Ninette de Valois | |
|---|---|
 de Valois (c. 1920s) | |
| Born | Edris Stannus (1898-06-06)6 June 1898 Blessington,County Wicklow, Ireland |
| Died | 8 March 2001(2001-03-08) (aged 102) Barnes, London, England |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Education |
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| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1900s–1990s |
| Organizations | |
| Known for | Ballet |
| Notable work | |
| Title | Founder and Artistic Director |
| Term | 1931–1963 (Royal Ballet) |
| Predecessor | None (Founder) |
| Successor | SirFrederick Ashton |
| Spouse | |
| Awards |
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Dame Ninette de ValoisOM CH DBE (bornEdris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British[1]dancer, teacher,choreographer, and director ofclassical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally withSerge Diaghilev'sBallets Russes, later establishing theRoyal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established theRoyal Ballet School and the touring company which became theBirmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet.[2][3][4]
Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 atBaltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town ofBlessington,County Wicklow,Ireland, then still part of theUnited Kingdom. A member of agentry family, she was the second daughter ofLieutenant Colonel Thomas StannusDSO,[5] a British Army officer, and Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a glassmaker known as "Lilith Stannus".[6][7] She was the maternal great-granddaughter of the diaristElizabeth Grant Smith and the maternal great-great-granddaughter of Scottish politicianJohn Peter Grant.[8] Through her mother she was also the great-grandniece ofSir John Peter Grant and a first cousin twice removed ofLady Strachey. In 1905 she moved to England,[9] to live with her grandmother inKent. She started attending ballet lessons in 1908, at the age of ten.
At the age of thirteen Stannus began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. It was at this time that she changed her name to Ninette de Valois[citation needed] and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at theLyceum Theatre in theWest End.
In 1919, at the age of 21, she was appointed principal dancer of the Beecham Opera, which was then the resident opera company at theRoyal Opera House. She continued to study ballet with notable teachers, includingEdouard Espinosa,Enrico Cecchetti andNicholas Legat.[9]
In 1923, de Valois joined theBallets Russes, a renowned ballet company founded by the Russian impresarioSergei Diaghilev. She remained with the company for three years, performing around Europe and being promoted to the rank ofSoloist, and creating roles in some of the company's most famous ballets, includingLes biches andLe Train Bleu.[9] During this time, she was also mentor toAlicia Markova who was only a child at the time, but would eventually be recognized as aPrima Ballerina Assoluta and one of the most famous English dancers of all time. Later in her life, Valois said that everything she knew about how to run a ballet company she learned from working with Diaghilev.[4] She stepped back from regular intense dancing in 1924, after doctors detected damage from a previously undiagnosed case of childhoodpolio.[1]
After leaving the Ballets Russes, in 1927, de Valois established the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls in London[4] and the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet, Dublin.[10] In London, her ultimate goal was to form a repertory ballet company, with dancers drawn from the school and trained in a uniquely British style of ballet.[9] Students of the school were given professional stage experience performing in opera and plays staged atThe Old Vic, with de Valois choreographing several short ballets for the theatre.Lilian Baylis was the owner of the Old Vic at that time, and in 1928 she also acquired and refurbished theSadler's Wells Theatre, with the intention of creating a sister theatre to the Old Vic. She employed de Valois to stage full-scale dance productions at both theatres and when the Sadler's Wells theatre re-opened in 1931, de Valois moved her school into studios there, under the new name, theSadler's Wells Ballet School. A ballet company was also formed, known as theVic-Wells Ballet. The Vic-Wells ballet company and school would be the predecessors of today'sRoyal Ballet,Birmingham Royal Ballet andRoyal Ballet School.
Also in 1927, in May,W. B. Yeats, poet and co-founder of theAbbey Theatre, suggested to de Valois while she was visiting Dublin the establishment of a ballet school in the city, and from around November, she took responsibility for the setting up and the programming of the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet in Dublin. This, the first of perhaps five Irish national ballet school projects during the 20th century,[11] ran until June 1933, and 7 of the 16 final students continued in active dancing, with 2 founding the next national ballet project, the "Abbey School of Ballet".
During these years de Valois produced a number of ballets each year, mostly to her own choreography. She also worked with music specially commissioned from Irish contemporary composers such asHarold R. White'sThe Faun (April 1928),[12]Arthur Duff'sThe Drinking Horn andJohn F. Larchet'sBluebeard (both in July 1933).[13][14]
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At its formation, the Vic-Wells Ballet had only six female dancers, with de Valois working as lead dancer and choreographer. The company performed its first full ballet production on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, withAnton Dolin as guest star. Its first performance at Sadler's Wells Theatre came a few days later, on 15 May 1931. As a result of the success of the company, de Valois hired new dancers and choreographers. She retired fully from the stage herself in 1933, afterAlicia Markova joined the company and was appointed as Prima Ballerina.
Under de Valois's direction, the company flourished in the 1930s, becoming one of the first Western dance companies to perform the classical ballet repertoire made famous by theImperial Russian Ballet. She also set about establishing a British repertory, engagingFrederick Ashton as Principal Choreographer andConstant Lambert as musical director in 1935.[4] She also choreographed a number of her own ballets, including her most notable works,Job (1931),The Rake's Progress (1935) andCheckmate (1937).
Eventually, the company included many of the most famous ballet dancers in the world, includingMargot Fonteyn,Robert Helpmann,Moira Shearer,Beryl Grey, andMichael Somes. In 1949 the Sadler Wells Ballet was a sensation when they toured the United States. Fonteyn instantly became an international celebrity.
In 1947, de Valois established the first ballet school inTurkey. Formed as the ballet school of theTurkish State Opera and Ballet inIstanbul, the school was later absorbed into and became the School of Music & Ballet atAnkara State Conservatory, a department of theHacettepe University.[15][16]
In 1956, the ballet company and school were granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth II, and formally linked. De Valois made sure that her company had a constant supply of talent, and in later years it had such stars asSvetlana Beriosova,Antoinette Sibley,Nadia Nerina,Lynn Seymour, and, most sensationally,Rudolf Nureyev.[citation needed] She also invited choreographers such as SirKenneth MacMillan andGeorge Balanchine to work with her company. She formally retired from the Royal Ballet directorship in 1963, but her presence continued to loom large in the company,[citation needed] and the same was true with the School, from which she formally retired in 1970.
De Valois acted as patron or supporter to a number of other projects, including the Cork Ballet Company and the Irish National Ballet Company in Ireland.
As with ballet in Britain and Ireland, de Valois exerted a great deal of influence on the development of ballet in Turkey, which had no prior history with the art form. The Turkish Government invited her to research the possibility of establishing a ballet school in the country, and she subsequently visited the country in the 1940s, going on to open a school following the same model as her Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. Initially, very few people took the project seriously, but the school did become firmly established under the direction ofMolly Lake and Travis Kemp, who in 1954 had undertaken to run it at de Valois' request;[17] this ultimately led to the development of theTurkish State Ballet.[18]
After training the first set of pupils[who?] at the new school, de Valois produced a number of early performances by the state ballet company, permitting guest appearances by Royal Ballet dancers includingMargot Fonteyn,Nadia Nerina,Anya Linden,Michael Somes andDavid Blair. She mounted productions of the traditional classical repertoire includingCoppélia,Giselle,Swan Lake andThe Nutcracker, as well as the contemporary balletsLes Patineurs,Les Rendezvous and ' by Frederick Ashton, and her own balletsThe Rake's Progress,Checkmate andOrpheus.[18]
In 1965, de Valois produced and choreographed the first full-length work created for the new Turkish State Ballet. TitledÇeşmebaşı (At the Fountain), the ballet was the first to feature music composed by a Turkish composer,Ferit Tuzun, and its choreography incorporated elements of Turkish folk dance. Further ballets followed, and the company continued to develop. Today, ballet continues to be a thriving art form in Turkey, with the ballet school that de Valois established now forming part of the State Conservatory for Music and Drama at theAnkara State Conservatory.[18]
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In 1935, atWindsor, she married Dr Arthur Blackall Connell (1902–1987), a physician and surgeon fromWandsworth, who worked as a general practitioner inBarnes, London, where they lived, and laterSunningdale, Berkshire. She was his second wife; the union was childless,[19] but de Valois had two step-sons, including Dr David Blackall Connell (born 1930),[20] who, in 1955, married Susan Jean Carnegie, a daughter ofJohn Carnegie, 12th Earl of Northesk; they had two sons and a daughter.[21]
De Valois kept her private life very distinct from her professional, making only the briefest of references to her marriage in her autobiographical writings. In April 1964 she was the subject ofThis Is Your Life, when she was surprised byEamonn Andrews at the home of the dancerFrederick Ashton in London. She continued to make public appearances until her death in London at the age of 102.[citation needed]
In 1991, de Valois appeared on BBC Radio 4'sDesert Island Discs. Her chosen book was a collection of poems and her luxury item was an everlasting bottle ofsleeping pills.[22]
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Among her earliest choreography was a production of the Greek tragedyOresteia, which openedTerence Gray'sCambridge Festival Theatre in November 1926.[23] De Valois first established herself as a choreographer producing several short ballets forThe Old Vic, London. She also provided choreography for plays and operas at the theatre, all of which were performed by her own pupils.[9] After forming the Vic-Wells Ballet, her first major production,Job (1931), was the first ballet to define the future of the British ballet repertoire.
Later, after employingFrederick Ashton as the company's first Principal Choreographer in 1935,[9] de Valois collaborated with him to produce a series of signature ballets, which are recognized as cornerstones of British ballet. These includedThe Rake's Progress (1935)[24] andCheckmate (1937).[9]
The oldest ballet in the Royal Ballet repertoire,Job is regarded as a crucial work in the development of British ballet and was the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team.[25] The ballet was produced and choreographed by de Valois, with a commissioned score entitledJob, a Masque for Dancing, written byRalph Vaughan Williams, with orchestrations byConstant Lambert and designs byGwendolen Raverat. The libretto for the ballet was written byGeoffrey Keynes and is based onWilliam Blake's engraved edition of theBook of Job from theHebrew Bible.[26] Consisting of eight scenes, the ballet is inspired by Blake's engravings and so de Valois choreographed the ballet using predominantly mimed actions to create a simple decorative effect.[27]
Job features a number of well-known dances, which continue to be performed regularly. The most recognised extracts areSatan's Dance, an acrobatic solo for a male dancer, the dance of Job's comforters, and the satirical expressionist dances representingWar,Pestilence andFamine.[28]Job had its world premiere on 5 July 1931, and was performed for members of the Camargo Society at theCambridge Theatre, London. The first public performance of the ballet took place on 22 September 1931 at the Old Vic Theatre.[26]
Ninette de Valois' other works include:
Ninette de Valois was appointed Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE) on 1 January 1947[α] and was promotedDame Commander (DBE) on 1 January 1951.[β] She became aMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) on 31 December 1981[γ] and was honoured byHM The Queen with theOrder of Merit (OM) on 2 January 1992.[δ]
She was appointed aknighthood ofFrance'sLegion of Honour on 1 May 1950.[ε] and received theOrder of Merit of the Republic of Turkey on 2 January 1998.[ζ]
Ninette de Valois received the Bronze award presented for services to Ballet from the Irish Catholic Stage Guild in 1949.[η] She was the first recipient of theRoyal Academy of DanceQueen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 1953–1954.[θ] She was made Honorary Fellow of theRoyal Academy of Dance on 19 July 1963[ι] and of theImperial Society of Teachers of Dancing on 8 March 1964[κ] In 1964 she received theRoyal Society of ArtsAlbert Medal[λ] and in 1974, thePraemium Erasmianum FoundationErasmus Prize.[μ] TheQueen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal was awarded on 7 June 1977[ν] and theRoyal Opera House Long Service medal in 1979.[ξ]
She received theCritics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts in 1989[ο] and the Society of London TheatreLaurence Olivier Award Special Award in 1992.[π]
In the United States, she received theDance Theatre of Harlem Emergence Award on 27 July 1981.[ρ]
Ninette de Valois received Doctor of Music (DMus) degrees from theUniversity of London in 1947, theUniversity of Sheffield on 29 June 1955,[σ]Trinity College Dublin in 1957 andDurham University in 1982.
She received DLitt from theUniversity of Reading in 1951, theUniversity of Oxford in 1955 and theUniversity of Ulster in 1979.
In 1958 she received an LLD from theUniversity of Aberdeen and on 5 July 1975 Doctor of Letters from theUniversity of Sussex.[τ]
The Ninette de Valois Festival of Dance has been held annually in de Valois' hometown of Blessington, Co. Wicklow since 2018.[29] The festival was postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic but resumed in 2022.[30] A memorial bench to de Valois is situated outside St Mary's Church in Blessington.[31]
From the Royal Opera House
