Sir Frederick Ashton’s | Valses nobles et sentimentales

Sir Frederick Ashton was born in Ecuador in 1904 and determined to become a dancer after seeing Anna Pavlova dance in 1917 in Lima, Peru. Arriving in London, he studied with Léonide Massine and later with Dame Marie Rambert (who encouraged his first ventures in choreography) as well as dancing briefly in Ida Rubinstein’s company (1928-1929).

A Tragedy of Fashion (in which he danced alongside Marie Rambert) was followed by further choreographies (Capriol Suite, Façade) until in 1935 he accepted Dame Ninette de Valois’ invitation to join her Vic-Wells Ballet as Dancer and Choreographer, his principal loyalty remaining with what would become the Sadler’s Wells and ultimately The Royal Ballet. Besides his pre-war ballets at Sadler’s Wells (which demonstrated an increasing authority, with larger resources), Ashton choreographed for revues and musicals. His career would also embrace opera, film, and international commissions, creating ballets in New York, Monte Carlo, Paris, Copenhagen, and Milan. During the War, he served in the RAF (1941-1945) before creating Symphonic Variations for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet’s 1946 season in its new home at Covent Garden, affirming a new spirit of classicism and modernity in English postwar ballet.

During the next two decades, Ashton’s ballets, often created around the talents of particular dancers, included: Scènes de ballet, Cinderella (1948), in which Ashton and Robert Helpmann famously played the Ugly Sisters, Daphnis and Chloe (1951), Romeo and Juliet (1955), and Ondine (1958). He created La Fille mal gardée (1960) for Nadia Nerina and David Blair, The Two Pigeons (1961) for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, Marguerite and Armand (1963) for Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and The Dream (1964) for Dame Antoinette Sibley and Sir Anthony Dowell.

Appointed Associate Director of The Royal Ballet in 1952, Ashton succeeded Dame Ninette de Valois as Director from 1963 to 1970, and under his direction the company rose to new heights, while his choreographic career continued with Monotones II (1965), Jazz Calendar (1968), Enigma Variations (1968), A Month in the Country (1976) and the popular film success The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971) in which he performed the role of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. He was knighted in 1962.

Named Founder Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Sir Frederick Ashton died in 1988. His ballets, which remain in the international repertoire undiminished, show a remarkable versatility, a lyrical and highly sensitive musicality. He had an equal facility for recreating historical ballets and creating new works. If any single artist can be said to have formulated a native English classical ballet style and developed it over a lifetime, it is Sir Frederick Ashton.

France’s most acclaimed 20th century composer was born in Ciboure (in the French Basque province adjoining Spain) on 7 March 1875 to a Swiss father and Basque mother, but grew up in Paris, where he studied music at the Conservatoire under Fauré and was influenced by Debussy’s Impressionism. His diverse interests extended to American Jazz, African, and traditional folk music—and especially Spain, for which country’s music he developed a particular affection and affinity. Ravel enjoyed an equal talent for piano and orchestral composition.

The first decade of the 20th Century saw his String Quartet (1903), Introduction and Allegro for Piano, Harp and Flute (1905), Rhapsodie Espagnole (1907), the opera L’Heure Espagnole (1907) and the admired piano works Jeux d’Eau (1901), Miroirs and Sonatine (1905). The following decade saw his career blossom, with a major Diaghilev/Fokine ballet Daphnis et Chloé (1912), Mother Goose (1912) and important piano works Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) and Le tombeau de Couperin (1917), which predated Stravinsky’s neoclassical innovations.

Ravel continued to work successfully throughout the 1920s, developing his interest in the waltz form, neoclassicism, Spanish and jazz music, with works including La Valse (1920), Bolero (1928), the opera L’enfant et les sortilèges (1925), and his milestone Piano Concerti for Left Hand (1930) and Piano Concerto in G (1931). He also made a superb orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1922). In 1928 Ravel made a wildly successful American tour of 25 cities, famously refusing Gershwin’s request to study under him: “Why be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?”

Anglo-Russian designer Sophie Fedorovitch (1883-1953) was a key figure in British ballet. She is best remembered for her collaborations with Sir Frederick Ashton, including his first ballet A Tragedy of Fashion in 1926, and subsequently Les Masques, Mephisto Valse, Le Baiser de la fée, Nocturne, Symphonic Variations, and Orpheus and Eurydice, among others. In addition, she created designs for La Traviata and Madama Butterfly for the Covent Garden Opera Company (later The Royal Opera). Born in Minsk to Polish parents, she studied art in Kraków and on graduation returned to Russia before emigrating to the West in 1920. She became a British citizen in 1940. Her collaborations with Ashton played a crucial part in the development of British ballet. Ashton dedicated A Month in the Country to her memory, and wrote, “Her method of designing seemed to be a process of elimination, clearing the stage of all unnecessary and irrelevant details.”