Voices of British Ballet

For decades the Hochhauser name has been synonymous with the visits to London of the greatest Russian ballet companies and musicians. In conversation with Hilary Condron, Lilian Hochhauser explains how she and her husband, the late Victor Hochhauser, became involved in artistic management. The indomitable Lilian also talks about her friendship with Mstislav Rostropovich, especially after he left t...

In any history of The Royal Ballet, a special place must be reserved for Lynn Seymour, as the dance actress par excellence. Here she tells Alastair Macaulay about her initial inspiration in her native Canada, and about how she came to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School at the age of 14. She talks about problems she had with her body and in training, but also about her passionate conviction as to the...

Patricia Linton talks to the artist Jock McFadyen about his work on the designs for Kenneth MacMillan’s The Judas Tree . We hear about Jock’s own rebellious days as a student and about how, as a complete newcomer to ballet, he became involved in The Judas Tree . He quickly realised that he preferred narrative to abstract ballet – Goya to Mondrian, as he puts it – and about how he saw Kenneth MacMi...

Pauline Clayden was born in 1922. Here she talks to Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, about her student days, and moves on to her dancing life up until joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1942. There was great uncertainty for all at the start of World War Two, and Pauline’s excellent memory, combined with her clarity, modesty and humour, shines a light on the assembling an...

James MacMillan is one of the world’s most prolific and widely respected composers. To date, two of his works have been used in ballets, both choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The first of these is his Tryst , an early work, which helped to establish MacMillan as a composer. James speaks to the writer and composer, Stephen Johnson, about the way he and Wheeldon approached Tryst more than a de...

The great choreographer and director Gillian Lynne tells Lynn Wallis how it was a giant, but ultimately rewarding step, to leave the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1951. We have a ten minute trip from the bright lights of the London Palladium to the “fiendishly difficult” score of [Michael] Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage at the Royal Opera House in 1968. Although this is the slimmest of glimpses of Gillia...

Siobhan Davies explains to the dance critic Alastair Macaulay her initial engagement with dance in the 1960s. She talks about how she began as an art student, fascinated by the act of drawing, particularly in charcoal, and then started taking dance classes with the Contemporary Dance Group. She was introduced to dance by the Graham technique, with its big strokes and large, sweeping arms and legs....

Critic and writer Clement Crisp gives a succinct and vivid summing up of the debt British ballet owes to Constant Lambert, not just as the conductor for the Vic-Wells and then the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, but as what Crisp calls their artistic conscience. He also speaks about Lambert’s own musical genius, both as a composer and a conductor, and his penchant for reviving unjustly overlooked music. Th...

This self-effacing, straightforward man with a twinkle in his eye is known for his compositions for many TV dramas in the 1960s and 70s, including Doctor Who . Perhaps surprisingly, this career started in ballet! Dudley Simpson recounts to Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, how he travelled from Australia to the Royal Opera House where, with virtually no preparation, he cond...

Darcey Bussell introduces this episode featuring the dancer Beryl Grey. Beryl Grey is in conversation with Frank Freeman, who sadly died in 2011, about her early training, first with Madeleine Sharp and then with Phyllis Bedells before going to the Sadler’s Wells School at the age of 10 in 1937. She joined the Sadler’s Wells Company when she was 14, and started performing leading ballerina roles a...

Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini talks about training under Marie Rambert, the post-war dance scene and touring Germany with ENSA in the immediate aftermath of WWII. At 92, Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini describes events and people from the 1940s, as if it was yesterday. She certainly does not dispel any myths about ‘Mim’ [Marie] Rambert’s powerful personality. Brenda talks candidly of her days at Cone Ripman School...

Joan Seaman gives us a wonderful bird's eye view of VE Day which she spent seeing Sadler's Wells Ballet stars Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann dance Coppélia and her interview is full of the amazing good humoured selflessness demostrated by so many young people in World War II. Joan had volunteered to serve in the WAAF at 19 and it was during this time that she discovered what would be a life-lo...

David Wall was one of the greatest male dancers of his era, with an extraordinary stage charisma, range, theatricality and honesty. In this interview he talks to Frank Freeman, a former colleague, about his early training and his work in the Royal Ballet Company, which included partnering Dame Margot Fonteyn at the age of 19, and having major roles created on him by Sir Frederick Ashton, Antony Tu...

The story of Festival Ballet and the impressario Julian Braunsweg is told by a panel who danced with the company. The dance writer, and former dancer, Deborah Weiss is joined in the studio for a special Voices of British Ballet round table discussion. Anita Landa, Pamela Hart, Joyce Lyndon and David Long, are all former dancers with Festival Ballet, and talk about the early days and legacy of one...

Noel Bronley was a member of International Ballet from 1946 until it closed in 1953. Little remembered now, at the time International Ballet was a very large undertaking of over 100 people. It toured extensively, both in Britain and abroad, under the direction of its founder, director and prima ballerina, the redoubtable Mona Inglesby. In conversation with Patricia Linton, Noel speaks about the vi...

For over half a century, John Craxton was a major force in the visual arts of this country. From the late 1940s on, his main source of inspiration had been the landscape and people of Greece. Choosing Craxton for the designs, sets and costumes of Sir Frederick Ashton’s Daphnis and Chloë in 1951 was, therefore, an inspired choice. In conversation with Patricia Linton and Anthony O’Hear, Craxton spe...

If ever a job needed diplomacy it must be as General Director of the Royal Opera House, a post Sir John Tooley held from 1970 until 1988. He was also Assistant to the General Administrator from 1955 to 1960, followed by 10 years as Assistant General Administrator. Here he gives Bruce Sansom a few examples from his early years of how true the need for diplomacy is. He speaks about the diplomatic cr...

Violette Verdy’s laughter and intelligence endlessly shine through in this discussion with Clement Crisp. She explains how, as dancer and actress, music was the core of her existence. She talks about working with George Balanchine, of doing new pieces with him, his musical sophistication in dealing with difficult scores, and of the spiritual dimension to his work. Jerome Robbins, with whom she als...

Dame Antoinette Sibley talks with Alastair Macaulay. Her wonderful mix of enthusiasm, appreciation and practicality typify the glorious mercurial talent that has beguiled a generation of dancers and public alike. Sibley talks about her early aspirations, working with Sir Frederick Ashton and her career-defining partnership with Sir Anthony Dowell. The episode is introduced by the dance critic and...

The ballet writer Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode of Voices of British Ballet by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet student, principal dancer and director), Jane Pritchard (curator of dance, theatre and performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum and former archivist to Rambert Dance), and Judith Mackrell (former dance critic at the Guardian, and author of Bloomsbury Ballerina , a bi...

Dame Darcey Bussell talks to Natalie Steed to introduce an interview with the dancer and choregrapher, Christopher Wheeldon. Christopher Wheeldon talks in 2003 with his former classmate and Royal Ballet First Soloist Jane Burn. Christopher speaks about his early years in dance with candour and charm, mentioning Anatole Grigoriev, his teacher at White Lodge, and his early forays into choreography w...

Adam Cooper talks to Natalie Steed to introduce this inteview with the dancer, director and choreographer Wendy Toye. It begins with Wendy Toye’s memory of chatting to Sergei Diaghilev at the age of 9, giving her opinion of L’Après-Midi d’un faune , and the pace never stops. She tells Patricia Linton of her love for dancing of all sorts. From the age of 5 she performed in Hiawatha at the Royal Alb...

American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers. Interviewed by Gerald Dowler, he talks frankly about the role of improvisation in choreography, egalitarianism in dance, his experiences with international dance forms other than ballet and his particular affection for British dance. The interview is introduc...

In this first episode of our new podcast about the history of British ballet Patricia Linton, the founder of Voices of British Ballet, tells Natalie Steed about her project and introduces a recording she made with Monica Ratcliffe. Monica Ratcliffe, one of Voices of British Ballet’s earliest voices, talks about her years at Dame Ninette de Valois’ Academy of Choreographic Art in Roland Gardens, Lo...