Title: The Royal Ballet in Moscow
Date: 14th November-9th December 1956
Type: Ballet
Company: Sadler’s Wells Ballet (granted Royal Charter to become Royal Ballet on 31st October 1956, announced 16th January 1957
Location: Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Russia

Notes

This programme comes from a cancelled tour by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1956. Arranged as an exchange tour with the Bolshoi Ballet, who successfully performed in London in October-November 1956, the tour was cancelled at the last minute following the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops. The cancellation was announced in the British press on the 7th November, just a week before the company were supposed to open in Moscow. The papers quoted a telegram from David Webster, the Director of the Royal Opera House, to the head of the Bolshoi Ballet:

In view of public opinion in this country, which strongly condemns the renewed suppression by Soviet forces of Hungarian liberty and independence, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, has consulted Her Majesty’s Government and the Soviet Relations Committee of the British Council. It has been unanimously agreed that in the present circumstances the projected visit of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet to Moscow cannot take place. Signed, Webster

David Webster’s Telegram, published in the London Evening News, 7th November 1956, p. 1.

Ballets

The Lady and the Fool (Лэди и шут)

Choreography: John Cranko
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Music Arranged By: Charles Mackerras
Decor and Costumes: Alan Beer
Production: 1955 Sadler’s Wells Ballet production

Birthday Offering (Подарок к Юбилею)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: Alexander Glazunov
Music Arranged By: Robert Irving
Costumes: André Levasseur
Production: Original 1956 production

Mam’zelle Angot (Мам’зель Анго)

Choreography: Léonide Massine
Music: Alexandre Charles Lecocq
Music Orchestrator: Gordon Jacob
Costumes: André Derain
Production: 1947 Sadler’s Wells Ballet production

The Rake’s Progress (История Повесы)

Choreography: Ninette de Valois
Music: Gavin Gordon
Decor and Costumes: Rex Whistler after William Hogarth
Production: Original 1935 production

Swan Lake (Лебединое Озеро)

Choreography: Marius Petipa & Lev Ivanov
Additional Choreography: Frederick Ashton (Act I Pas de six, Act III Neapolitan Dance)
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Staging: Nicholas Sergeyev
Present Production Revised By: Ninette de Valois
Decor and Costumes: Leslie Hurry
Lighting: John Sullivan
Production: 1952 Sadler’s Wells Ballet production

Homage to the Queen (Салют Королеве)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: Malcolm Arnold
Decor and Costumes: Oliver Messel
Lighting: John Sullivan
Production: Original 1953 production

Daphnis and Chloë (Дафнис и Хлоя)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: Maurice Ravel
Decor and Costumes: John Craxton
Lighting: Louis Yudkin
Production: Original 1951 production

The Firebird (Жар-птица)

Choreography: Mikhail Fokine
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Staging: Serge Grigoriev, Lyubov Tchernicheva
Decor and Costumes: Natalia Goncharova
Lighting: John Sullivan
Production: 1954 Sadler’s Wells Ballet production

Symphonic Variations (Симфонические Вариации)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: César Franck
Decor and Costumes: Sophie Fedorovitch
Production: Original 1946 production

Les Patineurs (Конькобежцы)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: Giacomo Meyebeer
Decor and Costumes: William Chappell
Production: Original 1937 production

Checkmate (Шах и Мат)

Choreography: Ninette de Valois
Music: Arthur Bliss
Decor and Costumes: E. McKnight Kauffer
Production: Original 1937 production with 1947 alterations

Noctambules (Ноктамбулы)

Choreography: Kenneth MacMillan
Music: Humphrey Searle
Decor and Costumes: Nicholas Georgiadis
Lighting: Michael Manuel
Production: Original 1956 production

Scènes de ballet (Сцены Балета)

Choreography: Frederick Ashton
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Decor and Costumes: André Beaurepaire
Production: Original 1948 production

Crew

For the Sadler’s Wells Ballet

Director: Ninette de Valois
General Director, Royal Opera House: David L. Webster
Assistant Director: Frederick Ashton
Musical Director: Robert Irving

Assistant to the Director: Ailne Phillips
Solo Pianist: Jean Gilbert
Ballet Master: John Hart
Ballet Mistress: Jill Gregory
Assistant Ballet Mistress: Elizabeth Kennedy

General Manager: Herbert Hughes
Stage Manager: Michael Manuel

Programme Design: Herbert Spencer
Programme Printed By: Tillotson, Bolton