Dame Ninette De Valois

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 10:12

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

MY CASTAWY this week is Britain's most distinguished ballet mistress. Her glamorous French name belies her Anglo Irish upbringing. It is in fact one she adopted shortly after her first appearance on the professional stage more than seventy five years ago.

Presenter0:45

Her contribution to ballet in this country has been phenomenal. In nineteen thirty one she became the first director of the Vic Wells Ballet School, which grew and changed over the years to become, in nineteen fifty six, the Royal Ballet.

Presenter1:00

Fierce but compassionate, she has brought to her work the perfection she learned long ago from the presiding genius of twentieth century ballet Diagolef.

Presenter1:09

She's now in her nineties, and still known in her own world as Madame. To the rest of us she is more familiar as Dame Ninette de Valois.

Presenter1:19

Do the pupils at the school or the the members of the corps still stand a little straighter and put on their best behaviour when Madame walks down the corridor?

Dame Ninette De Valois1:26

I walked down the corridor.

Presenter1:27

Uh At all

Dame Ninette De Valois1:27

They were natural,'cause if they're natural I know how good they are or bad.

Dame Ninette De Valois1:32

We don't go in for any affectations if we can help it. But they used to say you gave them hell in rehearsals. Oh, I well, you know what um you tell any artist they don't do anything very well, they'll say it's hell, and it is to them, Board Olings. I sympathise with them.

Presenter1:46

But you were said to be the mistress of the the single withering sentence, is that right?

Dame Ninette De Valois1:51

I don't know.

Presenter1:51

Uh

Dame Ninette De Valois1:51

Uh

Presenter1:51

I'm afraid I haven't kept a list of any of my sentences. Perhaps it's a very good thing. But what makes you cross in a ballet answer? What is it that would make you angry and come out with one of those sentences? Oh, it's very difficult to say indeed.

Dame Ninette De Valois2:04

It's the reaction of them to correction or

Dame Ninette De Valois2:07

Whether they are

Dame Ninette De Valois2:09

Too sure of themselves, or if they're not very sure of themselves, you can't give a direct answer.

Dame Ninette De Valois2:15

to the various temperaments you come into contact with. You've got to learn about each temperament and make the necessary

Dame Ninette De Valois2:24

compassionate outlook to them, because they're not two dancers that are the same.

Presenter2:29

How active a part do you play these days in the running of the Royal Ballet? I don't run it at all. I'm just an observer now.

Dame Ninette De Valois2:35

But you're still on the board? Well, I go to all the performances and so on. I have chats with the staff about things, but I don't run anything.

Presenter2:43

I'm sure you still have ideas and suggestions.

Dame Ninette De Valois2:47

Actually it would just necessary to say that they listen to them.

Presenter2:50

So do you recognize it now, when when you go to the ballet or go to the schools, do you recognise the performers and the work as as creatures of your making? Or or has it all changed dramatically? So no it has

Dame Ninette De Valois3:05

In the Bally world, as there is in everything else in life, as you move from one century to the other.

Dame Ninette De Valois3:11

And uh over a period of fifty or sixty years you must expect changes, and I get rather irritated when people won't accept them.

Dame Ninette De Valois3:19

keep saying to me, Oh, we only want to see the old berries, how lovely they were.'Course they were lovely to us in those days. They were our generation in time. And it's quite wrong also to say that if they don't dance'em as well as we did, that they're not as good. It's got nothing to do with it. They're another generation and their works, well, we wouldn't be able to tackle what they're doing, so it's mutual.

Presenter3:42

Right. Well, let me spirit you away for a moment from the world of ballet, and um deposit you alone on a desert island. What what would your dreams there be made of, do you think? What would you dwell on in your mind when left to your own devices?

Dame Ninette De Valois3:57

Yeah.

Presenter3:58

I don't think one has

Dame Ninette De Valois3:58

Has any idea really what you'd think on a desert isle?

Dame Ninette De Valois4:03

Musically, if I was offered a few things, I thought I'd like to choose.

Dame Ninette De Valois4:08

The world I'd lived in, my life, the ballet world. All ballet music. All ballet music.

Presenter4:12

So what's the first piece you'd like?

Dame Ninette De Valois4:15

Well, I choose Sleeping Beauty, because it's one of the most beautiful of the classical Valleys, and um the piece I've chosen is one of my favorite movements in in the whole of the Valley. Therefore I would like to have it with me.

Presenter5:29

The introduction to Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karian.

Presenter5:35

It's rare, Dame Ninette, to read or hear about ballet these days without very quickly coming across the word pain, the image of the the smiling mask hiding the agony of the cramped muscles. Do the two things naturally go hand in hand, ballet and pain?

Dame Ninette De Valois5:53

Well, to a certain extent I think it's the life of an athlete. We have to accept that. And we know what athletes have to put up with, and dancers have to put up with very similar troubles. I think it's true, the point, but I think it's all getting a little bit exaggerated now, and people are

Dame Ninette De Valois6:09

making more of it than it's necessary to.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:13

But it is a very dangerous

Dame Ninette De Valois6:16

Career physically for dancers have got to realize that they can have accidents.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:22

that are not so serious as accidents to the ordinary person, but may bring their particular career to an entire standstill.

Presenter6:30

Jill.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:30

Yeah.

Presenter6:30

There's also a lot of disappointment in ballets, and there the suddenly the girl who grows too tall, or her feet get too big, and suddenly she can no longer pursue the career she she wanted.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:41

Well, I don't know that that happens much now, because one can tell very early on.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:48

exactly physically, how tall people are going to be.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:52

And we know enough now to judge the ones that are going to fit all. Don't make those mistakes.

Dame Ninette De Valois6:58

It does mean that if you're going to be tall, that you've got to accept the fact you will not be suitable for every role. That's rather different to not being suitable to dance.

Presenter7:07

You, of course, suffered great pain, great muscular pain, in your dancing years, didn't you?

Dame Ninette De Valois7:14

Well, I had uh a spine trouble, and uh I'd had uh infantile paralysis which they didn't know I'd had as a child, and it had affected my back. Consequently I did have pain. So it was ununderstandable, but they didn't know much in those days, you see, about those sort of things, and they never noticed what was wrong with me.

Presenter7:26

Yeah.

Presenter7:33

This was during your teens, was it?

Dame Ninette De Valois7:34

Yes, early teens.

Presenter7:36

Did you imagine, therefore, at that time that all dancers suffered this kind of pain?

Dame Ninette De Valois7:40

I'm afraid that's what I thought, you know. Well, one was so used to having a certain amount of pain if you've had the sort of trouble I'd had.

Presenter7:47

Was that the main reason in the end that you you decided to give up performing and go backstage, as it were? As soon as they discovered what was wrong with me.

Dame Ninette De Valois7:55

Uh

Presenter7:55

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois7:55

Uh

Presenter7:56

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois7:56

Yeah.

Presenter7:56

That's

Dame Ninette De Valois7:56

I decided I was going to change and I would teach.

Dame Ninette De Valois8:00

And have you

Presenter8:01

You've gone on suffering

Dame Ninette De Valois8:01

Pain all your life? Only if I do silly things, mainly.

Presenter8:05

But you woo.

Dame Ninette De Valois8:06

Boop.

Presenter8:06

walk superbly well with a terribly straight back most wonderful

Dame Ninette De Valois8:08

Terribly straight.

Dame Ninette De Valois8:10

Well you learn how to protect yourself if there's something wrong. You don't do the sort of silly things you do if there's nothing wrong with you.

Presenter8:10

We have

Presenter8:16

Shall we have your second record?

Dame Ninette De Valois8:18

Oh yes. Swan Lake is another one, of course though.

Dame Ninette De Valois8:22

I love very much as a class great classical ballet.

Dame Ninette De Valois8:25

And I know I've

Dame Ninette De Valois8:27

Chosen one of my favorite movements in it.

Dame Ninette De Valois9:26

I never listen to my favourite moments, Jaikovsky, without thinking.

Dame Ninette De Valois9:30

There there was a moment in the thirties, and nobody else seems to remember.

Dame Ninette De Valois9:35

When America produced a dotty little song, and what do you think it was called? Everyone's making money but Tchaikovsky.

Presenter9:44

That was the end of of Tsaikoski's Swan Leg, and that was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

Presenter9:52

You earned a living at the age of fourteen, Damianette, I think, performing your own version of The Dying Swan, didn't you?

Dame Ninette De Valois9:59

Oh, no. I copied it most carefully from Pavlova. I went and stood at the back of the circle and wrote it all down step by step. But where did you perform it? In a children's company called The Wonder Children. We were taken out on tour. I I always say that I have danced a dying swan on every pier in England before the First World War. Didn't they call you the miniature Pavlova? Yes. But then they were rather inclined to call lots of little girls after th those days. How much did you earn for doing that?

Dame Ninette De Valois10:27

I got not at all a bad salary for those days. I think it was four or five pounds a week. Well, that's a lot of money, quite a lot of money today. And what did you have to pay for out of that four or five pounds?

Dame Ninette De Valois10:38

Well, my uh boarding house I went to and I had to buy my shoes and I think all my clothes. Your costumes, too. Yes.

Speaker 110:47

Uh

Presenter10:47

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois10:47

But money went a long way in those days. You'd get these costumes made very cheaply, and they lasted you for months and months.

Presenter10:53

What name were you using at this point? Ninete de Valva.

Dame Ninette De Valois10:57

Yes, right.

Presenter10:58

Where did you get that name from?'Cause that wasn't your real name.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:01

Well, it's a it's a long story. Uh it's a part of my French blood coming in, going back a long way.

Presenter11:09

So Devalwa was in the

Dame Ninette De Valois11:09

So

Dame Ninette De Valois11:10

It was a connection about three centuries ago with the Davalva family, and that's what made my mother suggest I should use it.

Presenter11:17

And your real name?

Dame Ninette De Valois11:19

Stannis, it was, one of the

Dame Ninette De Valois11:22

When I was a child, S-T-A-W-N-U-S tennis, Irish name.

Presenter11:26

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:26

And your Christian

Presenter11:27

Dena.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:27

Name

Presenter11:27

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:28

Idris etiodius.

Presenter11:29

And and has anyone in your adult life ever called you that since you became Nynette de Valer?

Presenter11:35

Poor's hundreds of people. Do your friends still call you Edris?

Dame Ninette De Valois11:38

It actually is.

Presenter11:40

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:40

All my relations.

Presenter11:43

Do you remember the first time you met Margot Fontaine?

Dame Ninette De Valois11:46

Oh yes, I remember coming into the rehearsal room, her mother brought her in, she said.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:51

Just come from China.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:54

This remarkable little girl entered the classroom.

Dame Ninette De Valois11:56

There's some people who never forget meeting the first time, and she was one of them.

Presenter12:00

How old would she have been when he met

Dame Ninette De Valois12:01

Nevada fourteen.

Presenter12:03

And did you know then, to see her dance, that there was something very special?

Dame Ninette De Valois12:07

Yes, I told the belly, Mister, I said, who's the little girl on the left?

Dame Ninette De Valois12:11

'Cause she stood out like a diamond among all the others. In what way? What was it that you stood out? Just everything about her, the way she moved, her

Presenter12:16

Kill.

Dame Ninette De Valois12:18

Physique everything.

Dame Ninette De Valois12:20

You it's very, very easy to spot talent like that.

Dame Ninette De Valois12:23

We can't help it. It stands out against everybody else.

Presenter12:26

How many times in your life have you spotted it in that way?

Dame Ninette De Valois12:29

Well, all the ones that have gone we we spotted all or not only myself, but the other staff also were trained to spot Darren. Robert Helpman was another, of course, at that time. Then we had Maurice Shearer.

Dame Ninette De Valois12:42

Then we had little Beryl Gray. Lots of them. I I'm not going on, because I shall leave some out and it will make them very unhappy.

Presenter12:49

Right. In which case we'll have some more music instead. What would you like next?

Dame Ninette De Valois12:53

I'd like to hear something out of the Prince of Agodas,'cause uh it's a lovely score lovely score of Britons, and very important, one of his full length ballads he wrote.

Dame Ninette De Valois13:03

We haven't many English full length bellies, goodness knows.

Dame Ninette De Valois13:07

So we'd like to like to have something of that.

Presenter14:08

Part of Benjamin Britton's ballet The Prince of the Pagodas, played by the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covangarden, conducted by Benjamin Britton.

Presenter14:16

Going back to your very beginnings, Dame Ninette, you were born just before the turn of the century in County Wicklow.

Presenter14:24

Did you believe you were born to be a dancer? How early did you know?

Dame Ninette De Valois14:27

No, I never gave it a thought. There's no reason why I should. I learnt an Irish jig when I was over there, which I insisted on dancing at a party once when I was very small. But outside that the idea of

Dame Ninette De Valois14:40

Being a dounter never entered my head.

Presenter14:42

So it was an Irish jig that you was the first thing you stood up in Republican Gardens?

Dame Ninette De Valois14:45

In public and dance. How old would you have been when you did that? Very young, I suppose about.

Dame Ninette De Valois14:50

Seven.

Dame Ninette De Valois14:52

I hadn't been to a dancing class. I'd been tortured by

Dame Ninette De Valois14:55

One of the peasants.

Dame Ninette De Valois14:57

My father's estate.

Dame Ninette De Valois14:59

And it was a children's party I was at. I'd never danced to piano, and there was a pianist there who just played a skirt dance for another girl.

Dame Ninette De Valois15:08

So I said I'd like to do my jig if she played it. The lady would stay at the piano. It's the first time I'd ever danced music.

Presenter15:14

Yeah.

Presenter15:15

But by your own admission you were quite a shy little thing, so this was quite a a burst of confidence for you.

Dame Ninette De Valois15:20

It's very strange because I loath parties and never took part in any of the fun that was going on.

Dame Ninette De Valois15:27

Hated it all, and my mother was scared when I suddenly announced I wanted to get up and make da and dance for myself. She couldn't believe it. And do you remember the applause when you'd finished? I didn't notice to think of anything but the fact that at last I'd got some music to dance to.

Dame Ninette De Valois15:41

I had never danced to any music before.

Presenter15:43

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois15:44

Yeah.

Presenter15:44

And then of course the family moved to Kent, didn't they? Because uh they entered rather straightened circumstances, and just before the First World War you came to Kent. Did they manage to afford dancing lessons for you there?

Dame Ninette De Valois15:57

Oh, yes. I went to the conventional weekly dancing class that all children went to.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:02

And I d I wasn't very prominent or anything it but then later we moved up to London and I went to visit the famous Mrs Wordsworth and she spotted me at once. What sort of dancing were you doing? What they call fancy dancing, it was nothing. You started by doing clubs as exercises, then you did a little skipping, and then you did a little dancing, it was all very light, and then you did some ballroom dancing.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:25

It's nothing to do with the Ballyworld. So why did she spot you, Mrs Wordsworth? What what did she spot you? I don't know. She used to always say that but of course she hated the theatre.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:35

and she was very angry with Gerhard my mother was going to send me to.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:39

Proper school to be educated boys.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:42

Like the idea at all. What did she think you should do with your talent? Just learn to dance, so that you could do everything when you g went to a ball later on, that was all.

Presenter16:45

What's happening?

Presenter16:51

That's

Dame Ninette De Valois16:51

Taverick Uh

Presenter16:52

Board number four.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:54

The Biodia, Kingdom of the Shades, I think its most lovely melody.

Dame Ninette De Valois16:59

And um I would certainly always like to have that with me.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:03

Uh

Presenter18:03

One of the most lovely melodies he's ever written. That was part of La Bayadare, The Kingdom of the Shades, by Ludwig Mincus.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:07

Okay.

Presenter18:09

Played by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Launchbury.

Presenter18:14

Tell me about Diagilev, because you worked for him for two years in the early twenties, didn't you?

Dame Ninette De Valois18:21

Well, he's a very overawing gentleman, he's very intelligent, he was very critical.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:26

of everything and everybody.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:28

He demand perfection in every direction.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:32

He was a very frightening man.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:34

But he was a very formative influence on and um marvellous influence on the belly world in general.

Presenter18:36

And so on very.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:41

How would you define what you learned from him? Almost everything was worth learning.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:46

because he was uh had extremely good taste and

Dame Ninette De Valois18:50

Choice of music and choice of choreographers. You never got anything but the best in his belly.

Dame Ninette De Valois18:55

So it was very disciplined. Very disciplined. Very, very strict.

Dame Ninette De Valois19:00

He was a perfectionist. Yes, complete perfectionist.

Presenter19:03

Yeah.

Presenter19:04

Tell me about you then when you were um dancing for Diagelef. Uh what did what did you look like then as a young woman of twenty five?

Dame Ninette De Valois19:12

I have a clue what I look like.

Presenter19:15

Probably just as well.

Presenter19:17

I'm sure you got photographs of yourself when you were that age.

Dame Ninette De Valois19:20

Yes, they're extraordinary photographs good, bad, and indifferent.

Dame Ninette De Valois19:25

No, one doesn't know what one looked like. That's not possible. You have to rely on what you're told, and to a certain extent, of course, what the photographs tell you.

Presenter19:33

Well, I I think that all those things tell you that you were rather a a beautiful young woman, with beautiful legs, beautiful feet, and large, dark, beautiful eyes.

Dame Ninette De Valois19:42

Well, the only two things that you said there I'd back was I think the eyes weren't bad and the feet weren't bad, but I don't know about the rest.

Presenter19:52

Weren't you put at that time in charge of another young 14-year-old called Alicia Markova? Yes, I was.

Dame Ninette De Valois19:59

Uh She joined the company the second year I was there.

Dame Ninette De Valois20:03

And I was her sort of adopted mother for

Dame Ninette De Valois20:07

About a year or so.

Dame Ninette De Valois20:09

Dear little girl she was, too, very good and very easy to handle.

Dame Ninette De Valois20:13

And Jagli was mad on her. He was determined to make a ballerina of her.

Presenter20:14

Did you

Dame Ninette De Valois20:18

Who was mad on her? Djagliffe. And what did you think of her when you saw her dial? Oh, obviously she had a she was a budding ballerina, but she was only fourteen then, and a very small girl for her age.

Presenter20:22

Bruh.

Speaker 120:22

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois20:30

Uh

Presenter20:30

What of course you also developed in your two years at the Ballerus was was a resolve to to establish a Beletic tradition here. Any Yes, I wanted Dung

Dame Ninette De Valois20:41

And then

Presenter20:42

come away from it all and do something on my own. You must obviously have found it strange then, and looking back, isn't it surely still strange now?

Presenter20:51

Strange to think that that the ballet was so neglected in this country.

Presenter20:56

Where was

Dame Ninette De Valois20:56

It wasn't strange because you knew about that when you left. You you only left because there wasn't anything in your own country to do.

Dame Ninette De Valois21:05

So when you came back, you just came back thinking you'd do something about it. You it wasn't strange to you. You were used to having nothing in England, and you just made up your mind that you were going to do something about it.

Dame Ninette De Valois21:16

Another piece of music, I think.

Dame Ninette De Valois21:18

Fassade, one of our English ballads of the days of Sadler's Wells in the thirties, and one of my favourites. It's a brilliant little score, and great fun, with lovely choreography by Frederic Ashton, and one of our very early triumphs.

Presenter22:31

The Tarantella from William Walton's Façade, played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Louis Fremeaux, and memories for Deminette de Valois of Frederick Ashton, whom of course you invited to become your choreographer, didn't you, when you set up this fledgling national?

Dame Ninette De Valois22:47

Oh yes, he joined us at Saddler's Wells. He had of course done a lot of work for with Dame Madirombia at

Dame Ninette De Valois22:54

She wa he was originally a pupil of hers, and he came and joined us as a

Dame Ninette De Valois22:59

Co-choreographer was m

Presenter23:01

Me, really. And you'd invited um Alicia Markova to lead the company, hadn't you?

Presenter23:06

And uh Constant Lambert came to be musical director.

Presenter23:11

How how did you manage financially?

Dame Ninette De Valois23:13

Well, it's very difficult. Lillian Baylis had very little money.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:17

The usual struggle, the usual English struggle in the theatre world.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:22

In those days, of course, there were no subsidies. We had to entirely rely on charity.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:27

Yeah.

Presenter23:27

So artistic achievement and money were not linked then any more than they are today.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:32

Not a good heavens know.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:34

Never.

Presenter23:35

But this was you mentioned Lillian Bayliss, who was of course the director of the Old Vic at the time, and you'd really talked her into supporting this idea of incorporating the national.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:38

Yes.

Dame Ninette De Valois23:44

Yes, I came to her with the idea, and she was very interested.

Presenter23:47

But what you wanted to do was to establish a an English style and tradition of ballet as well, wasn't it?

Dame Ninette De Valois23:53

Uh

Speaker 223:53

Oh, as well, isn't it?

Presenter23:55

Well well, how was that to be distinctive from the Russian style of ballet and the French style?

Presenter24:03

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois24:03

Well, I don't know quite how you can explain a thing like that. You just train all the talent in the country and something of your own.

Dame Ninette De Valois24:12

Character comes out in its countries.

Dame Ninette De Valois24:15

personality and uh musical approach and everything. I mean, it's it's native, that's all. It's just like difference. You don't explain the difference between England and France, you accept it.

Presenter24:27

So there you were in the early nineteen thirties, and and really De Valois the dancer was now overshadowed by De Valois the the dance director, the administrator, the teacher, the talent spotter, the choreographer.

Presenter24:42

I wonder which of all those roles has given you greatest pleasure in your life?

Presenter24:47

Oh, I think the gener

Dame Ninette De Valois24:47

World picture.

Dame Ninette De Valois24:49

Getting everything together and making it a whole. Being in charge? Yes, being well, guiding them as far as it was possible to. Uh but seeing that they all worked together and got together and did something.

Presenter25:01

But seeing also that they abided by uh the things that you had learned from Diagilev, the the discipline

Dame Ninette De Valois25:07

The reason one passed on one's knowledge was that one also accepted the knowledge of other people.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:13

Otherwise you'd only get into a sort of cud sack in the end.

Presenter25:16

Yeah.

Presenter25:17

But it must have been very exciting for you, because there you were with this little coterie of people, Ashton.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:28

to support the project, you see, and so we had a public the same.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:33

But do you look back fondly on those days? Oh, yes.

Presenter25:36

Review.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:37

I always say in the end there's a sp

Presenter25:39

Struggle you enjoy most.

Presenter25:41

And have you ever had a more exciting time since?

Presenter25:45

No.

Presenter25:46

Definitely not.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:47

Yeah.

Presenter25:48

Record number six.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:49

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:50

Yes, Job is one of the most interesting and exciting things I've ever done.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:56

And eight across it will see.

Dame Ninette De Valois25:58

Musical score of a great English composer

Dame Ninette De Valois26:01

And it was to me a great challenge, because in those days not everyone thought it was

Dame Ninette De Valois26:09

Proper

Dame Ninette De Valois26:10

that the Ballyworld should take on such a subject.

Dame Ninette De Valois26:13

It's Job.

Dame Ninette De Valois26:15

a biblical subject, and produces

Dame Ninette De Valois26:18

Zebeli.

Dame Ninette De Valois26:19

and attempt to be influenced by such a great artist as Blake.

Dame Ninette De Valois26:25

I'm afraid I accepted the challenge.

Dame Ninette De Valois26:27

certain amount of joy, as I was happen to be a particular fan of Mr. Blake's.

Speaker 227:25

Uh

Presenter27:32

The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vernon Handley, playing part of Vaughan Williams's ballet Job.

Presenter27:38

Was there a single moment, Dame Ninette, when you knew that that your vision of an English ballet was a reality, that your ambition was achieved?

Dame Ninette De Valois27:49

Well, you don't notice your ambition being achieved. You're too you're too busy achieving it. I mean, it's like watching yourself growing up. You just grow up, and you've suddenly noticed you've grown up. It's the same process exactly. Nothing dramatic about it. You just go on from day till day until it's uh finished.

Presenter28:08

But there was, of course, a very triumphant day, wasn't there, when you you moved the Saddlers Wells Ballet to the Opera House in nineteen forty six. That must have been a magic moment.

Dame Ninette De Valois28:17

That was very wonderful after the war, which was hard enough to get through, and to find we were the only thing that seemed to be ready to open the Royal Opera House. That was a very satisfactory moment, very exciting.

Presenter28:29

Of course your audiences had been really quite faithful to you during the war, hadn't they?

Dame Ninette De Valois28:34

Well, we developed our origins, the greater part of our origins, during the war, because we went to every town in England over and over again for five years. We developed an enormous public, especially in London also.

Dame Ninette De Valois28:45

Before that we'd been at Saddler's World, it's true, for some years, but we were only giving one or two performances a week.

Dame Ninette De Valois28:53

And it was in slightly isolated the worlds at that time, sort of outside London rather. So in the midst of all that austerity you were very welcome. Yes, so the the war gave us our great opportunity.

Presenter29:00

Very well.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:04

Record number seven.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:06

I'd like to have a piece out of Checkmate, it's one of my favorite scores, anyway.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:10

To sir.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:11

A very important reduction which we did just before the war.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:15

and we lost our first production of it when we went to Holland.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:19

And the Germans walked in in the middle of the season we had to walk out, leaving everything behind us. Got all your props?

Presenter29:25

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:25

Everything with the costumes

Presenter29:27

And hasn't a a small tradition been left behind because of that?

Dame Ninette De Valois29:32

Yes, one of the most amusing things was th this checkmate, for instance, which was put back as soon as we came to England's one of our new barely.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:40

But at that time we had to have coupons for everything.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:44

Clothes coupons.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:45

and one group of dancers.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:48

had to wear little gauntlets gloves on their hands, and they got lost out there.

Dame Ninette De Valois29:55

And it was decided that we wouldn't put these back. They they take too many coupons and wasn't necessary.

Dame Ninette De Valois30:00

So from then on, somehow or other, those gloves have never been put back.

Dame Ninette De Valois30:04

I think one day I'll put them back just for the fun of seeing them on their hands again.

Presenter31:08

The finale of Checkmate by Sir Arthur Bliss, played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley.

Presenter31:15

I must ask you before we finish, Dame Ninette, about one of your very public decisions. Well, it was very controversial at the time, and that was to invite Rudolph Nourev to uh appear with the Royal Ballet.

Dame Ninette De Valois31:24

Yeah.

Presenter31:27

Nineteen sixty two, that was.

Dame Ninette De Valois31:28

There's nothing controversial about it that I can remember. He left his country, and he joined us about six months afterwards.

Dame Ninette De Valois31:36

He didn't join us at once. He he worked for a little while in Paris, which was quite correct and proper,'cause he deserted in Paris, and it was the French that protected him.

Dame Ninette De Valois31:46

and kept him there.

Dame Ninette De Valois31:48

So he he naturally worked with them for some time. He came to us a few months later.

Presenter31:52

Did you have a

Dame Ninette De Valois31:52

Did you have to work hard to persuade him to come? No, no, he was longing to come to us, and we were longing to have him. We were very happy to have him. He was quite difficult then. No, I never called Mouret difficult. He was a great artist, and uh one of our most

Speaker 132:02

No.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:09

devoted artist, and he did a great deal for the English scene at that time and has always been incredibly loyal.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:17

To us.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:19

He was temperamental, with then who most great artists are temperamental.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:23

His period with the Royal Barely was a a great moment in the history of our development, and I know how much he did for Margot Fontaine at that time when she'd lost her partner.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:36

She was not so very young, so it was change of partner was difficult for her, and she found in this particular man.

Dame Ninette De Valois32:45

the right person. It was a wonderful partnership that lasted some years.

Presenter32:49

Was that your inspiration? Uh

Dame Ninette De Valois32:51

The Norea Fontaine duo. Well, I I don't regard it as an inspiration. I regard it as a very natural thing to do if I was able to arrange it which luckily I was,'cause he wanted to come to us.

Presenter33:02

You've been very ambitious in your time, and as we we've been saying, you've

Presenter33:08

achieved your major ambition, which was to establish an English ballet company. You've been called many things. You've been called a ruthless perfectionist. You've been called a visionary.

Presenter33:19

And you've been called a Mad Irish woman.

Presenter33:23

I wonder how you would describe yourself.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:25

I should take a muddle of all those three together.

Presenter33:28

A little bit of madness in there somewhere.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:30

Somewhere.

Presenter33:30

So bye.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:30

I think that.

Presenter33:32

Ha ha ha ha.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:32

Yeah.

Presenter33:33

Your last piece of music, please.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:35

And we come to the Nutcracker.

Dame Ninette De Valois33:37

The music that I've chosen from the Nutcracker would be high on my list to have as a desert island disc.

Presenter34:32

Part of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrei Previn.

Dame Ninette De Valois34:38

It's a lovely extract you've just played, one of my favourite.

Dame Ninette De Valois34:43

It's the interlude music from it.

Dame Ninette De Valois34:46

It always reminds me of our days at Saddler's Wells when we first put on the nutcracker, in a very simplified form to what we have to put up with to day.

Dame Ninette De Valois34:55

And I do remember

Dame Ninette De Valois34:57

The joy of that interlude

Dame Ninette De Valois35:00

because we weren't able to illustrate it as it is these days.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:04

with wild changes of scenery.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:07

and mad carts flying through the air with people in them.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:12

Uh we just sat back and the curtain came down.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:15

and the orchestra conducted by Constant Lambert played this lovely interlude, and then we sat and listened to it.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:24

But today

Dame Ninette De Valois35:26

What's going on on the stage is no one's business, and I think it I'd like to see it all frankly blotted out and the curtain brought down again, and let us listen to this beautiful interlude in peace.

Presenter35:39

Well now, you have to choose one of those eight records.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:39

You have

Presenter35:43

Which would be more dear to you than any of the others? Which would it be? That one.

Presenter35:48

Yeah.

Dame Ninette De Valois35:48

I love it. It's a beautiful piece.

Presenter35:51

And a book we have waiting for you on the island. We have the Bible, and we have the complete works of Shakespeare.

Presenter35:58

Beyond that

Dame Ninette De Valois36:00

I would like a collection of poems of the great poets. Well, I think a a mixed book of the great poets.

Presenter36:02

Yeah.

Presenter36:09

And then finally we also give you something else. We we allow you to have a luxury. What luxury would you like to have? Luxury or a desider.

Dame Ninette De Valois36:16

Well, I can't see you could have anything.

Dame Ninette De Valois36:19

Can you?

Dame Ninette De Valois36:20

I should think some sleeping pills.

Dame Ninette De Valois36:23

Might be rather important.

Presenter36:26

Not nothing any more romantic than that.

Dame Ninette De Valois36:29

No, don't think so.

Dame Ninette De Valois36:31

And I imagine that you this is something that you might really want.

Presenter36:35

A bottle of sleeping pills.

Presenter36:37

An everlasting bottle of sleeping pills. Right, you shall have them. Dame Nynette de Valois, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert item discs.

Speaker 136:55

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.