The Guys of the Golden West

Enrico Caruso as Dick Johnson in The Girl of the Golden West  Source Wikipedia

We owe a lot to the West Country. Both Northern Ballet and Scottish Ballet trace their origins to Elizabeth West's Western Theatre Ballet in Bristol. Sadly there is no longer a resident professional ballet company in Bristol but that does not mean that there is no ballet in that city. One of the Golden Guys of the West is Dave Wilson who keeps the best ballet blog that I have come across so far (see "Fantastic New Blog: Dave Tries Ballet" 28 Sep5 2013).

Dave is a member of the the Bristol Russian Youth Ballet Company which danced Cinderella in Stockport last month (see "Good Show - Bristol Russians' Cinderella in Stockport" 19 Feb 2014). The company is dancing the same ballet again at The Playhouse in Weston Super Mare on 4 May 2014 at 16:00 with Elena Glurdjidze and Arionel Vargas as guest principals. I shall be in the audience again on that occasion and I shall review the performance for this blog. Glurdjidze is not only the company's guest artist she is also the Bristol Russian Ballet School's patron and she will take some of the school's master classes. The school is run, incidentally, by Chika Temma who trained with Glurdjidze at the Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg and Yury Denakov who trained at the Boshoi. All of those great dancers and teachers are Golden Guys.

Other Golden Guys are Duchy Ballet whose existence I discovered only yesterday. This evening and yesterday they were performing The Mousehole Cat & Other Ballets at The Hall for Cornwall in Truro. Roberta Marquez of the Royal Ballet appeared as a guest artist. According to the company's website Duchy Ballet was formed to celebrate the opening of The Hall for Cornwall with the aim was of establishing a youth ballet company for Cornwall providing the opportunity to train, rehearse and perform within a professional setting.  The company's choreographer is Terry Etheridge who was a guest choreographer of the Chelmsford Ballet Company some years ago and inspired and taught Andrew Potter who danced Drosselmeyer in that company's recent production of The Nutcracker (see "The Nutcracker as it really should be danced - No Gimmmicks but with Love and Joy" 20 March 2014). Potter acknowledged his debt to Etheridge on twetter this morning:

"Mr Etheridge, Found me, taught me and inspired me."

Having seen Potter's performance I congratulate Etheridge on a very good job. I really wish I could have been in Truro to support this production. I will be present at their next performance.

That brings me on to the last Golden Guy though of the North rather than the West. Chris Hinton-Lewis, who had the Herculean labour of trying to teach me last year, is running in the London Marathon on the 13 April 2014 to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Please do sponsor him.

Elaine McDonald in her own Words

Spurred by this video from yesterday's New York Times  I have begun to de-clutter my library. Books are such beautiful things that I hate to throw them out even when they are hopelessly out of date. As I tweeted yesterday throwing out my Terrell on the Patents Act 1949, my Kerly on the Trade Marks Act 1938 and my Copinger on the Copyright Act 1956 feels like a betrayal. A bit like putting one's grandmother into a retirement home. But then the video from New York is a terrible reminder of the alternative. So I held my nose and got on with the job.

But then I came across this treasure: "The World of Ballet" edited by Anne Geraghty which was published by Collins in 1970. It is an anthology of articles with contributions from Arnold Heskell, Clement Crisp, Rudolf Nureyev and many others. I would have bought it from the Ballet Bookshop in Cecil Court which has sadly disappeared.

The reason I would have bought it is that it contains a chapter by Elaine McDonald entitled "A Dancer's Life". As I mentioned in my articles on Peter Darrell on 9 March 2014 and Scottish Ballet 20 Dec 2013 McDonald was Darrell's ballerina. Indeed, as Lord Brown acknowledged in McDonald, R (on the application of) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2011] PTSR 1266, (2011) 14 CCL Rep 341, [2011] UKSC 33, [2011] 4 All ER 881, (2011) 121 BMLR 164 she became the prima ballerina of Scottish Ballet. That was the first company that I got to know and McDonald was the first ballerina that I admired and in a way loved. And indeed still do.

McDonald came from Scarborough and had her first ballet lessons in the Queen of Watering Places. When she was 11 she won a competition organized by the Royal Academy of Dance (of which I became a Friend this morning) and Girl (a magazine for girls that was published between 1951 and 1964) for a ballet scholarship in Leeds. No doubt encouraged by this win she decided to make her career in ballet. She auditioned for and was accepted by the Royal Ballet School which would then have been in Baron's Court, just opposite the Cromwell Road from my old school. The Royal Ballet School's premises had enormous plate glass windows that stretched the full height of the front elevation. We tried so hard to hit a cricket ball through those windows - a feat that would have required the strength and prowess of Colin Cowdrey or Ken Barrington as the ball would have had to clear not only the boundary but a 9 foot terra cotta wall and a 6 lane dual carriageway to hit those windows.  It was never accomplished in the 5 years I was there and now both schools have moved - we to Barnes and the Royal Ballet School to Floral Street.

Returning to McDonald's story, her first appearance on the stage was in a pantomime produced by Cyril Fletcher where she and other girls danced puppets, children, flowers and princesses. Not long afterwards she auditioned for the London Ballet under Walter Gore, One of her first performances was as a member of the hunting party in Giselle and she tells how the long, heavy, velvet dress eased her into her role. She describes how she prepared for that first role, how she adjusted her hair and applied her make-up, how the performance seemed to go well - until she received a note from the ballet master on how her dancing could improve. After Giselle she danced the Prelude in Les Sylphides. Regrettably the company fell into difficulties and had to be disbanded.

After a spell at the Palladium she joined the Western Theatre Ballet. She wrote

"I did not know much about the company, but I had heard and read that it was young, vital and very forward -looking."

She added

"When I joined the Western Theatre Ballet it was considered one of the most modern companies in Britain, Not because the basic steps were different - we sill use the steps I have known since I was a child. But because the stories which some of our ballets tell are stories of everyday life. Our repertoire is very varied. It includes La Ventana, one of the very first classical ballets to be performed, Mods and Rockers '63 danced to the music of The Beatles, with such tunes as "She Loves You".

At the time she wrote that chapter Elaine McDonald was a soloist with the company. Her first principal role was in Beauty and the Beast which Darrell choreographed to a specially commissioned score by Thea Musgrave. She refers to that work in the last paragraph of that chapter. I saw that work shortly after it had been premièred in London at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh.

There are some lovely photos of McDonald as a little girl in one of her first stage appearances, another of her wearing a tutu in arabesque at age 9 and yet another with Kenn Wells and Peter Cazalet in Ephemeron. Cazalet, incidentally, was a talented cartoonist and the book contains lots of his drawings some of which are very funny indeed.

As I said in my article on Darrell it was good to see McDonald again and particularly good to see her smile. She has not been well and she and I are nearly 45 years older than we were when she wrote that chapter and I bought that book but when she smiled on television I saw only that powerful yet dainty young dancer who captivated audiences all those years ago.

Further Reading

Feb 2000  Elaine McDonald Feb 2000 Legend Ballet Magazine

Scottish Ballet

Tomorrow I go to Glasgow to see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel. I am looking forward to it tremendously, partly because a new work by Christopher Hampson is a delight in itself but also because Scottish Ballet has a special place in my affections.

Although I had an interest in ballet when I was at school in West London - maybe because of a wonderful exhibition of costumes and scenery from the Ballets Russes or perhaps because I had got to know some of the students of the Royal Ballet School as they were just across the Cromwell Road from us - it was at St Andrews that my interest developed into a passion.  The Professor of Art History was John Steer who had come to us from Bristol. There he had got to know Western Theatre Ballet and it was through him that I got to know that company.

Peter Darrell  1928 - 1987

The company had a wonderful choreographer in Peter Darrell as well as wonderful dancers like Bronwen Curry, Ashley Killar,  Kenn Wells and my favourite Elaine McDonald. I began to follow them even while they were still at Bristol.

A year after Steer came to St Andrews the company moved to Glasgow and changed its name to Scottish Theatre Ballet. I do not know whether Steer had anything to do with that move but he was very close to the company and eventually became its chair.  Once when Scottish Theatre Ballet visited Dundee Steer actually introduced me to the cast.  I even had the privilege of giving two of them a lift to their lodgings.  One was Kenn Wells. I cannot remember who was the other.  Steer actually brought them to our university. They performed in the Buchanan Theatre in Market Street, on 15 Feb 1971, the day we adopted decimal currency.

The first of Darrrell's full length works that I saw was Beauty and the Beast.  I reviewed it for Aien our student newspaper.  I saw the ballet at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh shortly after they had moved to Scotland.  I also remember chartering a bus for our ballet club of which I was a founder member.  The dancing was superb and I can remember Thea Musgrave's score which Darrell had commissioned.   I could not find the ballet in the company's current repertoire which is a pity.

Darrell and Steer are now dead and I was very sad to learn today that Elaine McDonald is not in good health.  I was even sadder to learn that my world had intruded into hers when she sought a judicial review of the richest borough in England's decision to withdraw her carer to save a few thousand pounds.  But I have seen a film clip of her taken shortly after the appeal.  Despite her infirmity she retains her elegance and bearing as a star.

A lot has happened to Scottish Ballet since I left St Andrews. Tarama Rojo has come and gone and it now has an excellent artistic director in Hampson.  It has won critical acclaim around the world.  It is one of the UK's strongest companies.  I now have other loves in ballet but it was Scottish Ballet that was my first love.