THE THEATRE
"The Sleeping Beauty." At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
PERHAPS a day will arrive when Covent Garden once again becomes an opera house, but in the meantime it could not be better used
than to display the one theatrical art in which Great Britain has achieved a leading position during the twenty-odd years between the two wars. Thanks to the disinterested adventurousness of the
late Lilian Baylis' of the "Old Vic," a newly-formed ballet com- pany under the direction of that accomplished Irishwoman, Ninette de Valois, given a home at the rebuilt Sadler's Wells theatre, achieved a miracle in creating a national English ballet which was to prove the most considerable of all the world offsprings of Diaghilev's famous Russian company. There is nothing com- parable to it in either originality or merit today in America or Europe, and therefore it was fitting that its opening performance last Wednesday was made a festive occasion, with the presence of the King and Queen and of the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet. In the Sadler's Wells ballet this country truly has something to be proud of, for it has shown a creative activity in the art of ballet to which neither our contemporary drama nor music can offer a parallel. Our opera is of inferior quality, and lives—with the exception of one solitary new English work, Peter Grimes—on the past. Our theatre, although superior in technical standards to our opera, lives wholly on the past. It is only in-ballet that we have managed to assemble a veritable host of new and truly creative talent. We have not only got a corps of technically accomplished dancers, but also a group of inventive choreographers, artists and musicians who have learned to work together and to produce a number of new ballets to which no other country can offer rivals.
But it was fitting that on the opening night the Sadler's Wells' company should present itself in a famous sixty-year-old classic, Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, to show what it could do in a masterpiece of the traditional art, and I don't think anyone present could deny the all-round excellence of this production. Margot Fonteyn, Beryl Grey, Harold Turner, Robert Helpmann all gave performances worthy of the distinction they have already gained at Sadler's Wells and the New Theatre, and their present season at Covent Garden ought to establish their reputation firmly. The enlarged orchestra played superbly under Constant Lambert, and Oliver Messel's decor had a sober brilliance that did not invite idle comparison with the gorgeous creation of Bakst.
JAMES REDFERN.
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