Though many dance fans identify Britain’s Royal Ballet with luxurious productions of Russian classical ballets, it is, ironically, one of the few European ballet companies that did not originate in a royal court. The Royal Ballet came into being quite late in the day, in the year of 1931, when Ninette de Valois began working with Lilian Baylis, the visionary who established what would ultimately become the National Theatre and the English National Opera. Baylis’s M.O. was first-rate productions of works old and new, offered at affordable prices. This conviction was at the heart of de Valois’s fledgling company.
De Valois, who had danced with Sergei Diaghilev’s Mariinsky-trained but spiritually modernist Ballets Russes in the 1920s, was committed to developing her dancers in the classical style, even though producing Russian classics was a major financial risk. After all, Diaghilev’s elaborate 1921 London production of The Sleeping Beauty had almost bankrupted his company at a time when audiences were used to triple bills.
