© Bill Cooper Royal Ballet reviews Jeffery Taylor reviews Web version held on Ballet.co by kind permission of Jeffery Taylor and the Sunday Express Express Website

They said it would never happen. Prancing about in tights is an insult to British manhood, we were told. Classical ballet and our cold climate pragmatism went together like Paul O’Grady and Jonny Wilkinson. No. Stuff like that might be OK for Continentals, but it will just never happen here. Boy, how wrong the know-alls were in 1931.

In Spring that year, in apparently arid soil, an exotic seed was planted that literally changed the face of this nation. A struggling, little known dancer, teacher and choreographer called Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus in Baltiboys, Eire, in 1898) took the gamble of a life time with a troupe of eight fat thighed ladies and launched the then titled Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Islington.

Today that company, now known as The Royal Ballet, is internationally acknowledged as a contender for the dance world’s supreme crown alongside the Paris Opera, the Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets. Each of these companies took 2-3 centuries to reach the heights of excellence we have attained in less than one.

And with some refreshingly frank own trumpet blowing this Autumn the late Ninette de Valois’ company, the Royal Ballet, launches a glittering new season to celebrate the anniversary of its first 75 years. An astonishing achievement in a staggeringly short space of time and a source of national pride.

The Royal Ballet in Les Biches
© John Ross

What the doom merchants of 1931 overlooked was this redoubtable woman’s steely determination, profound belief in her subject and total refusal to hear the word “no”. Under her inspirational leadership that earned her the life long title, Madam, her little company rapidly took root in north London and abandoned its other home, Waterloo’s Old Vic Theatre. De Valois adopted Sadler’s Wells’s name, spawned a school, moved in 1946 to a new home at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and added a second company, the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet. A decade later came a Royal Charter and its present title, The Royal Ballet.

“Madam was a true visionary,” remembers former ballerina Dame Beryl Grey who first danced with the new company aged 14. “She said to me often as she got older, you know, dear, I always knew our company would flourish.” De Valois demanded of her fledgling ballerinas the same 110% effort she herself contributed. “She was a very powerful woman with ceaseless energy,” emphasises Dame Beryl, who famously slept on the luggage rack every night when touring by train at 15 years old, and already dancing the full length Swan Lake, the most demanding female role in the classical ballet opus. Young “Bubbles” Grey, as she was known, earned £4 a week. “Madam gave the classes, supervised the performances, took rehearsals and paid the company individually on a Friday. The Press,” she adds, “always said, she’ll never create a permanent company, the British don’t have the temperament.” How wrong they were.

It is the British people themselves, according to current artistic director, Monica Mason, who set the seal on the Royal Ballet’s sensational success. “Classical ballet may seem unlikely to take root in the phlegmatic British character,” says Mason who has been with the company for nearly half a century as dancer, teacher and assistant director before taking full control in 2002. “But unlike the rest of Europe, the British people rather than the upper classes have developed their arts,” she elaborates, roundly rejecting ballet’s media “elitist” tag, “look at Shakespeare’s

Monica Mason Royal Ballet Director © Sasha Gusov

popularity.” And to hammer home Mason’s faith in the grass roots enthusiasm for dance, recent surveys show that between 600,000 and 1 million of our children, girls and boys (our young males are rapidly discovering an ideal scenario for meeting girls), take Saturday morning ballet classes while 15 million people – ¼ of the UK population – connect with professional dance one way or another each year.

“Also,” adds Mason, “it’s the nature of the British to be open to outside influences and make them our own. The way we rose to the challenge of Rudolf Nureyev is a prime example.”

In 1962 the Royal Ballet was coasting along quite nicely, thank you. Frederick Ashton, founding choreographer, had already made nearly 40 works for the company, including Symphonic Variations and Cinderella, forming the backbone of one of the world’s greatest dance repertoires. Ninette de Valois, 62, a year from retirement, viewed with her usual wry amusement, her bad boy choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan, shocking the London purists as he made dance history, scattering among the cosy classical favourites his savage works depicting rape, psychosis and suicide. The company’s prima ballerina assoluta Margot Fonteyn, at 42, was also about to hang up her pointe shoes permanently when into the rather inward looking environs of Covent Garden leapt a marauding Tatar from the foothills of the Ural Mountains called Rudolf Nureyev.

This sexy, young (23) and charismatic virtuoso dancer, a defector from St Petersburg’s Kirov Ballet, was a major earthquake at Covent Garden, a wake up call in particular to the male dancers about expectations both artistically and technically. It was the beginning of the soaring improvement of Royal Ballet men later personified in world class stars like Anthony Dowell and Jonathan Cope.

“My job was to look after Rudi,” remembers former actor, Michael Brown, who joined the Royal Ballet as a dresser in 1963 and today is Student Administrator of English National Ballet School. “I have to say he was the most difficult person I ever looked after.

Tamara Rojo and the company in MacMillan's Rit of Spring
© John Ross

“He would fly in from an appearance abroad,” he goes on, “and go straight on stage, but he was too relaxed and had to get the adrenalin flowing. The person who got the flack was me and that’s when the throwing started.” Brown persevered and became Head of Wardrobe in 1978.

“In New York I refused to have anything to do with him for 3 days,” he recalls. “He wouldn’t let anyone else near him and every time I was called, I just said no. Eventually the company asked me to stand in the wings. We didn’t speak, just stared at each other. He called me a flipping English peasant. Naturally I could have killed him, but I had the deepest respect for him.”

The highlight of the new celebratory season is a revival of The Sleeping Beauty designed by Oliver Messel, which re-opened the Covent Garden stage after World War II in 1946. That performance was attended by the King, the Queen, the two Princesses, the rest of the Royal Family and the entire Cabinet. “It was the pinnacle of Madam’s career,” remembers Dame Beryl, “it was also a terrible ordeal as she always turned to absolute jelly when confronted with Royalty.”

Three years later Fonteyn in Sleeping Beauty conquered America and established herself, and the company, on the international stage with her glorious dancing and swashbuckling private life with husband Tito Arias, a member of Panama’s ruling clan.

The final decade of the 20th century brought more momentous changes to the organisation. In 1990 former company dancer, Peter Wright crowned his 25 years directorship of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, the touring section, with a move to the Midlands and a permanent home in the Birmingham Hippodrome. The brilliant dancer and choreographer David Bintley now leads the re-named Birmingham Royal Ballet. The same year Bolshoi star Irek Mukhamedov joined the company and set new standards of dance drama, continued today by great actors like Tamara Rojo and Ivan Putrov. In 1998 talks began to move the Royal Ballet Upper School to a site in Covent Garden linked to the Royal Opera House, an objective achieved in 2003, while the House itself was closed from July 1997 to December 1999 for a £214 million refit.

Jeffrey Phillips retires when he turns 65 in November after a lifetime’s career with the company, from junior ballet school through dancing with the touring company to Project Manager for the massive makeover. “It was the most exciting time in my life,” he insists. “As a former dancer I could say what bits should go where to suit us in the new building,” smiles Phillips, responsible for £19 million of the overall budget. “The James Street corner on the Piazza has the best access to the stage so I got the ballet in there. The corps de ballet are the busiest of the lot in an opera house, but always have to run up and down hundreds of stairs, so I got them on the 1st floor.” He also made sure the dressing rooms are as a dancer wants them. “I got lights under mirrors,” he explains, “so you could see to do under your chin, I was always being told off for missing that bit, and the showers that are absolutely vital for sweaty dancers. All principal dressing rooms are en suite, the corps rooms have football showers and there’s a dancer’s own laundry for personal use.”

The Royal Ballet in Act III off Ashton's Sylvia
© Bill Cooper

Sprawling across the heart of England with over 150 dancers in two companies in purpose built home theatres, two symphony orchestras, two schools and an overall back up staff of hundreds, The Royal Ballet has grown out of all recognition since those well endowed eight ladies that Spring day in Islington 75 years ago. Or has it?

“We must feed dancers with passion and belief back into the company,” says Monica Mason. “The leader must inspire love and commitment and the youngest dancers, with all their hearts, have to know and aspire to the company’s values. That’s the soul of the Royal Ballet.”

“People talk a lot about the company losing its identity,” adds Dame Beryl, “but watching them night after night, there is no mistake, it is the Royal Ballet that Ninette would instantly recognise and be proud of.”

Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, died peacefully at her home in West London at 8.45am on 8 March 2001. She was 102 years old. Her legacy is a priceless contribution to the joy of our nation. A truly Great Briton.