The Sanguine Fan by Ronald Hynd and Graduation Ball by David Lichine, music by Elgar and Strauss II
London Festival Ballet
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Cast
Margot Fonteyn
Ronald Hynd
Peter Docherty
Manola Asensio
Patricia Ruanne
Ben Van Cauwenbergh
Nigel Burgoine
Terry Hayworth
David Lichine
Trevor Wood
David Long
Manola Asensio
Jay Jolley
Lucia Truglia
Program notes
British nobles get into a tizzy about a red fan and Austrian school girls go all atwitter at their last dance of high school, in the London Festival Ballet program of two short humorous ballets: Edward Elgar's The Sanguine Fan and Antal Doráti's Graduation Ball based on music by Johann Strauss II. The celebrated British ballerina and one-time partner of Rudolf Nureyev Dame Margot Fonteyn hosts the program.
On the request of his close friend Lady Alice Stuart-Wortley, Edward Elgar composed The Sanguine Fan in 1917 as part of fundraising efforts for wartime charities. Premiered in London in 1917 as a mimed play (the performers were actors, not dancers), the one-act ballet only found favor in the second half of the 20th century with its revival by the conductor Sir Adrian Boult. The whimsical plot, a comedy of errors, follows two wealthy twin brothers who throw a party, compete for the affections of the same girl using a red-colored fan.
Graduation Ball, also a one-act ballet, was devised as part of a collaboration between choreographer David Lichine and Hungarian-born conductor-composer Antal Doráti. Set to music arranged from works by Johann Strauss II, the ballet takes place in a high-class girls' finishing school in Vienna, and follows the girls of the graduating class through the evening of their grand end-of-school ball.
Photo: Elgar's The Sanguine Fan in the London Festival Ballet's 1981 production