Webster, I knew, was impressed. I waited for his answer. But he shook his head slowly.
“Sol,” he said, “it’s doubtful. Frankly, I do not think it is possible.”
Meanwhile, I discussed the entire matter of the return with leading members of the company. All were of a single opinion, all of one mind. They were anxious and eager to return.
Such are the workings of the Sadler’s Wells organization, however, that it was necessary to delay a decision as to a return visit until at least the 3rd or 4th of January, 1950, in order that the matter could be properly put before the British Arts Council and the British Council for their final approval.
It should not be difficult for the reader to understand the anxiety and eagerness with which I anticipated that date.
* * *
It seems to me that during this period of suspense it might be well for me to sum up my impression of the repertoire that made up the initial season.
The Sadler’s Wells Ballet repertoire for the first American season consisted of the following works: The Sleeping Beauty; Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake) in full; Cinderella, in three acts; Job; Façade; Apparitions; The Rake’s Progress; Miracle in the Gorbals; Hamlet; Symphonic Variations; A Wedding Bouquet; and Checkmate. The order is neither alphabetical nor necessarily in the order of importance. Actually, irrespective of varying degrees of success on this side of the Atlantic, they are all important, for they represent, in a sense, a cross-section of the repertoire history of the company.
The Sleeping Beauty, in its Sadler’s Wells form, is a ballet in a Prologue and three acts. The story is a collaboration by Marius Petipa and I. A. Vsevolojsky, (the Director of the Russian Imperial Theatres at the time of its creation), after the Charles Perrault fairy tale. The music, of course, is Tchaikowsky’s immortal score. The scenery and costumes are by Oliver Messel. The original Petipa choreography was reproduced by Nicholas Serguëeff.
It was the work which so brilliantly inaugurated the company’s occupation of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 20th February, 1946. Sadler’s Wells had previously revived the work in 1939, on a smaller scale, under the title The Sleeping Princess.