The fourth is important to the national significance of the ballet. Such works constitute the nation’s own contribution to the theatre, and are in need perhaps of the most careful guidance of the groups.
It was the classics which had, from the beginning, the place of priority: Swan Lake (Act II), Les Sylphides, Carnaval, Coppélia, The Nutcracker, Giselle, and the full-length Swan Lake.
In 1935, Markova left Sadler’s Wells to form her own company with Dolin. With Markova’s departure, the whole character of the Sadler’s Wells company changed. The Company became the Star. The company got along without a ballerina and concentrated on its own personality, on developing dancers from its school, and on its direction. Creation and development continued.
However, during this time, there was emerging not precisely a “star,” but a great ballerina. Ballerina is a term greatly misused in the United States, where any little dancer is much too often referred to both in the press and in general conversation in this way. Ballerina is a title, not a term. The title is one earned only through long, hard experience. It is attained only in the highly skilled interpretation of the great standard classical parts. Russia, France, Italy, Denmark, countries where there are state ballets, know these things. We in the United States, I fear, do not understand. A “star” is not one merely by virtue of billing. A ballerina is, of course, a “star,” even in a company that has no “stars” in its billing and advertising. A true ballerina is a rare bird indeed. In an entire generation, it should be remembered, the Russian Imperial Ballet produced only enough for the fingers of two hands.
The great ballerina I have mentioned as having come up through the Sadler’s Wells Company, as the product of that company, is more than a ballerina. She is a prima ballerina assoluta, a product of Sadler’s Wells training, of the Sadler’s Wells system, a member of that all-round team that is Sadler’s Wells. Her name is Margot Fonteyn. I shall have something to say about her later on.
I have pointed out that the backbone of the Sadler’s Wells repertoire is the classics. Therein, in my opinion, lies one of the chief reasons for its great success. There is a second reason, I believe. That is that, along with Ninette de Valois’ sound production policy, keeping step with it, sometimes leading it, is an equally sound musical policy. Sitting in with de Valois and Frederick Ashton, as the third of the directorial triumvirate, was the brilliant musician, critic, and wit, Constant Lambert, who exerted a powerful influence in the building of the repertoire, and who, with the sympathetic cooperation of his two colleagues, made the musical standards of Sadler’s Wells the highest of any ballet company in my knowledge and experience.
The company grew and prospered. The war merely served to intensify its efforts—and its accomplishments. Its war record is a brilliant, albeit a difficult one; a record of unremitting hard work and dogged perseverance against terrible odds. The company performed unceasingly throughout the course of the war, with bombs falling. Once the dancing was stopped, while the dancers fought a fire ignited by an incendiary bomb and thus saved the theatre. The company was on a good-will tour of Holland, under the auspices of the British Council, in the spring of 1940. They were at Arnheim when Hitler invaded. Packed into buses, they raced ahead of the Panzers, reached the last boat to leave, left minus everything, but everything: productions, scenery, costumes, properties, musical material, and every scrap of personal clothing.
Once back in Britain, there was no cessation. The lost productions and costumes were replaced; the musical material renewed, some of it, since it was manuscript, by reorchestrating it from gramophone recordings. As the Battle of Britain was being fought, the company toured the entire country, with two pianos in lieu of orchestra, with Constant Lambert playing the first piano. They played in halls, in theatres, in camps, in factories; brought ballet to soldiers and sailors, to airmen, and to factory workers, often by candlelight. They managed to create new works. Back to London, to a West End theatre, with orchestra, and then, because of the crowds, to a larger West End playhouse.
It was at the end of the war, as I have mentioned earlier, that the music publishing house of Boosey and Hawkes, with a splendid generosity, saved the historic Royal Opera House, at Covent Garden, from being turned into a popular dance hall. A common error on the part of Americans is to believe that because it was called the Royal Opera House, it was a State-supported theatre, as, for example, are the Royal Opera House of Denmark, at Copenhagen, and the Paris Opéra. Among those Maecenases who had made opera possible in the old days in London was Sir Thomas Beecham, who made great personal sacrifices to keep it open.
When Boosey and Hawkes took over Covent Garden, it was on a term lease. On taking possession they immediately turned over the historic edifice to a committee known as the Covent Garden Opera Trust, of which the chairman was Lord Keynes, the distinguished economist and art patron who, as plain Mr. John Maynard Keynes, had been instrumental in the formation of the Camargo Society, and who had married the one-time Diaghileff ballerina, Lydia Lopokova; this committee had acted as god-parents to the Sadler’s Wells company in its infancy. The Arts Council supported the venture, and David Webster was appointed Administrator.