The last time I was in Webster’s office, I remarked, “We must prepare the papers for the next tour.”
Webster looked up quickly.
“No papers are necessary,” he said.
For the reader who has come this far, it should not be necessary for me to underline the difference between negotiations with the British and the years of wrangling through the intrigues and dissimulations of the Russo-Caucasian-Eastern European-New England mazes of indecision.
My respect for and my confidence in David Webster are unlimited. He is a credit to his country; and to him, also, must go much of the credit for the creation of a genuine national opera and for the solid position of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet.
ROBERT HELPMANN
It was towards the end of the San Francisco engagement of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet that there occurred a performance, gala so far as the audience was concerned, but which was not without its sadness to the company, to me, and to all those who had watched the growth and development, the rise to a position of pre-eminence on the part of British ballet. The public was, of course, completely unaware of the event. It is not the sort of thing one publicizes.
Robert Helpmann, long the principal male dancer, a co-builder, and an important choreographer of the company, resigned. His last performance as a regular member of the organization took place in the War Memorial Opera House. The vehicle for his last appearance was the grand pas-de-deux from the third act of The Sleeping Beauty, with Margot Fonteyn. It was eminently fitting that Helpmann’s final appearance as a regular member of the company was with Margot. Their association, as first artists with the company, encompassed the major portion of its history, some fifteen years.
During this period, Helpmann had served in two capacities simultaneously: as principal dancer and as choreographer. An Australian by birth in 1909, his first ballet training came from the Anna Pavlova company when Pavlova was on one of her Australian tours. For four years he danced “down under,” and came to Britain in 1933, studying with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, while dancing in the corps de ballet. His first important role was in succession to Anton Dolin as Satan, in the de Valois-Vaughan Williams Job. From 1934, he was the first male dancer of the Sadler’s Wells organization. Helpmann often took leaves of absence to appear in various plays and films, for he is an actor of ability and distinction. As a choreographer, his Hamlet and Miracle in the Gorbals are distinctive additions to any repertoire.
“Bobby” Helpmann has not given up ballet entirely. When he can spare the time from his theatrical and film commitments, he is bound to turn up as a guest artist, and I hope to see him again partnering great ballerinas. Always a good colleague, he has been blessed by the gods with a delicious sense of humor. This serves him admirably in such roles as one of the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella—I never can distinguish which one by name, and only know “Bobby” was the sister which “Freddy” Ashton was not. Both Hamlet and Miracle in the Gorbals revealed his serious acting qualities.