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The Haunted Ballroom
''The Haunted Ballroom'' is a one-act ballet, in three scenes and an interlude, with music and libretto by Geoffrey Toye and choreography by Ninette de Valois. It was first produced in London in 1934, and was revived several times, but much of the choreography is now lost. The ballet is a Gothic melodrama about a fatal family curse. Production The ballet was first staged by the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre on 3 April 1934. Geoffrey Toye, who wrote the libretto and the music, based the plot on a story by Edgar Allan Poe.Sorley Walker, pp. 17–18 The costumes and sets were by Motley. The principals in the first production were Alicia Markova as the leader of the ghosts, Robert Helpmann as the Master of Tregennis, William Chappell as the Stranger Player, and the teenaged Margot Fonteyn Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias DBE (''née'' Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways. A ''ballet'' as a unified work comprises the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery. Etymology Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Italian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Toye
Edward Geoffrey Toye (17 February 1889 – 11 June 1942), known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English conductor, composer and opera producer. He is best remembered as a musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and for his association with Sadler's Wells Theatre. One of his ballets, ''The Haunted Ballroom'' (1934), became popular and was revived several times, and the new overture that he prepared for Gilbert and Sullivan's ''Ruddigore'' in 1919 became the standard version. Life and career Born in Winchester, Hampshire, Toye was the younger son of Arlingham James Toye and his wife Alice Fayrer ''née'' Coates. Toye's father was a housemaster at Winchester College, who for many years ran a music society for the boys. His elder brother Francis Toye was also a composer and musician. Early years Toye studied at the Royal College of Music, concentrating on composition and conducting. He also displayed such skill as a pianist that he was engaged "when little more than a boy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninette De Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham 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. Life Early life and family Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom. A member of a gentry family, she was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO,Montgomery-Massingber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family Curse
A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, "curse" may refer to such a wish or pronouncement made effective by a supernatural or spiritual power, such as a god or gods, a spirit, or a natural force, or else as a kind of spell by magic (usually black magic) or witchcraft; in the latter sense, a curse can also be called a hex or a jinx. In many belief systems, the curse itself (or accompanying ritual) is considered to have some causative force in the result. To reverse or eliminate a curse is sometimes called "removal" or "breaking", as the spell has to be dispelled, and often requires elaborate rituals or prayers. Types The study of the forms of curses comprises a significant proportion of the study of both folk religion and folklore. The deliberate attempt to levy curses is o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Royal Ballet
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Ninette de Valois, Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company. The Royal Ballet was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century, and continues to be one of the world's most famous ballet companies to this day, generally noted for its artistic and creative values. The company employs approximately 100 dancers. The official associate school of the company is the Royal Ballet School, and it also has a sister company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which operates independently. The Prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Bal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive rehearsal rooms and technical facilities also housed within the site. Sadler's Wells is renowned as one of the world's leading dance venues. As well as a stage for visiting companies, the theatre is also a producing house, with a number of associated artists and companies that produce original works for the theatre. Sadler's Wells is also responsible for the management of the Peacock Theatre in the West End, during times not used by the London School of Economics. History First theatre and pleasure gardens Richard Sadler opened a "Musick House" in 1683, the second public theatre newly opened in London after the Restoration, the first being the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Poe was born in Boston, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and when his mother died the following year, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he was with them well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motley Theatre Design Group
Motley was the name of the theatre design firm made up of three English designers: sisters Margaret (known as "Percy," 1904–2000) and Sophie Harris (1900–1966) and Elizabeth Montgomery (1902–1993). Career The name ''Motley'', according to Montgomery, was chosen from the medieval fabric--a rough, multicolored woven called motley--not from Shakespeare's term of ' Motley' from ''As You Like It.'' The artists were constantly taunted with the Shakespearean connection anyway. Motley met at art school in the 1920s and became John Gielgud's designers during the 1930s. They started teaching theatre design at Michel Saint-Denis's London Theatre Studio (1936–1939), the first time a design course had been incorporated into a drama school in the UK. Margaret Harris and Elizabeth Montgomery spent the Second World War in the United States, designing for Broadway, and Harris also worked with Charles Eames on his moulded plywood aeroplane parts. Sophie Harris, now married to George Devin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova DBE (1 December 1910 – 2 December 2004) was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the twentieth century. She was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company and, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, is one of only two English dancers to be recognised as a prima ballerina assoluta. Markova was a founder dancer of the Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and was co-founder and director of the English National Ballet. Early years Markova was born as Lilian Alicia Marks on 1 December 1910. Her father, Arthur, was Jewish by birth; her mother, Eileen (nee Barry), converted to Judaism. The family lived in a two bedroom flat in Finsbury Park. Career Markova began to dance on medical advice t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Helpmann
Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE ( Helpman, 9 April 1909 – 28 September 1986) was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (now The Royal Ballet) under its creator, Ninette de Valois. He became one of the company's leading men, partnering Alicia Markova and later Margot Fonteyn. When Frederick Ashton, the company's chief choreographer, was called up for military service in the Second World War Helpmann took over from him while continuing as a principal dancer. Helpmann, from the outset of his career was an actor as well as a dancer, and in the 1940s he turned increasingly to acting in plays, at the Old Vic and in the West End. Most of his roles were in Shakespeare plays but he also appeared in works by Shaw, Coward, Sartre and others. As a director his range was wide, from Shakespeare to opera, musicals and pantomime. Helpmann became co-director of the Austra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Chappell (dancer)
William Chappell (27 September 19071 January 1994) was a British dancer, ballet designer and director. He is most noted for his designs for more than 40 ballets or revues, including many of the early works of Sir Frederick Ashton and Dame Ninette de Valois. Early life Chappell was born in Wolverhampton, the son of theatrical manager Archibald Chappell and his wife Edith Eva Clara Black (''née'' Edith Blair-Staples). Edith, the daughter of an army officer, was raised in Ceylon and India; in pursuing a career in repertory acting, she moved away from her upper-middle-class roots and married twice to fellow actors, by the first of whom she had a daughter, Hermina, the second time being to Archibald Chappell, by whom she had two daughters, Dorothea and Honor, followed by Billy. Chappell was acutely aware of his 'déclassé origins': whereas his mother's brother had maintained a conventional upper-middle-class life, being a tea-planter in Ceylon and able to provide his son, Patrick (w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margot Fonteyn
Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias DBE (''née'' Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet (formerly the Sadler's Wells Theatre Company), eventually being appointed ''prima ballerina assoluta'' of the company by Queen Elizabeth II. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England and China, where her father was transferred for his work. Her training in Shanghai was with Russian expatriate dancer Georgy Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at the age of 14, she was invited to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School by Ninette de Valois. She succeeded Alicia Markova as prima ballerina of the company in 1935. The Vic-Wells choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, wrote numerous parts for Fonteyn and her partner, Robert Helpmann, with whom she danced from the 1930s to the 1940s. In 1946, the company ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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