Julian Braunsweg (1897-1978). Polish-born impressario and company director

A legendary man of the theatre and ballet in the middle years of the 20th Century, Julian Braunsweg was born in Warsaw in 1897. He was working in Moscow in 1914, and in 1917 took a group of dancers to the Caucasus. He returned to Warsaw in 1918, and in 1919 moved to Berlin to study, where he stated organising theatrical productions. He worked with Max Reinhardt’s German Ballet in 1923, and in 1924 became manager of the Russian Romantic Ballet, taking it to London. He later moved to Paris in 1929 and managed several artists, including Tamara Karsavina and the Spanish dancer La Argentina. He went on to manage a number of famous ballet companies, including those of Anna Pavlova, Léon Woizikowki’s Polish Ballet (which he took to New York in 1939), and the Original Ballet Russe, as well as Ram Gopal’s Indian dance company. Having moved to Paris in 1929, Braunsweg finally settled in London in 1939.

In 1949 Braunsweg took on management of the Markova-Dolin Ballet, which led in 1950 to his founding of London Festival Ballet (later English National Ballet) along with Markova and Dolin, becoming general director. During his tenure, Festival Ballet had no public subsidy, and its corps was mainly recruited from British ballet schools, but it attracted leading dancers as soloist from all over Europe, including Russia. However, the company’s financial base collapsed in 1965. The Arts Council stepped in with funding, but on condition that Braunsweg stepped down. Thereafter, Braunsweg arranged tours for a number of companies, including The Royal Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet and American Classical Ballet. In 1973 Braunsweg published Braunsweg’s Ballet Scandals, an amusing and irreverent account of his life and career in the world of international ballet. He died in London in 1978.