1950 – Sadler’s Wells Ballet dances George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial for the first time

Originally created for American Ballet Caravan, George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial was performed by Sadler’s Wells Ballet for the first time at the Royal Opera House in 1950. Danced to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and designed by Eugene Berman, Ballet Imperial was George Balanchine’s homage to his own pre-revolutionary Russian ballet schooling and is a feast of pure (neo-)classical dancing. The first cast included Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes and Beryl Grey. Grey scored the greatest success as the ‘second’ ballerina role, and Moira Shearer was much admired in the ‘first’ ballerina role at a later performance. Balanchine later renamed the work Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1973, although The Royal Ballet restored the original title in 1985. Ballet Imperial is all that the name suggests: an exciting and challenging ballet of pure dance evoking and recalling memories of the Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg.