Dover St. Studios
Mme. Lydia Kyasht
Hugh Cecil
Miss Phyllis Bedells
Then, too, it was but a return to early history to give us vocal-ballet, for all the earliest ballets on the French stage were always described as “opera-ballets,” long declamatory and choral scenes being interspersed with dances. Lulli, Rameau, Mouret, Campra and Monteverde were among the composers of such ballets, many of which, musically at least, seem wonderfully fresh to-day. This, however, is but a digression. “Titania” at the Empire was a very graceful and poetic production, quite fairy-like enough, one feels, to have delighted even Shakespeare himself, with Mlle. Lydia Kyasht as a truly regal-looking Titania, Mr. Leonid Joukoff as a dignified Oberon, Miss Unity More as a nimble Puck (a part later played by Miss Ivy St. Helier), and Miss Phyllis Bedells as an enchanting “first fairy,” Philomel. On Mlle. Kyasht’s departure for America the part of Titania was taken up by Miss Phyllis Bedells, who added yet another to her growing list of artistic successes. The ballet, which was beautifully staged, gave us some enchanting pictures, one of which, the apotheosis of the Fairy Realm seen through a tangled hawthorn brake, lingers hauntingly in one’s memory.
A new edition of “The Dancing Master” was subsequently staged and was notable for some brilliant dancing by Miss Phyllis Bedells, and by Mr. Edouard Espinosa in the title-rôle, by whom it was produced. Mr. Espinosa, by the way, forms an interesting link with the historic past. As the son of Mons. Leon Espinosa (1825-1903), an Officier D’Académie, Mr. Edouard is heir of a great tradition, and sustains the heritage most worthily. His father was a pupil of seven of the great masters of the early nineteenth, namely, Coulon (1820), Henri (1821), Albert (1829), Perrot (1831), Coralli (1831), Taglioni (1834), and Petipa (1839), to most of whom reference has already been made, and who were themselves, variously, pupils of the previous generation—which included Vestris, Noverre, Gardel, and Dauberval—who, in turn, were tutored by Pécourt and Beauchamps in the reign of Louis-Quatorze. Mr. Edouard Espinosa himself is a fine dancer and teacher of the classic and traditional school, and is also one of the best informed on the history of the dance.
“Europe,” a topical and patriotic divertissement, invented, designed and produced by Mr. C. Wilhelm (who, despite his nom de théâtre, has an English name and is essentially English born and bred), achieved, on its first performance on September 7th, 1914, an instant success. It was worthy of the best traditions of the Empire Theatre. The choice of such a theme as the condition of Europe, just before and during the greatest war in history, might have been called into question on the score of taste, and in the hands of any but a fine artist might have easily been trivialised. The subject was treated with marked dramatic ability and poetic dignity, and the production, passing from the comparative lightness of the first scene, into the more serious note of the second, attained to a high level of art in the patriotic symbolism of the third, and offered a tableau worthy the brush of any English painter of historical subjects. Since then we have seen “The Vine,” an Arcadian dance-idyll, invented, designed and supervised by Mr. C. Wilhelm, while it was produced, and the dances were arranged, by Mr. Fred Farren. It was superbly staged and proved one of the most original, picturesque and dramatic productions ever seen at the Empire. Miss Phyllis Bedell’s impersonation of the Spirit of the Vine seemed to have in it something of Dionysiac fire and revealed her not only as an exquisite dancer, but a sensitive and temperamental actress. Miss Carlotta Mossetti, another singularly expressive and sympathetic mime, exhibited a sense of classic inspiration in her study of the young Shepherd tempted by the Vine-Spirit; excellent work also being done by Miss Connie Walter as the Shepherd’s unhappy wife, and “Little June,” a lithe and clever little dancer, as the Spirit of the Mountain Stream. The scenery, painted by Mr. R. C. McCleery; the costumes, executed by Miss Hastings, were well in keeping with the poetic character of the story, and the entire stage effect achieved formed an exquisite setting for the dancer-mimes who were to interpret the dramatic little idyll.
So runs, in brief, the chronicle of ballet at the Empire, one which, if it is somewhat attenuated in later years by the increasing emphasis of that somewhat casual type of entertainment, the “Revue,” is nevertheless quite remarkable when one remembers that of the sixty or more ballets produced at the famous house in twenty-seven years all were commercially as well as artistically successful, and that the theatre has not received State-aid, as have the continental opera-houses where Ballet has been a staple attraction.
Thoughtless folk, who know little or nothing of the hard, unremitting toil which goes to make a dancer, or of the artistic training, thought and feeling which go to make a designer or producer of ballet, often speak lightly and slightingly of a type of theatrical production in which are blended colour, form, movement and music into a balanced harmony of varied arts under the term the art of Ballet. They rank it, usually, somewhere lower than Drama or Opera. But the placing of a colour in a colour scheme requires quite as delicate a taste as the placing of a word in a sentence, or a chord in a phrase of music; the introduction of a dancer or a group needs just as critical a care as the introduction of a character in a play or opera; and the telling of the story, albeit mutely mimed, may be just as dramatic in effect as in any verbal drama. The art of Ballet is a complex and beautiful art, at its best a very beautiful; and those who are prone to dismiss it lightly as a thing that more or less occurs of itself, and is of slight account as a vehicle for the deliberate expression of beauty, should rather feel proud to think that at the Empire in London we have seen, in the course of a quarter of a century, Ballet of such artistic value as to place it among the few real art influences of nineteenth and early twentieth-century London.