Dame Gillian Lynne (1926 to 2018)

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Theatre goers generally and ballet goers in particular will be said to learn of the death of Dame Gillian Lynne.  Although she will be better known for her musicals, Cats and Phantom of the Opera, I shall remember her for three reasons.

First, her choreography of A Simple Man starring Christopher Gable and Moira Shearer.  That was the first time I saw Northern Ballet shortly after I returned to the North to take a seat in Manchester chambers.  My late spouse and I were regular ballet goers and I was a Friend of Covent Garden. Though we looked forward to occasional visits to Leeds and Manchester by touring companies we missed the Royal Opera House, Sadlers Wells and The Coliseum. I had read of the Northern Dance Theatre (as Northern Ballet was then called) in Dance and Dancers when it was founded but I never expected much from it.  Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man was a revelation.  It was every bit as good as anything I had seen anywhere else in the world. 

As a native Mancunian I was bloated with pride that it had been achieved by a Manchester company.  After seeing that work I began to follow Northern Ballet.  In my humble opinion A Simple Man has never been bettered  though other great ballets were created by Christopher Gable and more recently Cathy Marston.  It was Dame Gillian's masterpiece that attracted me to the company and it is one of the reasons why I have continued to support Northern Ballet through Friends' subscriptions, donations and other ways for more than 30 years.

The second reason I shall remember Dame Gillian is that she recreated Sir Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals for the Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2014 (see A Second Miracle 23 Oct 2014).  She had been a member of the original cast.  She said in The Inspiration which was reprinted in the programme: "There are very few people left alive from that 1944 creation and not one of us remembers a step."  However, as I said in my review, Lynne re-created the ballet to Bliss's music in the style of Helpmann and it certainly looked authentic to me.  In my My Personal Ballet Highlights of 2014 28 Dec 2014, I wrote:

"My favourite ballet of 2014 was Gillian Lynne's re-creation of Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals for Birmingham Royal Ballet which I was at Sadler's Wells in October. I had seen Helpmann dance with Frederick Ashton in Cinderella and he also presented the gala to Sir Frederick which I saw when I first became interested in ballet. Miracle in the Gorbals broke new ground in many ways just as its almost exact contemporary Appalachian Spring did in the USA. Even though Lynne's production was a re-creation rather than a revival its performance was something of a miracle in itself and a joy to behold."

The third reason I shall  remember Dame Gillian is a charming story that Sir Ken Robinson told about her in a famous TED talk.  I discussed it in Dance is just as important as Maths 17 Aug 2014. When she was a little girl in the 1930s Dame Gillian was thought to have a learning disorder because she was lacked attention and was disruptive in class. Her teachers referred her mother to a specialist in such disorders who gave her an opportunity to dance to the radio. Sir Ken continued:

"And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, .Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school.'"

Dame Gillian's mother heeded that advice and the result was miraculous. In Dame Gillian's words:

"I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think. Who had to move to think. They did ballet; they did tap; they did jazz; they did modern; they did contemporary."

As I remarked about the specialist: "What a remarkably perceptive, far sighted, enlightened man he was. And what a wonderful mother."

I am sure all readers will join me in sending sincere condolences to Dame Gillian's family, friends and connections.

Tribute to Moira Shearer

Author Ballerinaonlina
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Every performance of Sir Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes at Sadler's Wells is sold out.  Having seen the show twice at the Lowry (see Red Shoes Bourne Again 3 Dec 2016 and The Red Shoes Second Time Round 4 Dec 2016) I am not surprised, The show was inspired by the film The Red Shoes which I reviewed on the 15 Nov 2015. The star of that film was Moira Shearer who danced from 1938 until 1987. Through that film she probably did more to inspire children to learn to dance, and the public generally to take an interest in dance, than any other artist, Margot Fonteyn not excepted. She certainly inspired me and by all accounts, she also inspired Sir Matthew.

Shearer was born in Dunfermline in 1926. She made her first professional appearance at Cambridge in Mona Inglesby's Endymion in 1938 when she would have been only 12 and it was Inglesby who gave Shearer her first job in Inglesby's newly formed International Ballet in 1941 at the age of 15. Shearer's last performance was in Gillian Lynne's A Simple Man for Northern Ballet Theatre in which she danced Lowry's mother (see Northern Ballet's A Simple Man 14 Sept 2013). I saw the ballet shortly after I had returned to Manchester. It was the first time that I saw the company (although I had followed it in the dance press since its formation) and it is the first and remains the main reason for my support of the company.

It is, of course, The Red Shoes for which Shearer is best known and its two short ballet sequences. The first is the extract from Swan Lake at the Mercury Theatre where Vicky Page is discovered by the impresario Lermontov (see  The Red Shoes (1948) ~My Favourite Movie YouTube). The second is the premiere of Lermontov's The Red Shoes at Monte Carlo (see The Red Shoes (1948) - Ballet Sequence YouTube).

Shearer retired as a dancer in 1953 but continued her career as an actor for many years. She married the journalist and broadcaster, Sir Ludovic Kennedy, in 1950 in the chapel of Hampton Court palace. Their wedding seems to have generated enormous attention (see the newsreel clip on YouTube). She and Sir Ludovic had four children. She died in Oxford in 2006.  She was a distinguished artist of two mediums, loved by many and greatly missed.

As this article appears on 25 Dec, I should like to wish all my readers around the world a very merry Christmas.

Mona Inglesby

Mona Inglesby as Giselle

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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.

Red Shoes Rebounding

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Just over a year ago the BBC made the film The Red Shoes available on the iPlayer. I watched it and reviewed it in The Red Shoes 15 Nov 2015. Today a new stage version of The Red Shoes created by Sir Matthew Bourne opened in Plymouth.

The production's second port of call will be The Lowry and there will certainly be a review from there. Bourne has acquired a new score from Terry Davies and Lez Brotherson has created the designs. The young ballerina, Vicky Page, who was played by Moira Shearer in the film will be danced by Cordelia Braithwaite and the young composer Julian Craster who was played by Marius Goring will be danced by Dominic North.

If you have never seen the film the plot is summarized in Wikipedia.  Although the complete ballet has been removed from the BBC's website there are fragments of the ballet scenes on YouTube There is also this beautiful trailer which I can't resist displaying:


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Also, you can still review Deborah Bull's talk which I mentioned in my previous article (see  The Red Shoes The Essay,Praising Powell and Pressburger BBC).

I love this film and I think Sir Matthew must do so too.  If he has done a good job in transposing it to the stage I shall be deliriously happy and will never say an unkind word about him again.  But if I find that he has mucked it up ....................

We will all know soon enough.

Postscript 25 Nov 2016

We now have some reviews.

Press

Roger Malone Review: Matthew Bourne's The Red Shoes at the Theatre Royal Plymouth 24 Nov 2016 Plymouth Herald

David Marston Review: The Red Shoes at Plymouth Theatre Royal 23 Nov 2016 Exeter Express & Echo

Blog
Ellie Mae  THE RED SHOES BY MATTHEW BOURNE WORLD PREMIERE REVIEW | LITTLEELLIEMAE 22 Nov 2016 Little Ellie Mae

BalletcoForum

Friends attended the opening night in Plymouth and seems to have enjoyed it very much.  You can find that subscriber's report here.

The Red Shoes

Publicity Photo for the Red Shoes

 Author Ballerinailina

Source Wikipedia

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If you are already a balletomane or film buff you will know all about The Red Shoes choreographed by Sir Robert Helpmann and featuring Moira Shearer, Ludmilla Tchérina and Léonide Massine. If you are not a balletomane you will perhaps begin to understand the condition if you watch the film. You have the chance now and for the next 6 days to watch it on BBC iPlayer. You can also download a short talk on the film by Deborah Bull.

Although the film carries a notice that it is a work of fiction and that any resemblance with individuals living or dead is purely coincidental the parallels between the film character Boris Lermontov and the impresario Sergei Daghilev are overwhelming. Diaghilev introduced the British public as well as much of the rest of the world to the Russian imperial ballet. However, he did much more than that. He surrounded himself with brilliant young artists and composers as  well as dancers from around the world and employed them to create the most dazzling productions. Ballet is not just choreography and dancing. It is the synthesis of many arts - drama, music, painting et cetera - the product of something that is so much greater than its component parts. That is what attracted me to ballet nearly 60 years ago and it is also why I just can't see enough of the stuff.

In her talk Deborah Bull lists so many reasons why one should dislike the film such as the outrageous attitude to women and its outlandish clichés and yet she loves the film as I do. One of the reasons she gives is its authenticity and she mentions a missed step by Moira Shearer which only a dancer would recognize. Certainly that point eluded me until Deborah Bull mentioned it but then I am not a dancer in the way that she is. But I also recognize authenticity in the film from the perspective of the humble theatre goer. Ballet is life for us just as it is for the dancers.

Red Shoes was made 6 months before I was born which makes it a very old film. It contains shots of the old fruit market and the stone staircase up to the amphitheatre and the upper and lower slips that I remember well. The accents are clipped.  Yet this film remains fresh. It is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. My favourite by a country mile.

Post Script

Deborah Bull talked about authenticity from a dancer's perspective and I alluded far more vaguely to authenticity from the audience's perspective without giving an example. I have just thought of one. Shortly after Pavlova died the theatre in which she was due to perform presented the ballet as scheduled but instead of her a spotlight traced her steps around the stage. For those who were there it must have been one of the most poignant moments of their lives. The gesture was repeated in The Red Shoes after the heroine still in costume and wearing the red shoes threw herself in front of a train.