1937 – Premiere of Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies by Ballet Rambert

Dark Elegies was created by Antony Tudor for Ballet Rambert in London in 1937 and it premiered at the Duchess Theatre, London. In 1940 it was premiered in New York, where its choreographer was to settle for most of the rest of his life. Dark Elegies is danced to Mahler’s orchestral song-cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) and designed by Nadia Benois. There is no specific plot, but, through the music, the designs and Tudor’s choreography, it encapsulates every parent’s nightmare – the loss of one’s children. The ballet’s two movements are entitled ‘Bereavement’ and ‘Resignation’. With the benefit of hindsight, Dark Elegies and Lilac Garden (1936), created within a year of each other, are the two ballets which seem to define Tudor’s particular, even unique approach to classical ballet. Tudor was renowned for his ability to probe beneath the surface of human situations, and as Jerome Robbins once said, “to convey through movement emotion that could not be put into words.”

The original cast included Peggy van Praagh, Maude Lloyd, Antony Tudor, Walter Gore,  Agnes de Mille, Hugh Laing, Daphne Gow, Ann Gee, Patricia Clogstoun, Beryl Kay, Celia Franks (Celia Franca), John Byron, and baritone Harold Child.