The Art of Ballet

by Mark Edward Perugini

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE EMPIRE 1907-1914

When the news was first announced that an end was to come to Mlle. Adeline Génée’s ten years’ reign at the Empire and that the famous dancer was seeking, if not new worlds to conquer, at least to conquer what was once always spoken of as “The ‘New’ World,” many who had followed the progress of Ballet in London must have wondered where anyone could hope to find a successor to her throne, and who would have the courage to accept an offer thereof.

But London theatrical managers are not lacking in resource, or English girls in courage; and it was with real pleasure that we heard that so worthy a successor had been found as that graceful and essentially English dancer, Miss Topsy Sinden, who had already been associated with the Empire as a child some years before.

Of Mlle. Génée’s triumph in “The Belle of the Ball,” I have already spoken. Shortly after, the production underwent a change, and the fact that the new version was still in the bill on the following June 1st, proves the popularity of the production and of the Empire’s choice of Miss Sinden as première danseuse. Her success was the more interesting in that in temperament and in methods she was entirely different from the famous Danish dancer. A typical English girl, with all the charm of looks and manner implied thereby, she had studied not so much the purely traditional French or Italian school of ballet-dancing—though she had, of course, acquired that too—but the English school; of which the late Miss Kate Vaughan was, in her time, the finest exponent, and of which Miss Sylvia Grey, Miss Phyllis Broughton, the late Miss Katie Seymour, Miss Letty Lind, Miss Alice Lethbridge, and Miss Mabel Love, may be taken as leading representatives during the past twenty years.

Miss Sinden had had long and invaluable stage experience before becoming première danseuse at the Empire; had appeared in pantomime at Covent Garden, Drury Lane, at the old “Brit,” and at Liverpool and elsewhere; had “done” the Halls; had appeared at the Haymarket under Sir H. Beerbohm Tree’s management; had appeared at the Gaiety in “Cinderella Up-to-Date,” “In Town,” “Don Juan,” “The Gaiety Girl,” and “The Shop Girl”; at Daly’s in “The Greek Slave,” in “The Country Girl,” and other productions; and always she won fresh distinction as one of the most vivacious, piquante, graceful and finished English dancers the London stage has ever known.

Her appearance in “The Belle of the Ball” was marked by the most cordial welcome from the Press and the public, and one of the first greetings she received on her return to the Empire was a telegram from Brighton which ran as follows: “My good wishes, and I hope you will do yourself justice. You are one of the best dancers I know.—Adeline Génée.” That Miss Sinden did do herself justice was seen in the enthusiastic cheers and demands for encores which greeted her at the close of her scenes on that “big night” of her return to the Empire stage.

“The Belle of the Ball” gave place to a revival of “Coppélia” and—the return of Mlle. Adeline Génée. Many as her triumphs had been during her ten years’ unbroken reign, that Wednesday night, June 10th, 1908, must be recorded in Mlle. Génée’s memory in letters of gold, for even she can never have seen such a house, so crammed from floor to ceiling with a distinguished audience, including King George (then Prince of Wales), and been welcomed with such thunderous cheering and applause as greeted her on her first appearance through the little brown door of Swanilda’s balconied house, when she floated down the stairs to the centre of the stage, so lightly indeed that she seemed almost to flutter before the storm of enthusiasm which welcomed her return. And how she danced! Only her peer among poets could describe it, and then he would probably feel as Thackeray felt when endeavouring to do justice to Taglioni in “Sylphide!”

For some seasons past we have had the Russian ballet as a standing dish, over which various epicures have gloated as if no other fare had ever been. But it is interesting to note that the first of “all the Russias” was Mlle. Lydia Kyasht, who made her London début at the Empire, in some dances with M. Adolph Bolm, on August 17th, 1908. For the present, and to preserve historical order, let the fact be merely recorded, leaving further reference thereto until the time it becomes necessary to chronicle the handsome Russian dancer’s later successes.

On September 7th of that same year came the production of one of the most perfect gems yet seen in the historic gallery of Ballet, namely, “The Dryad,” a pastoral fantasy in two tableaux, by that brilliant composer, Miss Dora Bright. From time to time, in such productions as “The Milliner Duchess,” “Coppélia,” and “The Débutante,” we had had an opportunity of realising something of Mlle. Génée’s gifts as an actress apart from her supremacy as a dancer, but it was mainly as a dancer, surrounded by dancers, that we have seen her. Now, however, we were to have a conclusive revelation of the fact that had Mlle. Génée not elected to become a great dancer she could have achieved distinction as an actress. The story, of which she was the heroine, gave her an opportunity of proving that; and with herself in the title-rôle, that artistic singer, Mr. Gordon Cleather, as a shepherd, and with the support of wonderfully expressive and beautifully orchestrated mimodrame music, the sister arts of dance, song, mime, and music, were brought together to give us a balanced harmony of lovely and memorable impressions.