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However, fortunate, fortunate, George Balanchine, living and working in the land which perfected fast foods, the land of the disposable everything, were he living today, would find, surely to his amazement, that every scrap of his choreographic oeuvre, his principles of teaching, his every word, are lovingly preserved with the tenderest of care, - whereas in England, supposedly the bastion of tradition, the works of the majority of her most admired choreographers are tossed aside, neglected, lost - but not forgotten - and shrines? Where is the womb of English ballet, the Mercury Theatre? and why, pray, is not the very stage of that theatre preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, ready and waiting for all would-be choreographers to learn their craft upon - as did their betters?

Their betters - ah, yes - Andree Howard, Frank Staff, Antony Tudor, Frederick Ashton...

I particularly resent the loss of Ashton's "Les Masques" - that epitome of 30s chic and wit - I hereby resoundly curse whomsoever is responsible for that loss, and condemn them for ever after to be permitted to watch only the works of Monsieur Bejart - and no other. "Horoscope" also I mourn - the devilishly difficult and brilliant dance for the Gemini, the cool episode of the discovery of the Moon, and, most striking of all moments, when Lambert used the brass for the first time in his score, Fedorovitch used red for the first time in her palette, and Ashton brings the followers of Leo onstage with a great rush - Diaghilev in heaven must have smiled.
 

And where is "Lady into Fox"? Taken from a short story by David Garnett, this most Kafka of ideas, brought to life by Andree Howard - 'that Jane Austen of choreographers', brilliantly realised by Sally Gilmour, Charles Boyd and Nadia Benois - alas, Andree Howard, who is only known to todays audiences by an enlarged - and thereby coarsened - version of "La Fete Etrange" - Andree Howard, whose "The Mermaid" a story told with minimal resources - opening with a shipwreck - three male dancers and a sail - danced to brilliantly chosen music by Maurice Ravel, composed on a stage approximately only sixteen feet wide, with a more telling effect on its audiences than any present day production with a cast of thousands and performed arena style.

Apparently nothing remains of anything created by Frank Staff, whose name is probably completely un-known today, yet who, with the aid of his designer Guy Sheppard, created the only bearable visualisation of "Peter and the Wolf" using a tin bath for the pond, a ladder with a mop attached as a tree, and thereby achieving a witty childlike yet sophisticated ambiance for Prokoviev's score. Seen by too few, but lovingly remembered by many, is the same artist's ballet "Fanciulla della Rosa" (sp?) - to a set of variations by Arensky, a young girl brings a wreath of seven roses to a church for the Madonna, and is beset by the seven deadly sins, in the shape of seven male dancers, each of whom steals a rose.

Of the lost works of Antony Tudor - "Soiree Musicale" - a delightful party at which the guests happily danced various pastiches of national dances - Bolero, Canzonetta, etc., - a party apparently so charming that one sat, longing to be invited - "Descent of Hebe" to some most un-expected - yet very 'right' music by, of all people - Ernst Bloch - a wonderful backcloth of black horses, and the poor dancers having a hell of time steering clear of little wired transparent pink clouds lined across the stage.

Also sadly missed, at least by me, is a ballet choreographed by Kurt Jooss. Mr. Jooss was in the habit of depending for the music of his ballets on the works of his accompanists, but for "Company at the Manor" he used Beethoven's 'Spring Sonata' for violin and piano, and thereby lifted himself out of his customary blandness. The title is surely self-explanatory, but the telling of this simple tale, placed in Jane Austen land and time, decorated by the Zinkeisen sisters with a thankfully muted palette, contained three incidents so telling, so brilliant in conception, that one sat enchanted.

On the receipt of a letter announcing the arrival of company, two dancers, dressed as maids, each take two corners of a folded bed-sheet, and throw it up in the air, bed-making style. Blackout.

The four guests travel by coach, over bumpy roads, driven by a hearty coachman - no need of an actual coach, the five dancers are coached well enough........and, most delightful of all, the son of the house, danced by that superb artist Hans Zuellig, is given an entrance step so extraordinary, so completely dotty, that however many times it is performed, delighted giggles are evoked from every watcher.

And that other Mikhail - Fokine - who for so many years created little nothings, in 1936 enchanted his audiences with the most delightful bit of chinoiserie, with music by Mozart, called "L'Epreuve d'Amour" - created for Eglevsky and Toumanova, (or was it Nemtchinova?) I only saw it once, well before WWII, and even then without the original cast, but Roland Guerrard and Nathalie Krassovska were more than sufficient substitutes, and Mr. Guerrard, masquerading in the guise of a chinese dragon, is one of my happiest memories. Someone once remarked to me, while we were watching a dreadful performance of 'Serenade' that "Really good choreography is indestructible" - is this perhaps why the above vaguely described ballets are so vivid - at least to me?

"Ou sont les neiges d'antin"? Oh yes, Ou indeed.