Sadler's Wells USA Tours 1949 & 1950
Programme for opening night in 1949 at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House House with cover designed by Cecil Beaton
Sadler’s Wells USA Tours 1949 & 1950
1st Tour : october - december 1949
Sadler’s Wells Ballet’s first USA Tour had been many years in planning, eventually leaving for America at the beginning of October 1949. They flew to New York and opened at the Metropolitan Opera House where they stayed for one month before moving on to Washington in early November. Thereafter, on a whirlwind tour, they visited Richmond, Philadelphia, Chicago and East Lansing before heading up to Canada and the cities of Toronto and Ottawa.
The Tour attracted enormous attention and much anticipation for the opening night in New York - Margot Fonteyn and the company performing The Sleeping Beauty to rapturous applause and copious curtain calls. It was a busy month during their time at the Opera House - they also performed Le Lac des Cygnes, The Rake’s Progress, Symphonic Variations, Façade, Hamlet, Miracle in the Gorbals, A Wedding Bouquet, Checkmate, Job and Cinderella.
Excerpt from programme from 9th November 1949 - Richmond VA
Many memories lingered for Gillie - the beauty of the old Metropolitan Opera House; seeing for the first time the fast paced life and buzz of New York life and the lights of Broadway; being taken by Robert (Bobby) Helpmann to Walgreens for her first banana split; the special Pulman trains that were organised to transport the dancers and all the paraphernalia that must accompany a touring company; President Trueman coming to opening night in Washington, where the floor of Constitution Hall had not been dewaxed causing obvious problems for the dancers.
2nd Tour - September 1950 - January 1951
The second tour was much more ambitious and far longer than the first one - 20 weeks in total - starting, as in the 1949 Tour, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York for three weeks opening with a performance of Le Las des Cygnes (Swan Lake).
Travel again was on the ‘Ballet Special‘ Pullman train as they journeyed firstly to Philadelphia, and then on to Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans before arriving for ten days in Los Angeles. Then two weeks in San Francisco, and further stops in Denver and Chicago before finally finishing up in Quebec in Canada.
As with the previous tour, there were some incredible memories to take home - Ninette de Valois (‘Madam’ as she was known by the company) discovering that Gillie had danced every performance while in New York and arranging a night off for her - which meant an enthralling visit to the Majestic Theatre (where Phantom of the Opera would play 38 years later) to see her first ever musical - South Pacific starring Mary Martin - and opening her eyes to the wonderful spectacle and artistry of a full-blown Broadway production.
Other highlights including meeting Charlie Chaplin, who came to the first night in New York and again in Los Angeles, as well as a plethora of stars including Clark Gable, Gene Kelly, Ronald Colman, Doris Day, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh; touring the Hollywood film studios; sailing down the Mississippi in a paddleboat; and tobogganing down the slopes of the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec.
The tour was also notable for the last performance as a permanent member of Sadler’s Wells by Robert Helpmann, when performing Sleeping Beauty in San Francisco with Margot Fonteyn, with the whole company watching from the wings in tears.
