Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
A dancer, choreographer, actor and director, best known as the director of the Australian Ballet.
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
Well, if I could have my choice, and if there was such a book, I would like Boat Building for Beginners. I'm sure there must be such a book.
The luxury
as I spend most of my life at the dentist, I take a lot of toothbrushes and some toothpaste.
In conversation
Presenter asks
You were brought up pretty far from theatres and concert halls. Yet as a small boy you began to have this thing about performing. How did that start?
Well my mother was a frustrated actress, I think. I think she'd have been a wonderful actress and she used to as I was a sort of captive audience, even when I was in in uh my cradle, she used to recite Shakespeare to me. And it's a curious thing, uh c I suppose because I was a child, uh my favorite was uh quality of mercy and she had uh clothes that she used to wear at amateur things and because it was red, I suppose that was it. But it was very funny that uh years later when I played Shylock with Catherine Hepburn, when it she got to the quality of mercy, she always turned into my mother. I could never explain why, but I always could see my mother and not Kate.
Presenter asks
Who were the stars you worked with in musical comedy?
Oh, Gladys Moncrieff, who was one of the great stars. Oh, everybody, everybody who came to Australia, I worked with them. I did everything. I was in about five productions of The Merry Widow and The Belle of New York and Katinka and The Desert Song and Rosemary, you name it, I was in it.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
Speaker 1
For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
Our castaway this week has achieved distinction as a dancer, as a choreographer, as an actor, as a director. In short, he's a man of the theatre.
Presenter
SIR ROBERT HELPMAN.
Presenter
We haven't seen much people in London in recent years. You you've spent a lot of time in Australia.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Director or co-director for
Sir Robert Helpmann
Seven years of the Australian Ballet, and then for the rest of the twelve years that I was associated with them, I was the sole director. So naturally, I was there most of the time. Now, of course.
Presenter
Australians have considerable advantages as a castaway to be brought up to open air.
Presenter
Well, I I know you spent time on the barrier reef. Indeed. So you should be quite good at fishing.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh no. No no. I think I'd die. I'd starve to death.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Boredom mostly, but still, anyway, I'm cast on an island, so that's it.
Presenter
So that's it.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, yes, I have. Yes, but I learnt that as a little boy on a sheep station.
Presenter
Well you still do it. It's a very useful social asset.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Still
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, but I mean there's nothing much flying over Death Down but seagulls and I understand they're not very nice to eat.
Presenter
Nevertheless, I think you will get your Castaways badge first class.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Oh, I hope so.
Presenter
Your first record.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, my first record is uh the Sebelius First uh Symphony, simply because it's the last ballet I did called Pericinthion. Pericinthion.
Sir Robert Helpmann
It was rather funny because I had a great triumph over all the knowles. They all thought it was a character, and they kept saying so-and-so as Pericinthian. It's not at all. It's it's the Houston Space Center term for when the moon has the biggest influence on the earth. And this was a a moon ballet? It was, yes. Each movement had the different aspects of the influence of the moon. First, the tides, second, the love, then insanity, and then all the rituals attached to the moon. Uh
Presenter
And so we start with the first movement, which is the ties.
Presenter
The Sibelius Symphony No. One in E minor, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.
Presenter
You were born in a small town in South East Australia, Mount Gambia. Mount Gambia. Have you been back there? Yes, I
Sir Robert Helpmann
I was back there last year. Well, there's a street named after me which is it's not a very big street, but it's it's named after me, so that's something
Presenter
But
Sir Robert Helpmann
Very pretty.
Presenter
It's got a lot of trees.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh
Presenter
But nevertheless, you you were brought up pretty far from theatres and and concert halls. Yet as a small boy you began to have this thing about performing.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well my mother
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
was a frustrated actress, I think. I think she'd have been a wonderful actress and she used to as I was a sort of captive audience, even when I was in in uh my cradle, she used to recite Shakespeare to me. And it's a curious thing, uh c I suppose because I was a child, uh my favorite was uh quality of mercy and she had uh clothes that she used to wear at amateur things and because it was red, I suppose that was it. But it was very funny that
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh years later when I played Shylock with Catherine Hepburn,
Sir Robert Helpmann
When it she got to the quality of mercy, she always turned into my mother. I could never explain why, but I always could see my mother and not Kate.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And
Sir Robert Helpmann
Dancing was your thing.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Um yes, because when we moved from Mount Gambia to Adelaide, I was sent to learn, in common with most of the little boys and girls in Adelaide, to learn fancy dancing from uh Nora Stewart, who was the taught everybody. And I once happened to see
Sir Robert Helpmann
the girls having a class and I said, That's what I want to do and so I became a dancer.
Presenter
and made your first appearance in in at a wartime concert party as a dancer. In fact, by the time you were twelve, you were dancing professionally.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, I was.
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
I uh much against my father's well, no no, no, that's that's mean. Uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
He didn't approve of it. Naturally, he hoped I would follow in his footsteps, so he was a little surprised. Yes, he was in the wool trade. He was in the wool trade, yes. And really, he was responsible for my going on the stage, because he went to Melbourne and came back and said, Well, if you're going to dance, you're going to dance well, and there's a girl there that's got a company, and she's going to take you in as a student, and you better be good. And I went with my mother the following week, and the girl was Anna Pavlova, so she was quite a girl.
Speaker 1
Mr. Squad.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And she accepted you as as a student. Yes, I never know why, because by the time it dawned on me, how did he get into her dressing room?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Why she took me, both my father and Pablo had died.
Presenter
You had a very important role, I believe, in in the ballet of Don Quixote, with her company.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, I was sent on with a huge white hat, looking absolutely ridiculous, and a very long red cloak, and I was instructed that if the horse that Don Quixote rode on ma misbehaved, I was to stand in front of it, with the red cloak spread out, while they rushed on and swept it up.
Presenter
Very responsible job.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Very responsible. So when I came to do it with the Australian Ballet, I said, no, no, no, we'll have an imitation horse. We're not going to have any real horse.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
This happened when Madame Pavlova left Australia.
Sir Robert Helpmann
My father then considered I I was too young, which indeed I was, and so I went into musical comedies, which, um, in a way was a good thing, because I learnt another side of the theatre, and not the rarefied atmosphere of the ballet, and so I got to
Sir Robert Helpmann
understand a lot about theatre as theatre as opposed to ballet. Who were the stars you worked with in musical comedy? Oh, Gladys Moncrieff, who was one of the great stars.
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Oh, everybody, everybody who came to Australia, I worked with them. I did everything. I was in about five productions of The Merry Widow and The Belle of New York and Katinka and The Desert Song and Rosemary, you name it, I was in it. Right, let's have record number two. Well, the record number two is uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
Send in the Clowns. It's a song that I love, and Sarah Vaughan's arrangement seems to me
Sir Robert Helpmann
The best of all the arrangements I've heard, and God knows there are plenty.
Speaker 4
So far.
Speaker 4
My fault, I fear.
Speaker 4
I thought that you want what I want.
Speaker 4
Sorry, my dear.
Speaker 4
But away all the clowns Quick, send in the clown
Speaker 4
Don't bother there he is.
Presenter
Sarah Bourne singing Send in the Clowns. So you were dancing in this endless series of musical comedies in Australia. What was the next step forward?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, the next step was that Margaret Rawlings came to Australia to play in the barracks of Wimpole Street.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And I was appearing in a pantomime, Sinbad the Sailor, and she came with her husband, Gabriel Toyne, to see a performance. And she said I met her afterwards and she said, Have you had ballet training? And I said, Yes, I've been with the Pablo Bucky. And she said, Oh, well, it's fascinating. Why don't you go to England? There's no ballet here. And I said, Oh, well, I just um earning my living here. So finally, when she and her husband left,
Sir Robert Helpmann
I came on the ship with them. Now, she said, A girl.
Sir Robert Helpmann
who arranged my dances when I played Salome at the gate,
Sir Robert Helpmann
is starting a company at Sadler's Wells. She's called Nignette de Valois. You better go and see her. Now I thought, Sadler's Wells, I don't want to go into the provinces. I thought it was Tunbridge Wells. So I didn't go for days. And then suddenly I realized that here was a ballet company. And so of course I went and saw Nignette.
Presenter
Of course, it was a pretty small ballet company in those days.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, it was, but
Sir Robert Helpmann
It had the sort of marvellous feeling that it must become something. I mean, when you met De Balois, you knew it must become something.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And she took you on.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes. To learn the trade, as it were. No, they needed boys. They were desperate for boys. I think she thought anything on two ladies. And she shoved me into the cord devalley of Coppelia.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
As always, I I'm sure Madame Nina de Valois w was a a stickler for for discipline. Did did she sort you out a bit? Or was it very?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Time training.
Presenter
Power training.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, tough. She sent me to because she was marvellous. In fact,
Sir Robert Helpmann
Whatever I may have achieved in my career, she was completely responsible for. She sent me to Kasavna to learn mimes, she sent me to Sambretta to learn she she was absolutely miraculous with me. In fact, she groomed me to take Anton Dollin's place.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yeah.
Presenter
Now you started in i in the cord ballet, bits and pieces. Now what was the first sizable role with which you were?
Presenter
Interesting.
Sir Robert Helpmann
I went to De Valois and said, Do you want me to come back next season? and she said, Of course you want. Don't be ridiculous, boy. Of course you're coming back next season. You're going to dance Job.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And
Sir Robert Helpmann
I nearly fainted because this was Darlin's great role and for the whole summer, because we had quite short seasons uh uh then and a long summer holiday, I studied with her to uh learn Job and luckily, luckily, I made a success.
Speaker 1
This is a dog.
Sir Robert Helpmann
There we were.
Presenter
Uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh Third record. Yeah.
Presenter
Okay.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
My third record, um well, the first line of it, really, Are We Happy Here? uh seems to be an appropriate thing to say when you're on a desert island. And it's George Benson singing Masquerade.
Speaker 4
Looking for words to sing
Speaker 4
Searching but not finding understanding anywhere
Speaker 4
Lord's in a mass.
Speaker 4
Masquerade.
Presenter
George Benson singing Masquerade. Oh, very soon you were a leading dancer with the company. Who were your partners? Who were the other stars?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, first of all, I danced with Markova.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Ne after m uh I had made a success of Job, Ninet said she was going to give me an original ballet, and she mounted the haunted ballroom on me, and my partner was Markova. Or at least I was Markova's partner.
Speaker 1
Or
Sir Robert Helpmann
That was the first role you created? That was the first role. And then I danced with Mark in, um
Sir Robert Helpmann
Swan Lake and Chiselle, and then Markova left. And uh I thought, My goodness, what's going to happen? Now the ballerina has gone, because it was very important in those days that Dahlin and Markova had great reputations from the Diaglif days.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And so De Valois said, I found you a new partner. I found a new.
Sir Robert Helpmann
leading dancer. And I went into the studio and uh this little girl was standing there and I thought, Well, she doesn't really look like the new star to me but of course when she started to dance
Sir Robert Helpmann
It was absolutely miraculous. And I said, Well, what's her name? And Barbara said, Peggy Hookham. So I said, Well, I don't think that's going to be very outstanding on the on the billboards. And she said, Oh, she's going to change her name. Sh she's Margot Fontaine. And she actually appeared first as my son in the haunted ballroom. And then we slowly started to work together. And the first original ballet we did together was Apparitions, which Frederick Ashton choreographed for us. And then, of course, you know, I danced with her for twenty-seven years.
Presenter
Never cause
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yeah.
Presenter
The Samuel's Worlds Company was a a great gathering point for for artists.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, it was. I mean, in those days, of course
Sir Robert Helpmann
A man that not nearly enough credit has been given to was Constant Lambert. I mean, Constant Lambert was really a m remarkable man, both as a conductor and as a personality attached to the ballet, and his taste in music was impeccable.
Presenter
Rather cautiously, you decided that you should have two strings to your bow, that you should be a straight actor as well. You had to convince the great Lillian Bayliss that this was a good idea.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Welcome.
Sir Robert Helpmann
I always wanted to become an actor.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And all the time I had been quietly going and having voice lessons.
Sir Robert Helpmann
So when the time came, as it came every season, you had to go and discuss money with Miss Baylis.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Uh she had two dogs that used to sit under her desk, and the minute salary you said salary, they both jumped on your lap. I think I know she trained them. I'm sure she trained them.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And
Sir Robert Helpmann
I said, Miss Veilis, she said, Now getting down to money, dear and I said, I don't want any more. And I think she nearly had a stroke. She said, You don't want any more? And I said, No, I I I want to play with the company next season at the Old Vic.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And she said, What do you want to play? And I said, I want to play Oberon, you're doing the Midsummer Night's Dream.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And she said, Do you think you can?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well I said, yes, I'm sure I can.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And she said, Oh dear, I'll have to speak to my Mr. Guthrie about that. And I auditioned for Guthrie and he said, Yes, I could play.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Record number four.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Record number four is the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, principally because I've always longed to be able to play the piano, and I think the moment of those first chords for the pianist must be absolutely thrilling.
Presenter
The opening passage of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerta No. 1 in B flat minor, Vladimir Ashkenazi with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Presenter
When did we start the choreograph?
Sir Robert Helpmann
I started to choreograph in nineteen forty three, I think it was. I did Comas because I wanted to impress on people and I always had a belief, and I still have, that the spoken word has got a place in the ballet, and Michael Benthall suggested that I should do.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Comas as a ballet and speak the two great speeches of Comas, because you must understand by this time Frederick Ashton had gone into the forces and we needed, desperately needed, new ballets. So I did Comas. And Hamlet after a while. And Hamlet after a while, which I did, of course, to convince Tyron Guthrie that I could play the play.
Presenter
The problems of condensing Hamlet into a short ballet must have been enormous, because it wasn't a whole evening, was it?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Oh no and the music uh constant said to me, Well, th you simply can't do it. It's only eighteen minutes, the overture. And so I went ahead and I thought, Well, I shall do it with the thoughts, because
Sir Robert Helpmann
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. I based it all on that. So everything like in a dream became the queen suddenly turned into Ophelia, Ophelia turned into the queen, the gravedigger turned into Horatio, and everything became mixed in his dying mind.
Presenter
Hmm.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And it's it worked.
Presenter
Miraculously. And your scheme worked. You did indeed play the play.
Sir Robert Helpmann
I did indeed play the play.
Presenter
And I did
Presenter
Uh
Sir Robert Helpmann
Record number five we've got to. My fifth record is Songs of the Avan, Balero, because this particular song, quite apart from the fact that I think it's beautiful, it has a very, very deep
Sir Robert Helpmann
Personal meaningful.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And who would you like to sing it?
Sir Robert Helpmann
Victoria Los Angeles, who funnily enough one time sang in my production of Madam Butterfly.
Presenter
Victoria at Los Angeles singing ballero from Songs of the Auvergne.
Presenter
When the war was eventually over, there were lots of excitement, American tours, and the reopening of Carpenter Garden, once again, of course, you played Oberon.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, that was not in the Shakespeare. That was in the Fairy Queen of Purcells that
Presenter
That happened.
Sir Robert Helpmann
constant uh condensed into uh a sort of opera
Sir Robert Helpmann
Come play come ballet. And uh Margaret Rawlings played Titania this time. I'm not sure whether it was a great success, but it was it was beautiful to look at and and marvellous to do, but I preferred the play, I must say. You had started making films during
Presenter
Yeah. in the war, you you did quite a few.
Sir Robert Helpmann
The first film I ever did I saw the other night in Australia on television called One of Our Aircraft is Missing and in which I played a Dutch Quisling. Michael Powell directed it. Michael Powell directed it. Which other films do you like to remember?
Sir Robert Helpmann
I like to remember them nearly all, as as far as I can remember them all. There was Red Shoes and Hoffman, both marvellous buildings. Tales of Hoffman. To make and great fun to do. And I've really enjoyed practically every film. I've just done two in Australia, one called The Mango Tree, and the last one, which I did at the beginning of this year, called Patrick.
Sir Robert Helpmann
has been a great success and has just been sold to America. So maybe we'll see it over here.
Presenter
And uh I remember he was one of the bishops in Henry V. Henry V in Libya's Henry V.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Henry Livy is Henry V.
Presenter
Bishop of Ely.
Presenter
An arbitrary list of some of the the straight theatre parts you've played.
Presenter
apart from the ones we've mentioned.
Presenter
Richard the Third
Presenter
And you played in narrow cards nude with the violin, you played the battle.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yes, the wonderful part, Sebastian. I replaced John Gielgood, and by the time uh I came to play it, Noel had started to play it in New York, so I went over because I knew perfectly well he'd written in extra scenes for himself, so of course he had. And when I
Presenter
Yes, you would like to get
Sir Robert Helpmann
Oh, yes. I went over and got them, and I said I'd only do it on conditions that John, who I absolutely worship, rehearsed me, which he did. And he's noted for dropping bricks, you know, they say one of John's bricks. So he was wonderful during rehearsals. He said, Oh, sit down, now stand up, go see, he can do it anyway. Why can't you all? And the poor cast had been playing it for two years. So the final day came, he walked down, he said, Well, really, Bobby, I do admire you enormously the way you do it. I could never have played it like that, because you see, I'm an actor.
Presenter
Charming.
Presenter
What else? You add one or two.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Ah, Shiloh. King John, uh Launce and two gentlemen of Verona. At the Vic. At the Vic.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Measure for measure in Australia with Catherine Hepburn and Shylock with Catherine Hepburn. And the Millionaires. And the Millionaires.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Oh, there's um
Sir Robert Helpmann
I seem to have done almost too much.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Record number six, we've got to.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Record number six I've chosen because
Sir Robert Helpmann
If you're stuck on a desert island, anything that says By the time I get to anywhere must be a great relief, so I've chosen Glen Campbell to sing By the Time I Get to Phoenix.
Speaker 4
By the time I get to Phoenix
Speaker 4
She'll be rising.
Speaker 4
She'll find the note I left hanging.
Speaker 4
On her door.
Presenter
Ben Campbell.
Presenter
You've done a very great deal of of direction.
Presenter
And in a very dedicated manner. You mentioned just now directing Victoria de Los Angeles in Madame Butterfly. Is it. Well, actually.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
She was the second. The original one I directed it on was Elizabeth Schwartzkopf. And then the next year, Victoria Los Angeles.
Presenter
Is it true that before you directed Madame Butterfly your first opera you took a few months off to learn to read a score? Yes, because you see.
Sir Robert Helpmann
See
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
In opera the the conductor is the captain. In the ballet the conductor has to follow the dancer. But in the opera what the conductor says goes. And this I knew and I thought I'm not going to be put in the position of having somebody turn round to me and say, Of course, Shudo, you're not a musician. How can you possibly know? So I took time off to learn how to read a score. Very, very roughly, but at least I knew where I was. A very useful asset, I should think. Oh, it's turned out to be. Absolutely invaluable.
Presenter
We've got your penultimate record, watch number seven.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, I've just, as I told you, made two films in Australia and I've chosen the next one for not only the singer, because I love her and she's a wonderful, gay character, and if you're on a desk down, it'd be wonderful to think of her, and that is Bette Midler. And as a loyal Australian, loyal to the film industry in Australia, she's singing Goodbye to Hollywood.
Speaker 4
He joins the lovers in his heavy machine. It's a scene that I'm sunset boulevard. Say goodbye to Hollywood.
Speaker 4
Little Mama Baby
Speaker 4
They go back to honey
Speaker 4
Say goodbye, my baby.
Speaker 4
Johnny's taking care of things for a while and the style is so bad
Presenter
Dirt Medler say goodbye to Hollywood.
Presenter
Which brings you to your last record.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, my last record is naturally something that's very close to me, and that is
Sir Robert Helpmann
the ballet that I enjoyed, choreographing, dancing the most, and that is the overture to Hamlet by Tchaikovsky.
Presenter
Tchaikovsky's Hamlet Overture, played by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov.
Presenter
If you could take only one disk of that eight, which would it be?
Presenter
Oh dear I think songs of the event. Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Sir Robert Helpmann
And one luxury to take to the island with you? Well, as I spend most of my life at the dentist, I take a lot of toothbrushes and some toothpaste.
Presenter
Right, that's fair enough. We'll give you some different flavours. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and We Don't Allow Big Encyclopedias.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Well, if I could have my choice, and if there was such a book, I would like Boat Building for Beginners. I'm sure there must be such a book. There must be some something.
Presenter
And we'll give you a bumper edition. And thank you, Sir Robert Helpman, for letting us hear your desert island discs.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Presenter
Goodbye everyone.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter asks
So you were dancing in this endless series of musical comedies in Australia. What was the next step forward?
Well, the next step was that Margaret Rawlings came to Australia to play in the barracks of Wimpole Street. And I was appearing in a pantomime, Sinbad the Sailor, and she came with her husband, Gabriel Toyne, to see a performance. And she said I met her afterwards and she said, Have you had ballet training? And I said, Yes, I've been with the Pablo Bucky. And she said, Oh, well, it's fascinating. Why don't you go to England? There's no ballet here. And I said, Oh, well, I just um earning my living here. So finally, when she and her husband left, I came on the ship with them. Now, she said, A girl who arranged my dances when I played Salome at the gate, is starting a company at Sadler's Wells. She's called Nignette de Valois. You better go and see her. Now I thought, Sadler's Wells, I don't want to go into the provinces. I thought it was Tunbridge Wells. So I didn't go for days. And then suddenly I realized that here was a ballet company. And so of course I went and saw Nignette.
Presenter asks
Did Madame de Valois sort you out a bit? Or was it very tough training?
Yes, tough. She sent me to because she was marvellous. In fact, Whatever I may have achieved in my career, she was completely responsible for. She sent me to Kasavna to learn mimes, she sent me to Sambretta to learn she she was absolutely miraculous with me. In fact, she groomed me to take Anton Dollin's place.
Presenter asks
Is it true that before you directed Madame Butterfly, your first opera, you took a few months off to learn to read a score?
Yes, because you see. In opera the the conductor is the captain. In the ballet the conductor has to follow the dancer. But in the opera what the conductor says goes. And this I knew and I thought I'm not going to be put in the position of having somebody turn round to me and say, Of course, Shudo, you're not a musician. How can you possibly know? So I took time off to learn how to read a score. Very, very roughly, but at least I knew where I was. A very useful asset, I should think. Oh, it's turned out to be. Absolutely invaluable.
Presenter asks
If you could take only one disc of the eight, which would it be?
Oh dear I think songs of the event. Yeah.
“I always could see my mother and not Kate.”
“I never know why, but by the time it dawned on me, how did he get into her dressing room?”
“Whatever I may have achieved in my career, she was completely responsible for.”
“I said, Miss Veilis, she said, Now getting down to money, dear and I said, I don't want any more. And I think she nearly had a stroke.”
“I would like Boat Building for Beginners.”