| January |
The 80th birthday of Dame Adeline Genée, Danish dancer who was the reigning ballerina at the Empire Theatre, Leicester Square for 10 years from 1897. 'Adored by all', she toured America, Australia and New Zealand before retiring from the stage in 1914. She was the first dancer to be made DBE, and the first President of the RAD. Her encouragement of young dancers let to the establishment of the medal competition that bears her name, and which is still held in London every January.
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Lynn Seymour in
'The Burrow'
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The touring Royal Ballet gave the first performance of Kenneth Mackillan's 'The Burrow' at Covent Garden. This was the ballet in which Lynn Seymour first came to notice, as a young girl in a group of people hiding in a cellar from enemy forces. |
February |
Amidst huge publicity, a ballet called 'Le Rendez-vous Manqué' opened in London. The stars were Vladimir Skouratoff, Toni Lander and Noelle Adam, and the choreography was by John Taras and Don Lurio; but the reason for all the fuss was that the ballet was devised by the French writer Francoise Sagan - a megastar of those days - and designs were by Bernard Buffet. On the first night the curtain was held for 25 minutes till Liz Taylor arrived.
Ashton's 'La Valse' had its first performance, by the Ballet of La Scala in Milan.
The Paris Opéra sacked its entire ballet company (except for the étoiles) after a series of lightning strikes, swearing that none of them would ever be re-employed.
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March |
The Paris Opéra re-employed the entire ballet company.
First performance of the Sunday Ballet Club: designed to give young choreographers a chance to develop their talent in a sympathetic, workshop setting. Dancers included Lynn Seymour, Christopher Gable and Donald Macleary; choreographers included David Drew.
Sensation: Serge Lifar, great French dancer and choreographer, quarrelled with the Marquis de Cuevas, company owner/director, over the presentation of Lifar's ballet 'Noir et Blanc'. Lifar challenged the Marquis to a duel, and they arranged to fight with swords - the meeting was postponed for a few days as the weather was thought too cold for the Marquis (73 at the time) to be out early - Lifar was slightly wounded in the arm - honour was satisfied - fond embraces and tears.
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April |
London Festival Ballet (now ENB) opened a season in Paris in front of an audience which included Charlie Chaplin, Yves St Laurent, and 14 ambassadors.
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May |
London Festival Ballet planned a special Sunday performance to be given in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral - but it was banned after the intervention of the Lord's Day Observance Society. |
June |
The first ballet by Maurice Béjart seen in London - 'Promethée', given by the Ballets 1958 des Etoiles de Paris at Sadler's Wells Theatre.
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July |
Death of Rudolf Laban after 'a career devoted to the study of movement'. Born Hungarian, he taught in Germany, where his pupils included modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman and also Kurt Joos. He came to England in 1936 and worked on the development of his dance notation system and and research into the theory of movement. (The Laban Centre is named in his honour.)
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August |
| Covent Garden première of Kenneth Macmillan's version of 'Agon'. Reviews ranged from 'immensely moving' to 'pathetically unconvincing'. Anya Linden and David Blair are seen in the photo on the right.
A specially formed company mounted 12 new ballets at the Edinburgh Festival - choreographers included Cranko, Walter Gore, Birgit Cullberg, Peter Wright, and Andrée Howard.
French star Yvette Chauviré danced with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, making her debut as Aurora in 'Sleeping Beauty' at the age of 41.
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October |
The Sadler's Wells season of the company from the Edinburgh Festival was cancelled when only 4% of the tickets had been sold three days before opening night.
Royal Opera House première of Ashton's 'Ondine': 'a concerto for Fonteyn'. No praise seemed too high for her performance in the central role, but the rest of the ballet wasn't greeted with unmixed enthusiasm. Main complaint was the 'difficult' score by Hans Werner Henze - which in fact is only now being recognised outside the dance world thanks to the enthusiasm of Oliver Knussen.
Maurice Béjart's company made its first appearance in the UK - in Barnstaple of all unexpected places, then running its sixth annual dance festival.
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November |
Nadia Nerina of the Royal Ballet and Nicolai Fadeyechev of the Bolshoi appeared in a historic television version of 'Giselle' - this was long before the days when Russian guest appearances became relatively frequent, and it was almost unheard of for a Bolshoi star to partner a Western ballerina.
| December |
The Ugly Sisters in Ashton's 'Cinderella' were played by women (Margaret Hill and Moyra Fraser) for the first time. This had actually been Ashton's original intention, and only the unavailability of his chosen cast made him decide that he and Helpmann should take over the roles.
'West Side Story', with choreography by Jerome Robbins, opened in London.
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