The Dutch National Ballet's "Raymonda"

Copyright 2021 Dutch National Ballet Standard YouTube Licence

As I said in my review of the live-streaming of the Bolshoi's performance on 27 Oct 2019, Raymonda is not performed in this country very often.  Indeed, as English National Ballet noted on its website, no local company had performed the work in its entirety until its production opened at the Coliseum last month.  As ENB's version is set in the 19th-century Crimean war rather than the medieval crusades, it could be argued that we still have to wait for a British company to dance the whole work.

But if we want to see a full-length performance of the traditional ballet, we do not have to go very far or wait very long to see one.  That is because the Dutch National Ballet will premiere a new production of Raymonda at the company's auditorium in Amsterdam on 3 April 2022.   It has been created by the company's assistant artistic director, Rachel Beaujean, in collaboration with the artistic director, Ted Brandsen, and Grigori Tchitcherine of the National Academy.  Beaujean produced Giselle which impressed me greatly when I saw it at Heerlen on 9 Nov 2018 (see Mooie! 10 Nov 2018). Tchitcherine gained a thorough knowledge of Raymonda first as a student at the Vaganova, later as a dancer with the Mariinsky and most recently from his research into the original and subsequent productions of the ballet.   As the sets have been created by Jérôme Kaplan who also designed the sets for David Nixon's The Great Gatsby and as the orchestra will be conducted by Boris Gruzin I have very high hopes for this production.  

Although Beaujean will depart from Countess Pashkova's libretto in one regard in order to "devise a crown and setting that are relevant to today" HNB's website emphasizes that the "choreographic splendours" will be retained. Further reassurance in that regard is provided in an interview with Beaujean and Tchitcherine. They describe how they delved into the history of the ballet over the last two years. They examined the records of the original choreography that had been made by Vladimir Stepanov. He devised one of the earliest systems of ballet notation which he explained in Alphabet des mouvements du corps human, essai d'enregistrement des mouvements du corps humain au moyen des signes musicaux published in Paris in 1892.  They also examined Konstantin Sergeyev's choreography for the Kirov's revival in 1948 and concluded that it was probably closest to Petipa's. A member of HNB's cast who also knows the Mariinsky's version well tells me that it follows tradition.    

Beaujean's modification to the story is to characterize Raymonda as "a young woman who makes her own choices on the path of love" rather than tamely accepting her marriage to Jean de Brienne as inevitable.  She justifies the change on the ground that Petipa and Glazunov were not happy with the original libretto and made changes to it.  That is altogether different from writing a story about a different war, in a different country in a different century.

In making these observations I do not disparage Tamara Rojo's version in the least.   I missed the season at the Coliseum only because of pressing professional commitments and soaring omicron infections in London.   I am a Friend of English National Ballet and have attended its performances regularly ever since I was enchanted by one of its performances of The Nutcracker in the Festival Hall.  New versions of familiar ballets can work as David Dawson has shown with his Swan Lake for Scottish Ballet.  I look forward to watching Rojo's version when English National Ballet brings its Raymonda to Manchester or Liverpool.

I will see ENB's Raymonda after HNB's.  I have my ticket for the centre of the stalls 6 rows from the stage, a return rail ticket to Amsterdam via St Pancras and a reservation at my favourite hotel in Amsterdam.   I shall publish my review in early April.

Mona Inglesby

Mona Inglesby as Giselle

Source Wikipedia

Mona Inglesby ought to be as famous as Ninette de Valois and Marie Rambert as she founded and directed the International Ballet which was for a time Britain's biggest ballet company. She contributed at least as much to maintaining morale during the second world war and developing a mass audience for ballet afterwards as the Sadler's Wells Ballet and Ballet Rambert.  However, in one respect she did even more than de Valois and Rambert. She preserved Petipa's legacy by acquiring Nicholas Sergeyev's collection of choreographic notation, music, designs for décor and costumes, theatre programs, photos and other materials that document the repertory of the Russian Imperial Ballet at the turn of the 20th century.

De Valois and Rambert both became dames for their services to dance. Inglesby received no honours at all. I learned about her and her company only this morning while carrying out research for an article on Moira Shearer. Through that research, I discovered that Inglesby gave the 15 year old Shearer her first job.

Inglesby had trained with Rambert and had danced with her company at the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill until 1939. In that year she was invited to dance at Covent Garden with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. The company also asked her to join its tour of  Australia but she declined volunteering for war service as an ambulance driver. She formed the International Ballet in 1941 upon realizing that she could do more for the war effort by entertaining the troops and essential workers.

The company launched in Glasgow with Moira Shearer and Harold Turner as well as Ingelsby herself in the cast. Throughout the second world war. it made two provincial tours followed by two 6 to 8 week season in the West End every year. After the war, the company toured Butlin's holiday camps and Rank Organization cinemas some of which had over 4,000 seats. As the largest classical ballet company in the UK, the International Ballet was invited to open the Festival of Britain by performing in the Royal Festival Hall in 1951. It also made extensive tours of Italy, Spain and Switzerland immediately after the war. The company appears to have created an enormous repertoire which included Inglesby's own works such as Endymion, Amoras and Planetomania as well as the Petipa classics which were staged by Sergeyev.

Sergeyev had been régisseur of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1903 until 1918 and made the notations of Petipa and Ivanov's ballets in the course of his duties.  He fled Russia with his collection of notations and other materials immediately after the Bolshevik revolution.  He held a number of appointments and collaborated with a number of companies before Inglesby invited him to join the International Ballet as her ballet master and he remained with her until his death in 1951.

Sergeyev's death was a blow to International Ballet. Although Inglesby had acquired Sergeyev's papers after his death she found it hard to continue. Audiences for all forms of live theatre began to tail off with the increasing popularity of television. Anton Dolin's Festival Ballet started to compete for the audience that was left. Inglebsby failed to get financial support from the Arts Council and was obliged to wind up the company in 1953.  She sold Sergeyev's papers and her own company's set and costume designs to the theatre collection of Harvard University (see International Ballet. International Ballet scenery and costume designs, 1941-1951: Guide and Sergeev, Nikolai, 1876-1951. Nikolai Sergeev dance notations and music scores for ballets, 1888-1944: Guide).

Inglesby seems to have been a remarkable woman who made an enormous contribution to ballet. It is time to give her the recognition she deserves.