The ballet writer Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode of Voices of British Ballet by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet student, principal dancer and director), Jane Pritchard (curator of...
training » Sadler’s Wells School
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...
Podcast » Noel Bronley
Noel Bronley was a member of International Ballet from 1946 until it closed in 1953. Little remembered now, at the time International Ballet was a very large undertaking of over 100 people. It toured...
Podcast » Brenda Hamlyn
Natalie Steed talks to Brenda Hamlyn-Bencini about training under Marie Rambert, the post-war dance scene and touring Germany with ENSA in the immediate aftermath of WWII. At 92, Brenda...
Podcast » Lynn Seymour
In any history of The Royal Ballet, a special place must be reserved for Lynn Seymour, as the dance actress par excellence. Here she tells Alastair Macaulay about her initial inspiration in her...
Podcast » Peter Wright
A man of the theatre through and through, in this conversation Peter Wright shows us that fulfilling one’s destiny can be fraught with difficulties and that the path is not always clear-cut. He...
Podcast » Rowena Fayre
Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at Sadler’s Wells School with Ninette de Valois,...
Timeline Event » 1912 – Winifred Edwards joins Anna Pavlova’s company
Most famous for the work she did with many dancers of The Royal Ballet towards the end of her career, the fascinating early life of Winifred Edwards (1895-1989) is often overlooked. Her early...
Timeline Event » 1926 – Ninette de Valois opens the Academy of Choreographic Art
Ninette de Valois (1898-2001) was an Irish dancer, choreographer and founding director of The Royal Ballet.In 1918 and 1919 she became principal dancer for the Beecham Opera at Covent Garden and...
Timeline Event » 1946 – First performances by Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet, later Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet
Having appeared in operas at Sadler’s Wells, the new Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet’s first purely ballet evening took place on 8 April, 1946, with a programme comprising Ninette de Valois’ 1943...
Timeline Event » 1956 – The Sadler’s Wells Ballet Companies and School became The Royal Ballet, The Royal Ballet Touring Company and The Royal Ballet School
In the autumn of 1956, Ninette de Valois’ companies and school received the Royal Charter, bringing all three entities under the one title of The Royal Ballet, with HM The Queen as Patron and HRH...