London Children’s Ballet ‘The Secret Garden’
The Peacock Theatre: 19 May 2007
Hardened balletomanes regularly tour the end-of-year vocational school shows to spot future stars but few seem to go that one step beyond to visit this annual production by the London Children’s Ballet. None of the 50 or so children in the company are yet in full-time dance education but each year throws up at least one burgeoning talent: Anna Rose O’Sullivan (the star of ‘A Little Princess’ in 2004) is now regularly gracing the Royal Opera House stage as one of the young girls in ‘Swan Lake’ ; Julia Roscoe was plucked from the following year’s ‘The Canterville Ghost’ by Johan Kobborg to perform in his production of ‘La Sylphide (and will soon join Anna Rose at White Lodge); and Henry Perkins, the eponymous hero of last year’s ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ went on immediately to train full-time in Russia. Whether the same meteoric rise awaits any of this year’s crop remains to be seen but they are certainly following in some promising footsteps. Over half of the youngsters who performed with LCB a decade ago are now enjoying a career in dance or theatre. It’s a hefty strike rate from a cohort which had no-one in vocational dance training at the time.
The reason for this continuing success has much to do with the innate professionalism that runs throughout every aspect of the company. How many companies in London will this year perform a new full-length ballet, with a bespoke score commissioned from one of today’s rising young composers, having sold all 8,000 tickets in its season several weeks before the opening night?
The composer, 32 year-old Artem Vassiliev, is featured as a ‘Great Artist of Tomorrow’ in this month’s BBC Music magazine, describing him as ‘one of the most exciting and innovative composers around’. His score for ‘The Secret Garden’ is richly imaginative and expressive, flowing seamlessly from the early scenes in India (which themselves range from joyous party to cholera epidemic), to the windblown Yorkshire moors and into the tranquility of the walled garden. It’s a significant work in its own right, making it even more remarkable that it’s left to a children’s dance company to regularly enrich the classical repertoire of ballet music.
The unsung Patron of the Arts is the company’s founder and artistic director, Lucille Briance, who has the unerring knack inherent to the best impresarios of finding the right story year-after-year and putting together a tremendous collaborative team to make it all work.
Christine Sundt’s choreography is a mature and very British representation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s enigmatic story, with strong shades of Ashton in her emphasis on flexible upper bodies and crisp, neat footwork. Whilst by no means simply derivative, the Ashton influence is significant, extending for example, into comedic dances for a family of robins at Misselthwaite Manor with more than a hint of the chickens in ‘La Fille mal gardèe’. Sundt’s range of movement is necessarily governed by the capabilities of her cast’s untrained bodies but she has totally refused to compromise on quality and classicism. The result is a joy to see, particularly since it shows that there is at least one young choreographer who is proud to continue in a British tradition that has roots back to Ashton and de Valois.
Looking at the ecstatic faces of parents and relatives leaving the Peacock Theatre, it would be churlish not to say that all of these youngsters are stars but, in terms of longevity and a future in dance, those that caught my eye were 14 year-olds Luke Divall and Abigail Bebbington, who shared their first-ever pas de deux with a surprising maturity; Kirby Sztanko (11) as the lead robin; and the charismatic Daisy West (11) as the ballet’s heroine, Mary Lennox. If the desire is there, I’m sure that all of these can find their way into full-time training.
I strongly recommend that balletomanes might want to extend their future talent-spotting to take in these pre-vocational students next year. Their only problem will be remembering to book a ticket months in advance!
Graham Watts
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