Best Foot Forward

Based in London’s Covent Garden, The Royal Ballet is one of the world’s most famous ballet companies, with a fascinating history

- Felicity Day

They say it’s only rarely that life imitates art, but so it was on 20 February 1946. As Margot Fonteyn’s Sleeping Beauty awoke from slumber on the stage of the Royal Opera House, so too did the building itself, reborn after its wartime stint as a big-band dance hall. Night after night for the next 19 weeks its grand auditorium was packed once more, as crowds thronged to see the best that British ballet could offer.

It’s hard to believe that just two decades earlier, Britain had no professional ballet company. In fact, it had no tradition of classical ballet at all; for centuries, ballet had been the preserve of foreign guest-stars from Russia and France. One woman changed that: Ninette de Valois built Britain a national ballet company from scratch, and in the process put ballet right at the heart of the nation’s culture.

Born Edris Stannus in Ireland, de Valois’ own dancing career began young, and eventually led her to the legendary Ballets Russes. Taught by Russian and French émigrés, she dreamed of nurturing homegrown talent, and in 1926 she opened her own school. After entering into a partnership with the manager of London’s Old Vic theatre, she soon had her own ballet company, too. Since the six dancers also performed at the Vic’s sister site, the Sadler’s Wells theatre, they became known as the Vic-Wells Ballet, and later, the Sadler’s Wells.