Ballet

The Sanguine Fan by Ronald Hynd and Graduation Ball by David Lichine, music by Elgar and Strauss II

London Festival Ballet

Live
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Cast

Margot Fonteyn — Host

Ronald Hynd — Choreographer (The Sanquine Fan)

Peter Docherty — Stage design (The Sanguine Fan)

Manola Asensio — The Girl in Pink (The Sanquine Fan)

Patricia Ruanne — The Woman in Red (The Sanquine Fan)

Ben Van Cauwenbergh — Twin Brother (The Sanguine Fan)

Nigel Burgoine — Twin Brother (The Sanguine Fan)

Terry Hayworth — Gentleman's Gentleman (The Sanguine Fan)

David Lichine — Choreographer (Graduation Ball)

Trevor Wood — Headmistress (Graduation Ball)

David Long — General (Graduation Ball)

Manola Asensio — Sylphide (Graduation Ball)

Jay Jolley — Scotsman (Graduation Ball)

Lucia Truglia — Pigtails (Graduation Ball)

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

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