English National Ballet - The complete history of English National Ballet

The complete history of English National Ballet

With the new millennium English National Ballet celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as an internationally acclaimed classical ballet company that tours both nationally and worldwide from its studio base, Markova House in London. Each year it performs in major cities as well as smaller towns throughout Britain and presents two high profile seasons in London - at the London Coliseum at Christmas and, with huge arena productions, at the Royal Albert Hall in the Summer. Overseas touring is also a regular part of the programme and English National Ballet has visited most parts of the world serving as an ambassador for British ballet abroad.

The Company has 67 dancers who come from 20 different countries. Some have graduated from English National Ballet School (established in 1988) but many have trained elsewhere, their diverse backgrounds enriching the Company. Dancers in the Company have always worked phenomenally hard. In the 1955-56 season, for example, no less than 330 performances were presented! In those early days it was something of a gypsy company moving constantly from one theatre to the next entertaining audiences by the sheer vitality of performance. Today the quality and scale of productions has improved but even in the 1990s and 2000s the Company presents over 150 shows annually, considerably more than any other large company. In 2001-2002 it played to an audience of more than 286,000 worldwide.

In the Beginning
When the Company was established there were probably few that would have predicted it would survive so long. It was the last of a series of companies built around two great British dancers, Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin. Companies dependent on stellar dancers are usually short-lived and die when stars move on to other activities or leave the stage. In this instance, when the shrewd, eccentric, Polish impresario Julian Braunsweg persuaded Markova and Dolin to head a new company they refused to allow the new company to incorporate their names. This gesture indicates a determination that the new group should have an independent identity. If Markova's suggestion of the Company’s original name, Festival Ballet inspired by the then imminent Festival of Britain, was topical it also proved most apt. As London Festival Ballet, audiences worldwide knew from where the Company originated and recognised the idea that varied entertainment could be expected. Since 1989, however, to reflect the Company's role as a provider of top-quality dance throughout the country, the Company adopted the name English National Ballet.

Arena Performances and Education
The Company grew out of a series of gala performances Markova and Dolin presented following their return to Britain after the War. To satisfy the huge demand to see the stars these galas were held at the Empress Hall, Earls Court, (where no less than 25,000 people attended the four night season) and then at the equally vast Harringay Arena. These were part of a short-lived, and in Britain not very successful, trend for arena performances of ballet but Markova's performances were so magical they overcame the unsuitability of the venue. Given such a heritage it is worth celebrating that fifty years on arena performances, carefully thought out to use the Royal Albert Hall and other vast venues (overseas and in Britain) to advantage, have become a highlight of the Company's year.

Arena performances attract an audience curious to see new mega-productions and it is gratifying that they do appeal to those uncertain about watching traditional ballet.

Audience development through outreach and education programmes has long been an integral part of the Company's work. In the 1950s Dolin and his dancers, in spite of an enormously heavy work-load, would go into schools to talk about dance. Since 1980 the Company has had a fully fledged outreach programme whose activities range from year-long projects with schools and communities to one-off workshops. This draws on the Company's resources to help audiences understand and appreciate classical ballet through workshops, lecture-demonstrations, residencies and published resource packs.

The Company's Mission
It was Dolin, as Artistic Director for the first decade, supported by Braunsweg (who found funds for the Company by one means or another even if it meant pawning his wife's jewels), who gave the Company its raison d'etre. The Company was to be a touring organisation that took the finest possible classical ballet to audiences throughout the country at affordable prices. A popular repertoire would allow guest artists from throughout the world to perform with the troupe without requiring long rehearsal periods. Although English National Ballet is a classical company of real quality the addition of guests enriches performances especially when those guests include international stars of the calibre of Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Wayne Sleep and Sylvie Guilleme. At the same time audiences have enjoyed watching dancers whose careers have developed with the Company. The partnerships between Galina Samsova and André Prokovsky in the 1960s and '70s and Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur throughout the 1990s have been particularly memorable.

From the Company's start Dolin championed the position of the male dancer and Principals including John Gilpin and Peter Schaufuss have devoted significant years of performance to the cause. Dolin created the showpiece Variations for Four (1957) to demonstrate the virtuosity of a quartet of his male dancers. At times it was programmed with his earlier evocation of the virtuosity of the romantic ballerinas of the 1840s in Pas de Quatre (1951). Three decades later another major production for a small all-male cast, Koen Onzia, Kevin Richmond and Matz Skoog, was created. Christopher Bruce's disturbing and dramatic Swansong (1987) revealed a very different yet equally impressive virtuosity.

In London and on tour
In its timing the founding of the Company was perfect. In the Winter of 1950-51 there were few rival ballet companies performing in London. The Sadler's Wells Ballet was on an extended tour of the United States of America, Ballet Rambert was weak from loss of dancers and repertoire after their 1947-49 Australian tour, and no major international company was visiting. With a varied programme, guests of the calibre of French ballerina, Yvette Chauviré, and Léonide Massine and Tatiana Riabouchinska from the Ballets Russes, as well as a strong 'home team' including Natalie Krassovska and John Gilpin, and a series of special galas, Festival Ballet attracted the attention required to put it firmly and quickly on the map and to attract the interest of Braunsweg's colleagues abroad. The Company began to tour abroad in 1951 becoming an important cultural ambassador particularly after the Company's appearance on Eurovision when their stunning performance of Etudes at the gala to celebrate the wedding Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly was transmitted in 1956. In their first fifteen years of existence the Company was seen throughout Europe, the Middle East and North and South America. It was the first major ballet company to perform in Israel. Later, under Beryl Grey's leadership it began to visit Australia and the Far East and although soaring costs prevent as much overseas touring as in the past the Company is still in demand internationally. In 2001 the Company presented major seasons in both Japan and Australia.

Choreographers
Several choreographers' careers have developed through association with the Company. Ben Stevenson, having danced with the Company for many years, was given the chance to create his (and the Company's) first Sleeping Beauty in 1967 and subsequently returned to mount a number of ballets and one of the Company's most acclaimed miniatures, Three Preludes (1973). Ronald Hynd's involvement is one of the longest lasting relationships between Company and choreographer. He first created Dvorak Variations at the invitation of Beryl Grey in 1970. Among his original works The Sanguine Fan (1976) made an ideal opening work in a mixed bill and, of his notable productions of major works, his Coppélia staged in 1985 continues to delight audiences. Most recently Company dancer, Christopher Hampson has emerged as a really interesting and musically sensitive choreographer whose first creations were a highlight of the Company's regular mid-scale Tour de Force programmes. Although Hampson no longer dances he continues to choreograph for both the Company and its School.

Artistic Directors
Although each of the Company's Artistic Directors has had his or her own vision of how the Company should develop it is rare for the repertoire to be dominated by any one choreographer or producer. Briefly in the post-Braunsweg era, when Norman MacDowell's London Ballet was absorbed into Festival, Jack Carter's ballets and new versions of the classics were prevalent. Derek Deane, too, personally re-staged many of the classics updating both Giselle and The Nutcracker. His greatest successes were, however, a full-evening Alice in Wonderland and his Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet in-the-round. Other Directors Donald Albery, Beryl Grey, John Field, Peter Schaufuss and Ivan Nagy have invited a rich collection of choreographers to work with the Company including those who have added a more modern dimension to the repertoire. Works by choreographers such as Glen Tetley, Christopher Bruce, Roland Petit, Kenneth MacMillan, Kim Brandstrup and Mauro Bigonzetti have added drama and variety to mixed programmes.

Repertoire
During the first half of the Company's history one-act ballets were a major feature of the repertoire with full-evening productions assuming dominance from the 1960s. In its early years Festival Ballet acquired an important catalogue of masterpieces created by Michel Fokine and Léonide Massine for the Ballets Russes companies. These were mounted, first by those who had created the works, and then revived in the late 1960s and early '70s with sets and costumes restored to their intended glory. Of the early Ballets Russes, Les Sylphides (in Markova's 1976 staging), continues as a feature of the repertoire joined by George Balanchine's Apollo performed by English National Ballet since 1988. Ballets such as Harald Lander's stylised class, Etudes (1955), a litmus work in revealing the strength of the Company, and David Lichine's effervescent Graduation Ball (1957), a narrative ballet Braunsweg was determined to acquire from the foundation of the Company, have become signature works and are still revived in mixed bills. Throughout its history the Company has been wise in its choice of, and successful in its staging of, George Balanchine's ballets and performances of Bourrée fantasque (1960), Symphony in C (1986) and Who Cares? (1997) have sent audiences home happy.

The Company's focus hitherto has been to entertain audiences rather than create innovative ballets. But this has not prevented it from mounting some truly excellent new productions; Nureyev's Romeo & Juliet (1977), Peter Schaufuss' La Sylphide (1979) and Michael Corder's Cinderella (1996) were all winners of the Society of West End Theatre Award. Some productions proved enormously popular when created although they have not necessarily stood the test of time. Michael Charnley was persuaded by Dolin to choreograph to Don Gillis' jazz for Symphony for Fun (1952), in 1974 Barry Moreland responded to the early 1970s craze for Scott Joplin with Prodigal Son (in Ragtime). Julian Braunsweg took advantage of the brief thaw in the Cold War in 1961 to persuade Soviet Vladimir Bourmeister to create his The Snow Maiden (to a score drawn from Tchaikovsky’s then less-well-known works).

The Company has generally been acclaimed for its productions of Romantic ballets. All three of its Giselles by Dolin (1950), Mary Skeaping (1971) and Deane (1994) have been admired. The Company's contribution to establishing August Bournonville's choreography on the world stage should not be forgotten. Festival Ballet toured Lander's lively 1954 production of Dances from Napoli internationally before it was well-known outside Denmark, including extensively in the USA ahead of the Royal Danish Ballet. The contribution of Danes as dancers and producers has been considerable and productions of Bournonville's choreography by Lander, Mona Vangsaae, Schaufuss and Dina Bjørn, were treasured.

Above all the history of English National Ballet is entwined with that of The Nutcracker. Markova and Dolin loved performing the pas de deux in their gala programmes and from the Company's first performance at Southsea on 14 August 1950, Act II, 'The Kingdom of Sweets' was part of the repertoire. A complete production was mounted for the first season at the Stoll Theatre in London and a succession of productions by Lichine, Carter, Hynd, Schaufuss, Stevenson and Deane have made the Company's Christmas season unimaginable without this well-loved work which was remarkably little known 50 years ago.

A New Era
No Company's history is complete without acknowledging those working behind scenes, both technical staff who cope with the challenges of touring to keep the theatrical magic alive and those who serve on the board or administrate to keep the Company afloat. The Company has been lucky in its supporters and in its patrons: Princess Margaret (1976-89), Diana, Princess of Wales (1989-97) and since June 2001 HRH The Duke of York, KG, KCVO, ADC. Led by Wayne Eagling (Artistic Director), Craig Hassall (Managing Director) and John Talbot (Chairman), English National Ballet continues to build on its current strengths as well as developing its repertoire further. The original 1950s aspiration for the Company, to take popular ballet to the widest geographical audience at a price they can afford, remains as valid today as when first expressed by the Company’s founders.