Sadler's Return

Posters went up and box-office business hummed across the U.S. and Canada. Britain's renowned Sadler's Wells Ballet Company was heading across the Atlantic for its third tour of America. The company flew in to New York last week determined to give more than half a million fans their money's worth; among other things, it cleared through customs scenery and costumes for ten productions, plus 4,530 ballet slippers, i.e., about 50 pairs for each dancer.

This week the company began its tour with a four-week visit in Manhattan's packed Metropolitan Opera House. Famed Ballerina Margot Fonteyn, fully recovered from a six months' bout with the aftereffects of diphtheria, headed the cast again, and among the lesser stars were Violetta Elvin, Nadia Nerina, Rowena Jackson, Michael Somes and a promising newcomer to the troupe, Svetlana Beriosova. Opening-night number: a full-length version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, with sparkling new costumes and scenery and changes in the choreography which lengthened the 58-year-old masterpiece to a full four acts.

The result, as eye-filling as ever, was an example of what Sadler's Wells likes to do best: the full-length romantic ballet in classical style. The ballet chorus, dressed in autumn colors as peasants, in regal purples and crimsons as court maidens, in severe white as swans, made a gorgeous frame for the principal action. Among the brightest spots: Fonteyn's touching pantomime as the bewitched swan-princess and her vicious precision in her alternate role as the magician's wicked daughter; Dancer Somes's hurtling leaps in the court scene; a new "Neapolitan" duet (danced by Julia Farron and Alexander Grant) that nearly stopped the show.

Although it has half a satchelful of new works in its American repertory, e.g., Principal Choreographer Frederick Ashton's Homage to the Queen and Daphnis and Chloe and John Cranko's The Shadow, most of Sadler's ten works are story ballets in the romantic tradition. But modernity and novelty are not everything: the company's four weeks at the Met are almost completely sold out, and its 15 weeks on the road are solidly booked.

From London came more ballet news last week: the premiere of a new number, The Lady in the Ice, with scenario and sets by Orson Welles. Welles, challenged to try a ballet at a chance meeting with Choreographer Roland Petit in Paris, tossed off a scenario idea on the spot: a young girl is frozen in a block of ice; thawed out by a young man's ardent dancing, she comes to life, but as her enthusiasm waxes, his wears out, and at the end it is he who is frozen solid. Welles helped with the staging, came through with a method of displaying Heroine Colette Marchand as if she were suspended in ice. Near the finish, he was dithering nervously in the wings when a drapery covering the frozen hero began to tear as it was raised. Stagehands began to panic, but Welles rose to the occasion: "Continuez! Continuez!" he yelled. "Let it tear! C'est magnifique!" The audience gave Welles an ovation. But in later performances, the company had to be content with an untorn drapery; the first-night tear was too hard to duplicate.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.