-Wells Company. Ashton’s Façade was the only work which continued to be performed for many years by both Rambert’s and de Valois’ Companies. 

The world-renowned economist, John Maynard Keynes, married Lopokova in 1925. Against all the expectations of their respective circles – especially among Keynes’ associates in London’s intellectual ‘Bloomsbury Group’ – their union proved to be extremely happy and successful. From 1932, Keynes was active as the Treasurer of the Camargo Ballet Society, of which Lopokova was also a founding supporter and an active participant. She created the role of the Tango dancing Débutante in Ashton’s Façade, made for the Society in 1931.

Keynes and Lopokova also founded the Cambridge Arts Theatre together (1935). De Valois knew the couple well; she had danced alongside Lopokova, first in the Massine-Lopokova Company (1922–23), then with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes, and, later, the Camargo Society. For the Vic-Wells Ballet production of Coppélia (1933), de Valois took over the role of Swanhilda from Lopokova, who had provided the star attraction on opening night. In 1942 Keynes became the Chairman of CEMA (later the Arts Council) and, in this capacity, he strongly advocated that the Sadler’s Wells Ballet should become resident at the Royal Opera House after World War II.              

‘A person of incredible energy, erudition and perception, Marie Rambert discovered talents in dancers and choreographers – Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, Andrée Howard and Walter Gore – who were themselves unaware of their potential. Her happiest years were probably the early ones of the Ballet Club [1931–35] in the Mercury Theatre at Notting Hill where she watched her young company of immensely gifted artists creating the first British ballets and where she could sustain personal contact with nearly everyone in the audience in that tiny theatre.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1992)

The famous ballet film The Red Shoes (directed by Powell and Pressburger, 1948) includes a brief sequence filmed at the Mercury Theatre, in which Marie Rambert is seen in evening dress, walking up the aisle of the packed auditorium, and pausing to watch the performance. The limitations of the Mercury stage required its novice choreographers to create ballets of great ingenuity and integrity; set very close to the audience (occupying 150 seats and some standing room), the stage was just 18 feet square and was partly covered by a small staircase at the rear. 

Job was called ‘A Masque in Eight Scenes’ by its composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams. With choreography by Ninette de Valois, it was produced by the Camargo Society in July 1931, and may be thought of as the first truly English ballet. The designs by Gwendolen Raverat were based on William Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job (published in 1826); the libretto by Geoffrey Keynes (in collaboration with Raverat) re-told the familiar Bible story, in which God tests Job’s faith. The original sets and costumes were lost during World War II, and were later re-designed by John Piper for a Royal Opera House revival in 1948.

‘It had been hoped originally that Job might have been produced by the Ballets Russes, but the subject did not appeal to Diaghilev. It was, he said, “too English!” So it was natural its possibilities should have appealed to the Camargo Society…It is, indeed, English. Its inspiration…comes from the drawings of William Blake; its music is not only the work of the finest English composer of his day, but itself draws on English folk sources; its conception as a masque is in the direct tradition of a theatrical form the English have made very much their own.’ (Brinson & Crisp, 1980)

The six founder members of the Vic-Wells Ballet were Joy Newton, Freda Bamford, Sheila McCarthy, Beatrice Appleyard, Nadine Newhouse, and Ursula Moreton, who was also de Valois’ assistant. De Valois herself was the Company’s leading dancer, ballet mistress and choreographer. On 5 May 1931 the Company presented their first complete evening of ballet at the Old Vic Theatre, boosted by the star presence of Anton Dolin, a British dancer who had been a leading Soloist of Diaghilev’s Company. 

Ten days later, they repeated their success at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. The Company continued to appear in both venues, with ‘ballet nights’ becoming a regular occurrence, after Lilian Baylis agreed to schedule these once a fortnight between September and May. Guest appearances by Lydia Lopokova and Alicia Markova, both popular Diaghilev ballerinas, soon enhanced the box-office appeal of the early Vic-Wells Ballet. Crucially, Baylis also found the funds to appoint Constant Lambert as Ballet Music Director. The support and guidance of this highly gifted English composer and conductor was vital to the development of de Valois’ young Company. 

Constant Lambert had a profound influence on the development of British Ballet. He was the conductor of the Camargo Society from 1930, the Music Director of the Vic-Wells Ballet from 1931, and Musical Adviser of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet from 1948. His cultivated knowledge and practical guidance was vital to the artistic development of such dancers and choreographers as Margot Fonteyn, Frederick Ashton and Robert Helpmann.

During the early days of World War II, when the Vic-Wells Ballet lost its orchestra to the general ‘call-up’, Lambert wrote out two-piano reductions of the Company’s entire repertoire, which he himself played for performances, alongside the Company’s highly regarded accompanist, Hilda Gaunt. Furthermore, Lambert kept an eye on all aspects of Company performance standards, and would even reprimand the dancers if their shoe ribbons were dirty or their headdresses not correctly worn. Lambert conducted the triumphant first nights of The Sleeping Beauty by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1946), and again in New York (1949).

Students of the Vic-Wells School spent a good deal of their time on the No 63 bus, commuting between their lessons at ‘the Wells’, to rehearsals and performances at the Old Vic Theatre. In this way, de Valois’ students had the inspiring opportunity to perform alongside some of the great dancers of the Ballets Russes. After Diaghilev died in 1929 his Company had disbanded; as the Vic-Wells Ballet acquired a reputation, former stars of the Diaghilev Ballets Russes provided the box-office attraction needed to establish a loyal audience for de Valois’ Company. 

Most notably, Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova became the leading dancers of the Vic-Wells Ballet between 1932–35, with Lydia Lopokova also making popular guest appearances. 

The Green Table remains an outstanding achievement of the German Expressionist Dance movement, or Ausdruckstanz. This had its roots in the teachings of Rudolf von Laban (1879–1958), with whom Kurt Jooss had studied and worked. With music by Fritz Cohen and designs by Hein Heckroth, The Green Table was first performed by Jooss’s Essen-based Company (then known as the Folkwang Tanzbühne) at the inaugural choreographic competition held by Les Archives Internationales de la Danse in Paris in 1932, where it attracted wide attention after winning the first prize.

The following year, under threat of Nazi persecution, Jooss and his dancers fled to England. Re-named The Ballets Jooss, they were initially based at Dartington Hall in Totnes, and then in Cambridge, where they established the Jooss-Leeder School. The Ballets Jooss toured widely during World War II, under the auspices of ENSA. Jooss and his associates eventually returned to Germany in 1949. Here, they re-established the Folkwang Tanztheatre; this folded in 1953, although the School in Essen continued. Its most celebrated graduate was Pina Bausch, with whom Jooss established the Folkwang Tanzstudio (FTS) in 1962.

The new Ballets Russes Company founded by de Basil and Blum toured extensively throughout the 20 years of its existence (1932–52); it was known variously as the Ballets Russes de Colonel W de Basil, the Covent Garden Russian Ballet and the Original Ballet Russe. To complicate matters further, Blum left in 1935 to form a second company, the René Blum Ballets de Monte Carlo. This soon grew into the famous USA-based Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1938–62), with its headquarters in New York.

Both de Basil and Blum’s vibrant companies, in attempting to dominate the void left by Diaghilev’s great Ballets Russes (1909–29), were riven by theatrical rivalries, with their impresarios, choreographers and star dancers competing for supremacy. Even so, they carried Diaghilev’s legacy worldwide: ‘Blum and de Basil engaged as choreographers George Balanchine and then Léonide Massine, and – a scoop – [Serge] Grigoriev, Diaghilev’s régisseur from 1909–1929. Grigoriev, with his famous memory and with the aid of his wife Lyubov Tchernicheva, was able to reconstruct many of the ballets from the Diaghilev repertory.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1992)

Les Présages (1933) was a popular and critical success, which Massine immediately followed with Choreartium (1933) set to Brahms's Fourth Symphony. This prompted vociferous objections to symphonic music being used for ballet - and created marvellous publicity for the London season of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at the Alhambra Theatre, which subsequently ran for an astonishing four months.

Never one to be daunted by his critics, Massine went on to make La Symphonie fantastique (1936), a ballet set to Berlioz’s famous score; he even tackled Beethoven’s mighty Seventh Symphony (1938). Throughout his long career, Massine choreographed ballets to a remarkable range of music, setting his numerous, richly designed and inventively theatrical works to scores by Hindemith, Shostakovich, Wagner and Schubert, among other great composers. 

Nicholas Sergeyev (1876–1951) was a significant addition to the staff of de Valois’ School and Company. He mounted several cornerstone productions of the Classical repertoire for the Vic-Wells Ballet, starting with Coppélia in 1933, in which Lydia Lopokova starred as Swanhilda – although de Valois took over the role after Lopokova’s first headline performances. This was followed by Giselle in 1934, revived as a vehicle for Markova and Dolin. (Sergeyev had earlier mounted Giselle in London for the Camargo Society in 1932, with Olga Spessivtseva in the title role, and Dolin as Albrecht.) The Nutcracker (known as Casse-Noisette) was also given by the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934; with a cast of nearly 40 dancers, and featuring children from the School, it was the Company’s most ambitious project to date. 

Astonishingly, a full-length Swan Lake, then called Le Lac des cygnes, was also attempted by the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934, but it was generally agreed that the Company was not quite ready for the technical demands made on the corps de ballet by Ivanov’s exacting choreography. This was hardly surprising, given that the School had been founded only eight years before.  

Robert Helpmann attracted a huge popular following: his long and celebrated partnership with Margot Fonteyn – particularly in several early productions of the Classical ballet repertoire in London – elevated the status of the Vic-Wells Ballet, and raised the profile of an emerging national ballet in Britain. Fonteyn acknowledged her personal debt to Helpmann, writing: ‘As a man of the theatre, he was the finest mentor imaginable…our …partnership gave me time to develop…my own presence and style.’ (cited in Sorley Walker, 2009) 

Helpmann’s range as a performer was enormous, encompassing both dramatic veracity and comic genius that were equally convincing: from the tragic pathos of The Red King in Checkmate (1937), to the tipsy clowning of Mr O’Reilly in The Prospect Before Us (1940). Both these, and other famous roles he created in de Valois’ ballets, helped to establish a strong tradition of characterisation within the Vic-Wells Company. Helpmann’s further stylistic legacy to The Royal Ballet lay in the powerful  theatricality of his own dramatic ballets, such as Hamlet (1942) and Miracle in the Gorbals (1944). 

In 1931 de Valois created Job for the Camargo Society; the revival of 1933 by the Vic-Wells Ballet gave Robert Helpmann, in the role of Satan, his first notable success with the Company. Each of de Valois’ ballets was a testament to her conviction that ballet is a collaborative art: The Haunted Ballroom (1934), The Rake’s Progress (1935), Barabau (1936), The God’s Go a Begging (1936), Checkmate (1937), and The Prospect Before Us (1940) followed in a steady succession, creating a strongly dramatic, demanding and varied repertoire for the Vic-Wells Ballet.

De Valois’ literary sources included William Blake, William Hogarth, and John Gay; her choice of composers and designers similarly reflected her wish to work with English artists. She used scores by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Geoffrey Toye, Gavin Gordon and Arthur Bliss among others; while her designers included Rex Whistler, Edward Burra, Gwendolen Raverat and Hugh Stevenson. De Valois’ principal contribution as a choreographer was made during a 16 year period (1928–43), after which her duties as a teacher, writer and Director became paramount. 

Les Rendezvous was a ‘ballet-divertissement’ based on the lively encounters between young men and women enjoying a day in the park. The accompaniment was taken from the ballet music of Daniel François Auber’s opera, L’Enfant prodigue (1850), and cleverly arranged by Constant Lambert. With its fresh and pretty designs by William Chappell, the ballet became an early signature piece of the Vic-Wells. The charm and fluidity of Ashton’s choreography perfectly suited the youthful Company, led by Alicia Markova and Stanislas Idzikowski in the lyrical Adagio of Lovers.

In Les Rendezvous, Ashton created a fiendishly fast and exhausting pas de trois for Ninette de Valois, who was not only the Director of the Vic-Wells Ballet, but also remained one of its leading dancers. She was flanked on one side by her frequent partner, Stanley Judson, and on the other by Robert Helpmann, a recent recruit to the Company’s ranks, who would soon become one of its biggest stars.

Inspired by the young Margot Fonteyn, Ashton ‘poured into his [Vic-Wells] ballets the flood of romanticism that he had hinted at in earlier pieces for Rambert’. He also ‘exploited brilliantly the lyrical vein that he had uncovered in Fonteyn and, importantly, the rest of the Company.’ (Bland, 1981)

As a young man, Ashton was entranced by the ‘sheer glory’ of the dancing of Anna Pavlova, especially by her profound musicality and fluidity of movement. These were qualities that Ashton also admired in Isadora Duncan. Their unique attributes remained a great influence on his choreography throughout his life. Like de Valois had been before him, Ashton was enormously influenced by the work of Bronislava Nijinska, who taught Classical ballet with technical rigour, while developing the traditional dance vocabulary as a powerful means of expressing fundamental human emotions, through the medium of her innovative choreography.

Margot Fonteyn came to exemplify the ‘English style’ of Classical ballet, which might be described as being lyrical and beautifully proportioned; both sensual and restrained. These qualities were first defined by Fonteyn’s creative partnership with Frederick Ashton, who choreographed most of her defining roles: ‘The Woman in Ball Dress’ in Apparitions (1936); Julia in A Wedding Bouquet (1937); principal couple (with Somes) in Symphonic Variations (1946) and Scènes de Ballet (1948); the title roles in Cinderella (1948), Daphnis and Chloë (1951), Ondine (1958) and Marguerite and Armand (1963).

Since the 18th century, the world’s different Schools of ballet have been seen as stylistically distinctive: for example, French ballet is held to be technically precise, gracious and elegant; Italian to be brilliant, quick and virtuoso. Russian ballet, due to history and geography, has two Schools: the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow produces dancers who are dramatic, bold, and aerial; while St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet represents the ultimate in aristocratic refinement and purity of Classical line. During the mid-20th century, the energy of Broadway, the glamour of Hollywood, and the neo-Classical athleticism of George Balanchine’s choreography, combined to forge the American balletic style.

Harold Turner was a brilliant technician, excelling in virtuoso roles such as the Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty. Turner created the challenging parts of The Dancing Master in de Valois’ The Rake’s Progress (1935) and The Red Knight in her ballet, Checkmate (1937). For Ashton, he created roles in Le Biaser de la fée (1935), A Wedding Bouquet (1937), and most famously in Les Patineurs (1937), when Ashton took full advantage of Turner’s dazzling spins and jumps for the role of the ‘Blue Boy’.

Anthony Tudor (1909–1987) was working as an accountant at Smithfield Market when he began his ballet training with Rambert, aged 20, joining her Company just two years later in 1930. He began to choreograph from the outset, and also became Rambert’s assistant. Lilac Garden (1936) was his first enduring work: ‘The ballet retains its place in the repertory today…it was a forerunner of those ‘psychological’ ballets [such as Pillar of Fire made in 1942] in which Tudor so accurately explored the emotional world of his characters, with telling gesture, quick meetings and partings. Tudor conveyed deep feelings.’ (Clarke & Crisp)

The following year, Tudor created a second masterpiece for Rambert, which also remains in the repertoire. Dark Elegies (1937) was set to Gustav Mahler’s transcendent orchestral song-cycle, Kindertotenlieder [Songs on the Death of Children] (1905). The stark and simple designs were by Nadia Benois. A plotless but profoundly moving work, the ballet’s two scenes are entitled ‘Bereavement’ and ‘Resignation’, and convey a powerful sense of ‘exaltation through suffering’. (Chazin-Bennahum, 1994)

Important early collaborations between Fedorovitch and Ashton included their ballets for Rambert’s Ballet Club, most notably Les Masques (1933). For de Valois’ Vic-Wells Ballet, which Ashton joined permanently in 1935, they immediately worked together on Le Baiser de la fée (1935) and Nocturne (1936). Their most enduring ballet was Symphonic Variations (1946), the first work Ashton choreographed for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House – considered by many to be the greatest neo-Classical ballet in the English repertoire. Fedorovitch’s designs are intrinsic to the piece, and remain essentially unchanged to this day.

Composer Arthur Bliss, and designer Edward McKnight Kauffer, worked closely with de Valois on this ballet, which she considered to be her best. ‘The chess pieces move as if guided by the hand of fate. The Black Queen powers her way across the board, dominating all around her. After the destruction of the naïve and chivalrous Red Knight, the Red King is goaded out of his inertia; but his feeble resistance allows the Queen to administer the coup de grace: ‘checkmate’.’ (Linton, 2014)

In July 1937, the Vic-Wells Ballet embarked on its first visit abroad, appearing at the Champs-Elysées Theatre in Paris. They presented a programme made up of five Ashton ballets, and two of de Valois’, including Checkmate. ‘They lacked advance publicity, and a brilliant first night was not backed up by public bookings, but the warm notices…secured them attention.’ The critic Franc Scheuer spoke of the season as ‘a revelation’, commenting on the ‘unity of the ensemble’ and the triumphant alliance of ‘tradition with originality’ shown by the choreography. (Sorley Walker, 1987)

Frederick Ashton created many significant roles for Pamela May, including the Moon in Horoscope (1938), a powerful solo in Dante Sonata (1940), and a central duet (with Somes) in The Wanderer (1941). May was the ‘blonde ballerina’ in Ashton’s neo-Classical masterpiece, Symphonic Variations (1946), placed on one side of the dark-haired Fonteyn, with the redheaded Moira Shearer on the other. Ashton also cast May as the gracious Fairy Godmother in his full-length Cinderella (1948).

Ninette de Valois initially cast Pamela May as the gentle Red Queen in her ballet Checkmate (1937), although she also excelled as the fearsome Black Queen in subsequent revivals. Continually versatile, May next created the boisterous role of Mlle Theodore in de Valois’ The Prospect Before Us (1940), and that of the tragic Eurydice in her Orpheus and Eurydice (1941). 

June Brae created many roles in the early Vic-Wells repertoire: she was the ‘Rich Girl’ (later called the ‘Young Girl’) in Ashton’s Nocturne (1936); one of the two ‘pas des patineuses’ girls with Pamela May in Les Patineurs [The Skaters] (1937); and most memorably the tipsy Josephine in the Ashton/Lord Berners ballet, A Wedding Bouquet (1937). June Brae was the Lilac Fairy to Margot Fonteyn’s Princess Aurora, when The Sleeping Princess was first staged by Nicholas Sergeyev for de Valois’ Company in 1939.

…de Basil at Covent Garden, Blum-Massine at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Balletomanes scurried round the corner from one house to the other to catch one ballet and one group of dancers here, another there.’ (Clarke & Crisp, 1992)

The vivacious and brilliant young stars who led these competing companies were often close colleagues; they sometimes moved between the two troupes, attracted by better contracts or performing opportunities offered by the opposing managements, keen to secure their considerable box-office attractions. The result for London audiences was novelty, excitement and intrigue, against which the emerging British companies, led by de Valois’ Vic-Wells Ballet, looked decidedly tame. Indeed, home-grown British Ballet might have taken much longer to flourish, if the outbreak of war in 1939 had not put at end to the highly successful London Seasons of the visiting Ballets Russes companies.

By this time the Vic-Wells Ballet had an impressive roster of Soloists, shown to great effect in this production. Fonteyn, not yet 20, was now established as the Company’s leading ballerina; she blossomed in the role of Aurora, generously supported by Helpmann as her Prince. Thus, in de Valois’ words: ‘The skeleton, if not the flesh and blood, of the Mariinsky style had been transferred from Imperial Russia to a modest theatre in Islington.’ (De Valois quoted in Bland, 1981)

The Sleeping Princess was a landmark in the development of the Vic-Wells Ballet; the production was photographed by de Valois’ brother, Gordon Anthony, who published a lavish volume, The Sleeping Princess, Camera Studies (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1940), which featured many of the Company’s emerging artists: Jill Gregory as The Camelia Fairy; Pamela May as The Rose Fairy; June Brae as The Lilac Fairy; Mary Honer and Harold Turner in The Bluebird pas de deux; Jean Bedells and Frank Staff as Red Riding Hood and The Wolf; with Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann in the Aurora pas de deux.

Lilian Baylis was the Manager of the Old Vic Theatre, South of the River Thames near Waterloo, and also of its artistic twin, the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in North London. As the Vic-Wells Ballet audience grew and ‘ballet nights’ were scheduled more frequently, it became increasingly expensive to arrange performances in both venues. Furthermore, confusion sometimes arose when members of the public turned up at the wrong theatre! The decision was made, therefore, to make ‘the ’Wells’ the home of ballet and opera, while the Old Vic would become the hub of a national dramatic theatre company.

The ballet gave up most of its male dancers to the military, so they ‘took boys of sixteen, straight from the School and elsewhere, into the Company, and were thus able to get two years’ work out of them before their call-up.’ (de Valois, 1957)

The critic P W Manchester declared that the war had the small but notable effect of placing the Sadler’s Wells School and Company in ‘the same position as Alice in Looking-Glass Land, who had to travel twice as fast to stay in the same place.’ (Manchester, 1946) Arnold Haskell recorded that planned developments were interrupted by the outbreak of war: in particular, the enlargement of the School and the introduction of academic education at Sadler’s Wells; also the formation of a second touring company. (Haskell, 1943) All such developments would come after the war, but in the meantime, the priority was simply to keep going.

The designs by Sophie Fedorovitch were based on John Flaxman’s simple but emotive illustrations for Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Ashton took some of his choreographic material from the Flaxman engravings, deriving further ideas from the work of Gustave Doré, who had also illustrated Dante. In terms of movement, Ashton ‘consciously or not…went back to his memories of Isadora Duncan and invented a free or “modern” style in which the dancers went barefoot, the women’s hair unbound.’ (Vaughan, 1977)

Dante Sonata was a ballet closely tied to a moment in history, a work of its time, which audiences and dancers found moving and cathartic. It represented a battle between two warring groups, identified as Children of Light (led by Fonteyn, Somes and May) and Children of Darkness (led by Helpmann and Brae). Reflecting the bleak view that there can be no winners in war, the ballet ended with the leaders of both factions being ‘crucified’ in torment. As Ashton’s biographer, David Vaughan, points out, ‘a rather bold notion at that particular patriotic stage of the war.’

Before the Company got out of Holland, there were four tense days of uncertainty and danger, ‘while de Valois argued with military authorities about how her dancers could be repatriated…[Margot Fonteyn recalled that] Robert Helpmann’s “spirit and sense of humour kept hearts from despair…He made a joke out of everything so that even de Valois, who felt personally responsible for the whole troupe, relaxed and laughed” [while Helpmann gave] a spontaneous performance of highlights from Miss Hook of Holland that included songs and an impromptu clog dance. The company eventually reached Ijmuiden and were able to board a cargo ship for England. On 14 May all were safely home.’ (Sorley Walker, 2009)

Apart from a few months in 1941, when the School was evacuated to Tring, and then Holland Park (in premises provided by The Royal Academy of Dancing), it continued to function at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Here, the administrative staff slept on site in the downstairs dressing-rooms, while the students battled their way into war-torn London for daily classes and performances.  

The administrative offices of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet moved out of the capital to a more secure base in Lancashire, although this safer option was not available to the dancers, musicians and choreographers of the Company. Between their sell-out seasons at the New Theatre in London, they embarked on regional tours: ‘Conditions were makeshift, and most of the audiences had never seen ballet. Some were unconvinced; Fonteyn described the bang of seats when people walked out. Many more were converted.’ (Anderson, 2006)

As a choreographer, Robert Helpmann was a kindred spirit of Ninette de Valois, convinced that ballet should tell stories and explore ideas within a theatrical framework. As a performer, choreographer and stage director, Helpmann’s ‘complete identification with theatre meant that he approached all types of performance with the same relish and respect: from traditional ballet to pantomime, from Shakespeare to musicals.’ (Sorley Walker, 2009)

Helpmann’s ground-breaking ballet, Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), was a modern fable in which a Christ-figure, called The Stranger, appears in Glasgow’s notorious slums, which were known as the ‘Gorbals’. The score by Arthur Bliss contained contemporary musical references, including a ‘Jitterbug’ dance. In spite of its allegorical nature, the ballet aimed at a radical gritty realism, with a Beggar, a Prostitute and a sexually repressed ‘Official’ (a euphemism for a Church Minister) among its central characters. With a lively and cinematic set design by Edward Burra, the cast wore costumes of their own devising, choosing everyday clothing to suit their individual roles. The ballet gave members of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet their first opportunity to act in a contemporary drama, and made a lasting impact on dramatic artistry in all ranks of the Company.

Beryl Grey ‘was a tall, long-limbed dancer with an…easy, expansive style. Her fouéttes were effortless – she could turn them to the left or the right – and [Arnold] Haskell remembered her rushing to the dressing rooms, “asking the older girls how to be wicked as Odile”.’ (Anderson, 2006) The leading role in Swan Lake demands that the ballerina transforms from tender Odette into evil Odile, a challenge for the greatest dancer, let alone an inexperienced teenager.

With her unusually tall stature and extreme youth, Grey broke the mould of the English ballerina. She remained intensely loyal to de Valois and the Sadler’s Wells (later The Royal Ballet) Company, where she established her career, but she also danced elsewhere. Grey starred in the first ‘stereoscopic’ ballet film The Black Swan (Dir. Leonard Reeve, UK, 1952). She was a Principal Guest Artist of the Royal Opera House, Stockholm in 1953 and 1955, and left The Royal Ballet in 1957, to become the first English dancer to perform with the great Russian Companies of Leningrad [St Petersburg] and Moscow (1957–58). A celebrated guest artist around the world, Grey wrote unique accounts of performing and teaching in Russia and China: Red Curtain Up (London: Secker and Warburg, 1958) and Through the Bamboo Curtain (London: Collins, 1965).  

Volkova joined the staff of The Sadler’s Wells Ballet (1943–50), where her teaching made a deep impact on the artistry of the Company, especially as it became resident at the Royal Opera House after the war. Volkova was an infuential coach for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet’s landmark production of The Sleeping Beauty (1946); she was also significant to the creation of Ashton’s neo-Classical masterwork, Symphonic Variations (1946).

In 1951 Volkova joined the artistic staff of The Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, where she remained for 28 years, influencing a generation of dancers, including the exemplary danseur noble, Erik Bruhn. He wrote of her special contribution as a teacher who enabled dancers to meet the demands of new choreography:

‘The great Mme. Vera Volkova…has raised the technical standards, developing dancers with a greater range, who are more adaptable to the various styles of contemporary choreographers’. (Bruhn, 1961)

The Royal Opera House was used as a Mecca dance hall throughout World War II; frequented by the troops on leave, it rang to the sounds of popular dances, like the ‘jive’ and the ‘jitterbug’. On the return of peace, the theatre was returned to its customary state of decorum. The Sadler’s Wells Ballet was invited to perform at the re-opening gala, which was attended by the entire Royal Family, the Prime Minister, and many state dignitaries.

The Company rose to the occasion with a landmark production of The Sleeping Beauty: based on Nicholas Sergeyev’s pre-war revival of Petipa’s original masterpiece (1890). The production was overseen by Ninette de Valois, and magnificently designed by Oliver Messel. Margot Fonteyn assumed her full ballerina mantle in this ballet; with Frederick Ashton coaching her in the role of Aurora, she soon learned to command the vast spaces of the Royal Opera House. Robert Helpmann was in his element, appearing in the same performance as the vengeful Fairy Carabosse (in the Prologue, and Act I), and an elegant Prince Florimund (in Acts II and III).  

Symphonic Variations (1946) was a statement of Ashton’s intent, his artistic manifesto, which declared that pure Classical dance should remain paramount to the work of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in its grand new home. The ballet was set to the sublimely beautiful Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra by César Franck (1885); the designs by Sophie Fedorovitch comprised minimal costumes redolent of Classical antiquity, and a backdrop inspired by the flat Norfolk landscape: the greens and yellows of a sunlit glade, and looped telephone lines seen against a vast, open sky.

‘Above all Ashton found the courage to be simple: to allow the dancers to stand motionless before the final passage of vigorous dancing…so that they could catch their breath since they never left the stage during the whole ballet, but from such practical considerations may come the most poetic, human moments in a dance.  Equally beautiful in their calm simplicity are the transitional passages when the dancers take hands and run round the stage.’ (Vaughan, 1977)

After the Sadler’s Wells Ballet became resident at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, Ninette de Valois determined not to desert the Company’s loyal public in Islington, or to ignore the new ballet audiences established during constant regionial touring during the war. The newly-formed ‘touring company’ was the result. It underwent several changes of name: known inititally as the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet, a year later it became the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet.

In 1957, following the granting of a Royal Charter, the troupe was re-named the Royal Ballet Touring Company. This was changed in 1976 to the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, after the appointment of Peter Wright as Director in 1975, a post he was to hold for 20 years. Emerging as a major ballet company in its own right during this period, in 1990 the Company made a highly successful move to Birmingham, becoming known as the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

John Cranko was the friend and contemporary of Kenneth MacMillan at the Sadler’s Wells School and Companies (based at Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden); both these young choreographers went on to become masters of the full-length narrative ballet. For the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, Cranko created significant early works, including the hugely popular Pineapple Poll (1951), and The Lady and the Fool (1954).

Cranko’s years as the Director of Stuttgart Ballet (between 1961–73) were remarkable; he transformed the Company from a relatively unknown entity into an international phenomenon. His choreography was prolific and he nurtured the individual talents of an extraordinary group of dancers, lead by Marcia Haydée and Richard Cragun. Cranko’s early death de-stabilised the Company, however it continues his legacy to this day; many of its former members (such as Jiří Kylián, John Neumeier and William Forsythe) have made important contributions to worldwide developments in ballet.

Based at first in Monaco and then in Paris, this large itinerant Company was funded by the private fortune of the Marquis de Cuevas’ wife, Margaret, who was the grand-daughter of John D Rockefeller. Its real significance lay in the many leading American dancers and choreographers it brought to Europe, including Rosella Hightower, Marjorie Tallchief, Ana Ricarda and John Taras. Other influential artists to work with de Cuevas included the dancers Alicia Markova, Tamara Toumanova, George Skibine and Erik Bruhn; along with leading dancer-choreographers, such as Léonide Massine and David Lichine.

In 1958 the Company presented Serge Lifar’s famous ballet, Noir et blanc [Black and White] (1943), but the revival led to an epic row between Lifar and de Cuevas. They fought a somewhat theatrical duel to settle the matter, using swords, and conducted before the press. Three years later, in 1961, Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union, and gave his first performance in the West with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, appearing in the Company’s lavish version of The Sleeping Beauty (Bronislava Nijinska/Robert Helpmann production, 1960).

This fine building had been left somewhat derelict after World War II, and it took a year of work to make it ready for the School. Meanwhile, from September 1946, younger pupils aged 14 to 16 attended their lessons at Chalk Farm, in Lydia Sokolova’s former studio. Here, for the first time, they combined ballet classes with an academic education under the auspices of the Sadler’s Wells School. At last, on 29 September 1947 the new School building at 45 Colet Gardens was opened, with very little ceremony, other than a visit from the Bishop of London, who walked through the building and ‘blessed the School at work’.

Arnold Haskell was the first appointed Director of the School (1947–65), noting it had ‘always been the intention to house under one roof a ballet school and a school of general education’. This ideal had remained unattainable, primarily because of the disruption caused by war. Even so, he wrote, ‘It took the war to give us the school and a vast public prepared to admit that the English could produce ballet and creative dancers…the Sadler’s Wells Foundation decided to invest all the war-time profits of the ballet in the school, an act of practical idealism in the true spirit of its founder [Ninette de Valois].’ (Haskell, 1955)

Winifred Edwards chose to teach under her actual name, rather than her stage name of Vera Fredova. After dancing and teaching with Theodore Koslov in America, she returned to England, eventually undertaking further study with Phyllis Bedells in London. In June 1947, at the age of 53, Edwards duly passed the Advanced Teacher's Examination of the Royal Academy of Dancing (later the Royal Academy of Dance). For many years after her formal retirement from teaching in 1963, she continued to give private lessons to many dancers of The Royal Ballet; she was particularly noted for the help she gave those working to overcome injury.