Podcast » Antoinette Sibley
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...
people » David Wall
David Wall in the role created for Michael Somes in Frederick Ashton’s supremely classical Symphonic Variations (1946), flanked by (left to right) Laura Connor, Jennifer Penny and (facing front in the role he created for Margot Fonteyn) Merle Park. © Anthony Crickmay/Victoria and Albert Museum, London
David Wall (1946–2013). British dancer, director and répétiteur
David Wall’s career in dance began with ballroom dancing classes, followed by ballet classes with Mrs Dunsford in Windsor. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1963. He was appointed principal at the age of 20, the youngest in the history of the company, having already partnered Margot Fonteyn in Les Sylphides at the age of 19 and going on to perform Swan Lake with her the following year. He joined The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1970, where he continued to partner Fonteyn frequently, as well as Doreen Wells, Lynn Seymour, Natalia Makarova and all the principal ballerinas of the time. His male colleagues included Rudolf Nureyev and Anthony Dowell, whose brilliance in no way overshadowed his own.
While in The Royal Ballet, Wall worked with many choreographers, including Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor. He is particularly remembered for his work in some of the dramatic ballets of Kenneth MacMillan: Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Lescaut in Manon and Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling, the last two roles created on him. Wall also excelled in lighter ballets, such as La Fille mal gardée, The Two Pigeons and Coppélia, aside from achieving great acclaim in the classics such as The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Giselle.
Wall retired from dancing in 1984 at the height of his career. He became assistant director and then director of the Royal Academy of Dance until 1991. In 1995 he began to work as a ballet master and répétiteur for English National Ballet until 2011, though he continued to coach both there and for The Royal Ballet. David Wall was married to the ballerina Alfreda Thorogood, and they had two children. He was appointed CBE in 1985 and died in 2013.
Timeline Event » 1970 – The Royal Ballet dances Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering for the first time
Dances at a Gathering, which had been created for New York City Ballet in 1969, represented the first work by Jerome Robbins to enter The Royal Ballet’s repertoire. Danced to music by Frédéric...
Timeline Event » 1974 – Premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon by The Royal Ballet
The eponymous heroine of Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 Manon has become a role that nearly all aspiring ballerinas long to dance. Though there was initial criticism of the seemingly one-dimensional...
Kenneth Macmillan’s hugely popular Elite Syncopations emerged out of a newfound enthusiasm for ragtime music in the 1970s. Danced to music by Scott Joplin and others, MacMillan’s subversive side...
Timeline Event » 1978 – Premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling by The Royal Ballet
With his fourth three-act ballet, Mayerling, Kenneth MacMillan cemented his legacy for reinvigorating the full-length narrative ballet for the modern age. Mayerling, first performed by The Royal...