alice's adventures in wonderland - The National Ballet of Canada

t he r oyal ballet 

DIreCTor dame monica mason dbe 

FounDer dame ninette de valois om ch dbe 

FounDer CHoreoGrAPHer 

sir frederick ashton om ch cbe 

FounDer MusIC DIreCTor constant lambert 

PrIMA bALLerInA AssoLuTA 

dame margot fonteyn dbe 

ALICE’S 

ADVENTURES IN 

WONDERLAND 

bALLeT In Two ACTs 

GenerousLy suPPorTeD by 

ThE MONUMENT TrUsT iN MEMOry Of siMON sAiNsBUry 

Alice’s Adventures in WonderlAnd Is DeDICATeD by CHrIsToPHer wHeeLDon To DAMe nIneTTe De VALoIs, 

FounDer oF THe royAL bALLeT, wHose suPPorT AnD enCourAGeMenT oF new CreATIVe VoICes LIVes on. 

CHoreoGrAPHy christopher wheeldon 

MusIC joby talbot 

ORChESTRATED by ChRISTOphER AUSTIN AND JOby TALbOT 

by ARRANgEmENT WITh ChESTER mUSIC LImITED 

DesIGns bob crowley 

sCenArIo nicholas wright 

LIGHTInG DesIGn natasha katz 

ProjeCTIon DesIGn jon driscoll AND gemma carrington 

AssIsTAnT To THe CHoreoGrAPHer jacquelin barrett 

Generous 

ConDuCTor barry wordsworth 

PHILAnTHroPIC 

suPPorT FroM 

sir siMON AND 

orchestra of the royal opera house 

lADy rOBErTsON, 

ConCerT MAsTer vasko vassilev 

rOBErT AND 

kAThlEEN wAllAcE, 

sArAh AND llOyD 

DOrfMAN, 

28 FebruAry | 2 | 3 | 9 | 10 | 15 MArCH 2011 

cEliA BlAkEy, 

sUE BUTchEr, 

MAriNA hOBsON MBE, 

pETEr llOyD, 

krisTiNA rOggE AnD 

richArD AND 

vicTOriA shArp Co-ProDuCTIon wITH THe nATIonAL bALLeT oF CAnADA 

Alice layout FINAL.indd 1 22/02/2011 11:11


In the last three months there has been a tremendous buzz and air of anticipation 

at the heart of The royal ballet. The reason: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 

Christopher wheeldon’s first full-length narrative work and the Company’s 

first full-length ballet to a commissioned score in 20 years. For this enormous 

undertaking, Christopher has chosen as his collaborators joby Talbot, bob 

Crowley, nicholas wright and natasha Katz. Their exceptional talents have 

combined to realize a magical version of Lewis Carroll’s charming and 

quintessentially english story. 

The making of the production has called on the full resources not only of the 

Company and of the orchestra of the royal opera House under the direction of 

barry wordsworth, but also of myriad brilliant departments and individuals, both 

in and out of the royal opera House, who have worked tirelessly to bring this 

new work to the stage. The skill, expertise and attention to detail of all those 

involved has been truly inspiring. 

on behalf of The royal ballet, I would like to express my gratitude to the many 

individuals and organizations who are supporting this production. In particular, 

we would like to thank The Monument Trust for its exceptionally generous gift 

in memory of simon sainsbury. we would also like to thank the wide circle of 

production supporters whose interest, enthusiasm and generous contributions 

have made such a difference to the production: sir simon and Lady robertson, 

robert and Kathleen wallace, sarah and Lloyd Dorfman, Celia blakey, sue butcher, 

Marina Hobson mbe, Peter Lloyd, Kristina rogge and richard and Victoria sharp. 

And also those who have sponsored individual roles: David and Diana Pilling, 

Derek and sheila watson, jill and Michael Carpenter, Cynthia brown, Lady 

shauna Gosling, The Cw Group and an anonymous donor. 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a co-production with The national ballet of 

Canada. I am very thankful to Karen Kain, the company’s Artistic Director, for 

making this possible, and I join her in gratitude for the lead philanthropic 

support from an anonymous friend of The national ballet of Canada, and 

the additional support generously provided by The Catherine and Maxwell 

Meighen Foundation, richard M. Ivey, C.C., rosamond Ivey and wallace 

and Margaret McCain. 

Dame Monica Mason dbe 

Director of The Royal ballet 

Sergei polunin as the Knave of hearts 

All rehearsal photographs ©ROH 2011/Johan Persson 


CONTENTS 

synopsis 6 

The Author of Alice 10 

Edward Wakeling 

An unconventional Character 19 

Jenny Woolf 

wheeldon in wonderland 24 

Christopher Wheeldon interviewed 

by mark monahan 

Alice’s Multi-Coloured sounds 32 

Joby Talbot interviewed 

by John Snelson 

The View from the baton 37 

barry Wordworth interviewed 

by John Snelson 

joby Talbot 42 

Christopher wheeldon 44 

Monica Mason 47 

staff biographies 49 

Performance biographies 53 

Lauren Cuthbertson, who dances Alice, 

photographed in the Deanery gardens of 

Christ Church, Oxford, the childhood home 

of Alice Liddell Jason Bell 



6 

SyNOpSIS 

ACT I 

Oxford, 1862. A summer afternoon. Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church, and his 

socially ambitious wife are about to host a garden party at the Deanery. Lewis Carroll, a 

lecturer in mathematics and friend of the Liddell family, entertains the three young Liddell 

daughters, Lorina, Alice and Edith, by reading a story and performing magic tricks. 

When Jack, the gardener’s boy, brings in a basket of roses, Alice’s mother – always 

pernickety about appearances – rejects the red one as being out of place among the white 

ones. Jack and Alice are friends. He gives her the discarded red rose and in return she 

gives him a jam tart that she has taken from a passing tray. This leads to disaster: Alice’s 

mother seizes on it as a pretext to accuse Jack of theft and dismiss him. 

The clock strikes four. Guests arrive and the party begins. Alice is devastated to see 

Jack leaving the house in disgrace. Lewis Carroll consoles her by offering to take her 

photograph. He disappears beneath the camera cloth and, to Alice’s surprise, emerges 

as a White Rabbit. When he bounds into his camera-bag and vanishes, Alice follows 

him, falls … 

… falls further … 

… and lands with a thump in a mysterious corridor. Through a keyhole, Alice 

spies a magical garden. She longs to enter it but, to her dismay, all the doors are locked. 

Unexpectedly Jack, transformed into the Knave of Hearts, rushes through the hall 

pursued by the Queen of Hearts, her guards and the White Rabbit: the Knave has been 

accused of stealing a plate of jam tarts. Alice wants to follow them but the door slams in 

her face, and the only unlocked door is too small to let her through. A bottle appears: 

Alice bravely drinks from it, and at once becomes so tiny that she can’t even reach up to 

the door handle. She tries a nibble of cake, which has the effect of making her enormous. 

She cries with frustration and, by waving a fan, shrinks so drastically that her tears form 

a lake big enough for her to swim in. 

She is joined in the pool by a variety of animals who swim about and finally collect 

on the shore. In the hope that the exercise will dry them off and cheer them up, Alice 

arranges a caucus race after which … 

… the White Rabbit appears and, although in a hurry, leads Alice further in to 

Wonderland. 

Outside an idyllic country cottage a fish-footman appears, bringing an invitation to a 

Duchess to attend the Queen of Hearts’ croquet party. The Duchess’s footman – a frog – 

invites him into the cottage, leaving Alice with the invitation. She enters the cottage … 

…to find a menacing kitchen where the Duchess is tending a squealing baby as the 

Cook makes sausages. The Duchess is delighted with the royal invitation, while the Cook 


is envious and resentful. The mood becomes increasingly violent, apart from a moment 

of tranquility brought about by the mysterious appearance of a Cheshire Cat. Fearful for 

the baby’s safety, Alice rescues it, but when it turns into a pig the Duchess takes it from 

her and carries it back to the kitchen for a future as a string of sausages. 

Confused as to which way to go, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions, but his 

vagueness leaves her more confused than ever. The White Rabbit reappears, anxious 

and nervy about his forthcoming duties at the Queen’s croquet game. Alice knows that 

following him to the game is the only way to find the Knave, but the White Rabbit warns 

her: it’s notoriously dangerous to be anywhere near the bad-tempered Queen. He dashes 

off, leaving Alice … 

… at the bizarre tea table of the Mad Hatter, a March Hare and a sleepy Dormouse. 

Alice escapes their crazy tea party … 

… and finds herself alone and lost. ‘What a strange place Wonderland is.’ She wonders 

how to find the Knave, and longs to find the beautiful garden. An exotic caterpillar, 

perched on a mushroom, lifts her spirits and, before disappearing, gives her a piece of 

mushroom. 

Alice finds herself back in the hallway of doors where she first arrived. She remembers 

the caterpillar’s gift, nibbles the sliver of mushroom – and the walls and doors disappear. 

At last she finds herself in the garden she was searching for. 

The Knave appears, still fleeing his pursuers, and is as delighted to see her as she is to see 

him. But their time together is all too short: the Queen of Hearts arrives flanked by her guards. 

Furious, she orders the capture of the Knave, but he escapes. The White Rabbit dashes 

after them, reluctantly taking Alice with him, even at the cost of leading her into danger. 

interval 

ACT II 

SyNOpSIS 

In the garden of the Queen of Hearts, Alice finds three nervous gardeners splashing red 

paint on the rosebushes: they have mistakenly planted white ones which the Queen of 

Hearts detests. 

The Queen arrives along with the King, the Court, the Duchess and the Cook. The 

gardeners haven’t yet finished painting the rosebushes, so the Queen orders the gardeners 

to be executed. While the Executioner is distracted by the amorous attentions of the 

Cook, Alice and the White Rabbit smuggle the grateful gardeners out of sight. 

The Queen displays her dancing skills to the Court, after which she and the Duchess 

pick their teams for the croquet game. Flamingos will be the mallets and hedgehogs the 

balls. To the Queen’s dismay, the Duchess scores the first points: she’s much better at this 

than anyone expected. 

Meanwhile the Knave, risking all by being there, catches Alice’s attention from behind 

a hedge. As the game shifts to another part of the garden, the two are reunited. 

Alice layout FINAL.indd 7 22/02/2011 11:12 

7

8 SyNOpSIS 

The Queen is so chagrined by her rival’s success that she cheats at the game. The 

Duchess challenges her, whereupon the Queen orders her execution. The King, ever 

patient, calms the Queen down while Alice helps the Duchess to slip away. 

The Knave rejoins Alice, but this time he is discovered and the Queen orders the 

guards to haul him to the castle to face trial. When the Cheshire Cat makes another 

mysterious appearance, Alice uses the distraction to follow the Knave. 

At the castle, the White Rabbit prepares the courtroom for the trial. The witnesses 

are brought in, followed by Alice. The plate of tarts is displayed as key evidence, the 

members of the Court take their places and the White Rabbit heralds the arrival of 

the King and Queen of Hearts. The Queen seizes her moment to exercise her authority 

over the proceedings, the Knave is brought in for trial and the proceedings begin. 

The first witness is the Mad Hatter, followed by the Caterpillar, the March Hare, the 

Dormouse, the fish- and frog-footmen, the Duchess and the Cook. In a moment of total 

mayhem, they all accuse the Knave. 

The King finally asserts himself and offers the Knave the chance to speak in his own 

defence. When his testimony produces little effect, Alice intervenes with all the force she 

can muster. The Knave is innocent, she insists: if anyone is guilty, it is she. Together, they 

deliver a final testimony and win the hearts of everyone but the Queen. 

Unmoved by the Court’s entreaties, the Queen seizes an axe in order to strike the fatal 

blows herself. A chase ensues, during which the White Rabbit and the witnesses attempt 

to hide the Knave and Alice. But the Queen discovers them and does her best to turn the 

Court against them. With no escape in view, Alice pushes a witness over. He falls over on 

top of another, who then falls on another, which results in the collapse of the entire 

Court: they’re only playing cards, after all. 

And in the midst of the chaos, Alice awakes. 

nicholas wright 

Costume designs by bob Crowley; his designs 

appear throughout the programme. 

Clockwise from top left: Knave of hearts, Alice, mad hatter, 

red playing card, Duchess and black playing card 



10 

ThE AUThOR OF ALICE 

EDWARD WAKELINg 

The pen name Lewis Carroll is known the world over, especially from his two novels 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. But Lewis Carroll was 

in fact born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (the ‘g’ is silent). His middle name ‘Lutwidge’ 

was from his mother’s maiden name – she came from a family of landed gentry in the 

North of England. Frances Jane Lutwidge married the Rev. Charles Dodgson, her first 

cousin, in 1827. Hence Lewis Carroll’s paternal and maternal great-grandfather was one 

and the same man, Charles Dodgson, Bishop of Ossory and of Elphin. ‘Charles’ was the 

choice of name for the first son in four generations of Dodgsons, and this name in a 

Latinate form gave ‘Carroll’ in the famous pseudonym; likewise, ‘Lutwidge’ in Latin is 

‘Ludovicus’, and this gave ‘Louis’ or ‘Lewis’. 

Dodgson was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, on 27 January 1832, the eldest son and 

third child of Charles and Frances Dodgson. He had ten siblings – seven sisters and three 

brothers – and received primary education from his parents: his father taught him 

arithmetic and his mother taught him to read and write. He soon revealed a natural 

aptitude for academic study, particularly in mathematics. When the family moved to 

Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire, Richmond School was close at hand, and Dodgson began his 

secondary education there, becoming a boarder at the age of 11. The next 18 months 

were preparation for his main formative education at Rugby School, which began in 

1846. Again he excelled in mathematics, but he was also proficient in literature, 

scripture and the classical languages of Latin and Greek. It was a foregone conclusion 

that he would follow his father and matriculate at Christ Church, Oxford. He entered 

the portals of Oxford University in January 1851 as an undergraduate, but within a few 

days his mother died suddenly at the age of 47, and he rushed back home for the funeral. 

She was, by all accounts, a loving and gentle mother who devoted her entire existence to 

her growing family. 

At Oxford, Dodgson worked in a quiet and conforming manner, following the 

traditions of this ancient academic institution. He didn’t follow the wilder antics of the 

undergraduates at Christ Church, many of whom were from the nobility, quite used to 

wining, dining, hunting and generally having a good time. Instead, he settled down to 

academic study, excelling in mathematics, but showing promise in classics and literature. 

In 1854, the year of his finals, he took part in a mathematical summer reading-party at 

Whitby, organized by Professor Bartholomew Price, a leading mathematician who had 

published major texts on differential and integral calculus. At the end of 1854, Dodgson 

gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics, coming top of the list. He was invited 

to remain at Christ Church as a tutor. 

It was in 1855 that Dodgson, then aged 23, saw his first ballet, and he was not impressed. 

He went to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 20 June to see the Royal Opera Company 



Top, Christ Church College Chapel and Choir, 1842; above: Charles Dodgson’s study at 

Christ Church, Oxford Mary Evans Picture Library 


11

12 ThE AUThOR OF ALICE 

Nursery (the artist’s three daughters: Anna, Amalie and Sophie): oil on canvas (1889) by 

Fritz von Uhde (1848–1911) Hamburg Kunsthalle/akg-images 

perform Bellini’s Norma, and this included a ballet sequence. He was with a university 

colleague, William Henry Ranken. These two young men were enjoying the start of 

the long vacation with a trip to London visiting art galleries, watching the Oxford and 

Cambridge cricket match at Lords, and attending the theatre. They saw a number of 

plays and operas including Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and 

a modern farce entitled Away with Melancholy by John Maddison Morton. For the 

production of Norma, Dodgson wrote in his diary afterwards: ‘music delicious – scenery, 

dresses, and specially performers, poor.’ He went on: 

Afterwards came a grand ballet, which Ranken did not stay for, but I did, having 

a curiosity to see one, and was completely disappointed: the studied ugliness of the 

attitudes struck one a great deal more than anything else. Talk of the poetry of 

motion! The instinctive grace of cottage children dancing is something far more 

beautiful: I never wish to see another ballet. 

It did not seem a promising start for a man who became a regular theatre and 

opera goer throughout his life. But two years later, he saw the ballet La Esmeralda based 

on Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, with music by Cesare Pugni and choreography 


The final manuscript page of Alice in Wonderland, with portrait photograph of 

Alice Liddell (1852–1934) akg-images/British Library 


14 


Alice Liddell flanked by her sisters Lorina and Edith Mary Evans Picture Library 

by Jules Perrot – he remarked that it included some ‘beautiful dancing’. Maybe he was 

won over to ballet by this performance. 

Also in June 1855, the old Dean of Christ Church died. The new appointment was 

Henry George Liddell, headmaster of Westminster School. Following a tradition at Christ 

Church, two men were given honorary degrees in honour of the appointment of the new 

Dean, and Dodgson became a Master of the House. This paved the way for the Dean and 

Canons to appoint him as lecturer in mathematics, to fill a vacancy left by the previous 

incumbent who had gone to fight in the Crimean War. Dodgson took up his new 

position in 1856, and remained lecturer in mathematics until he retired in 1881. 

The arrival of Dean Liddell at Christ Church brought about many changes, not the 

least of which was the installation of his wife and young family in the refurbished 

Deanery (partially paid for from the profits of the highly successful Liddell and Scott 

Greek/English Lexicon, first published in 1843 and still in print). At this point there were 

four children – more followed. The eldest was Henry, known as ‘Harry’. Dodgson 

befriended him first, and offered to tutor him in arithmetic prior to his attending 

boarding school. It was not a great success, but his instruction in rowing on the river was 

more to the boy’s liking, and in this Harry became very competent. Dodgson met the 

first daughter, Lorina, at functions held in the Deanery. In April 1856, he met the next 

two daughters, Alice and Edith (they were with Lorina), while photographing in the 

Deanery Garden with Reginald Southey, a colleague. Photography was a new art form, 



Fair Rosamond (fancy dress group, Oxford, June 1863; left, mary Jackson as 

Fair Rosamond, right, Annie m. Rogers as Queen Eleanor): photograph by Charles 

Dodgson ©Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans Picture Library 

and the wet collodion process was invented in 1851. Southey acquired a camera in 1855, 

and he was demonstrating the technique to Dodgson, who had expressed a wish to take 

up photography as his hobby. Dodgson purchased a camera in 1856 and it arrived at 

Christ Church a few days after this first encounter with the Liddell children. On this 

occasion, the two young men were trying to photograph the Cathedral from the Deanery 

Garden, and they suggested that the small children (Lorina was six, Alice nearly four 

and Edith two) should be in the foreground. By all accounts the photographs failed, 

probably because it was difficult to get the children to keep still long enough for the 

exposure time required – the wet collodion process needed anything between 10 and 

40 seconds depending on the size of the plate being used and the strength of the daylight. 

Nevertheless, Dodgson recorded this event in his diary and marked it ‘with a white stone’ 

(his way of saying it was a truly memorable and enjoyable day). 


15

16 


Above, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 

(1832–98); below, henry george Liddell 

(1811–98) Mary Evans Picture Library 

The second daughter, Alice Pleasance 

Liddell, was something of a free spirit – 

she grew up to be a bright, lively, talkative, 

somewhat precocious child, who loved 

having her photograph taken. Dodgson 

enjoyed the company of children (he 

had been a natural leader of his brothers 

and sisters in his own family) and his 

storytelling abilities endeared him to 

them. He could also tease children 

with practical jokes and riddles. Some 

responded well and others did not – 

Alice enjoyed the teasing and was able 

to ‘give as good as she received’. 

The Liddell sisters had a governess, 

Miss Mary Prickett (known by Alice as 

‘Pricks’), who organized their day-to-day 

activities, arranged their meals in the 

nursery, provided a basic education and 

taught them how to behave in society. 

Alice was educated at home, a common 

practice in Victorian times, and when she 

was older she had tutors for French and 

art, subjects in which she was particularly 

gifted. She had short dark straight hair cut 

into a fringe. Reports say she had blue 

eyes, although her passport described 

them as ‘dark’ (she travelled widely in 

Europe as a young lady). 

During the early years of their 

occupancy at Christ Church, the Dean 

and his wife were frequently abroad for 

the sake of his health, which had 

deteriorated as a result of their time at 

Westminster. They spent winters on the 

island of Madeira, which had a warmer 

and drier climate. The children were left 

behind in the care of the governess. 

Dodgson often visited the Deanery and 

entertained the Liddell children during 

these months, teaching them how to play 

such indoor games as chess and such 

outdoor garden ones as croquet. As the 



children grew older, the entertainment became more adventurous – walks around 

Christ Church and Oxford and boat trips on the river in the summer months. 

On 4 July 1862, Dodgson took Alice and her two sisters, together with the Rev. 

Robinson Duckworth, on a boat-trip up the River Isis (Thames) to Godstow. It was on 

this occasion that the story of Alice’s Adventures was first told, invented as a spontaneous 

entertainment for the children. When the crew returned to Christ Church that evening 

(the boat-trip had lasted all afternoon), Alice asked Dodgson to write out the story he 

had invented. He agreed and immediately began a reconstruction of the impromptu tale, 

jotting down ideas while he still had the essence of the story in his mind. Over a period of 

months, he wrote the story out in his own neat hand, with gaps left for illustrations, which 

he added later. The sheets of the book, now entitled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, were 

bound in green leather, and the finished manuscript was given to Alice Liddell as an early 

Christmas gift in 1864, two-and-a-half years after the river trip. Friends of Dodgson who 

had seen or heard the story beforehand strongly advised him to publish it, so he rewrote 

the story for publication, taking out some of the references that might have identified the 

Liddells and Oxford, and adding new episodes such as the Mad Tea-Party. Alice’s Adventures 

in Wonderland was first made into a book in July 1865, with illustrations by John Tenniel, 

the famous Punch cartoonist. However, Tenniel was not satisfied with the printing of the 

first edition, and it was withdrawn. The book was reprinted and published in November 

1865, although these copies have 1866 on the title page. 

Although well disguised, Alice’s sisters appear in Alice’s Adventures: Lorina is the Lory 

in the Pool of Tears, and Edith is the Eaglet. All three sisters appear in the Dormouse’s 

tale at the Mad Tea-Party: they are the three little sisters who lived at the bottom of a 

treacle well, named Elsie (L.C. or Lorina Charlotte), Lacie (anagram of Alice) and Tillie 

(short for Matilda, the children’s pet-name for Edith). Even Robinson Duckworth appears 

as the ‘Duck’ in the Pool of Tears, and – to complete the crew – Dodgson himself adopted 

the character of the Dodo. 

When Alice reached her teens and early twenties her interest in Dodgson waned – she 

had other interests by this time. Dodgson grew apart from the Liddells although they 

remained on friendly terms throughout his life, and he always gave them presentation 

copies of his later books. They would visit him from time to time and exchange letters, 

but the old spark had gone. The friendship between Dodgson and the Liddells resulted in 

one of the most famous children’s books of all time; one that has never been out of print 

since then, and that has inspired other writers, film-makers, musicians, artists and 

choreographers to re-create Wonderland for a new generation of children and all those 

who are young at heart. 

edward wakeling is a long-standing member of the Lewis Carroll society. He has 

written widely on Carroll, and his publications include the first unabridged edition of 

Lewis Carroll’s diaries, in ten volumes. He has written on Carroll’s photography, letters, 

mathematics, puzzles and games, and logic. A recognized Carrollian scholar and 

collector, he frequently contributes to conferences, exhibitions and television 

programmes around the world 


17

Clockwise from top left: Vor dem Kasperltheater/ 

Erste Grosse Vorstellung [In front of the punch 

and Judy Show/First big Show], coloured wood 

engraving (c1895), after drawing by hermann 

Kaulback (1846–1909) akg-images; Card game 

(Image d’Epinal), end 19th century; Building a 

Card House (detail), painting, (c1860s); C for 

Croquet, chromolithograph (end 19th century), 

b. Sirven, private collection Mary Evans 

Picture Library; 


AN UNCONVENTIONAL ChARACTER 

JENNy WOOLF 

Alice’s curious adventures down the rabbit hole have intrigued readers ever since they 

first appeared in 1865, and ‘Lewis Carroll’ – whose real name was Charles Lutwidge 

Dodgson – was a fascinating man. A mass of self-contradictions, he was prim yet broadminded, 

solemn yet teasing, a natural performer who hoped for fame yet shunned it 

when it came. 

His father, a clergyman, had planned a conventional life for him. As the eldest son of 

11 children, young Charles always knew that he would eventually become head of the 

family, responsible for the welfare of his three younger brothers and seven sisters, and 

he would also be expected to follow in his father’s footsteps at Christ Church, Oxford. He 

was apparently happy to accept these responsibilities, for his family mattered to him a 

great deal. He did not attend school until he was 12 years old, but the Dodgsons’ rural 

home was lively, happy and affectionate, and it provided him with a secure background. 

Equally importantly, it offered full rein to his gift for entertaining children. Throughout 

his childhood, Charles tirelessly created games for his band of brothers and sisters, nursed 

and amused them when they were ill, and devised a stream of funny stories, poems, 

puzzles, magic and puppet-shows to make them laugh. By the time he took up his college 

existence, telling jokes and stories to children had become part of the person he was. 

In those early Christ Church days, Dean Liddell’s young children seem to have become 

almost a substitute family for him. He became friends first with Harry, the eldest, then 

with the next three: Lorina, Alice and Edith. He looked after them, sang with them, 

told them stories, took them out, created games with them and helped them with their 

projects, just as he had done with his own brothers and sisters. Perhaps their company 

also offered him some emotional relief, for in some ways Christ Church life did not suit 

him very well. Although he was clever and conscientious, he could not keep order, and 

he had problems tutoring wealthy and undisciplined young men who ridiculed his 

stammer and did not want to learn. He coped with his social difficulties by developing 

a solemn, chilly public image that kept others at bay. This facade was so successful that 

many colleagues who lived alongside him for years hardly knew of his startling originality, 

subversive humour or wide range of artistic interests. Although his subject was mathematics, 

he owned hundreds of books of poetry, myth, legend and magic, as well as a collection of 

toys and fancy dresses. He was a keen photographer, and he was passionate about the 

dazzle and glitter of the theatre. 

The medieval rules at Christ Church required him to remain celibate or quit his 

Studentship (Fellowship), but from his twenties onwards, his liking for women’s 

company sometimes attracted critical attention from gossips; a problem that he, his 

family and friends always played down. In his late twenties he experienced some kind 

of serious problem in his personal life. Information about this has been suppressed, but 


19

20 AN UNCONVENTIONAL ChARACTER 

throughout his thirties and forties, he made particular efforts to confine his female 

friendships to young girls, respectable mothers or older women with whom there was 

no chance of romance. 

He was always an instant social success with children, and the company of little girls 

became very important to him – and important to many of them, too. ‘I look back 

upon the hours spent in his dear and much-loved company as oases of brightness in a 

somewhat grey and melancholy childhood’ remembered Ethel, the niece of Matthew 

Arnold. She was just one of many girls (and some boys) who remembered him with 

affection. Although he named his celebrated heroine after Alice Liddell, there is no 

evidence that Charles ever fell in love with this ‘real’ Alice, as has sometimes been 

suggested. Although he was very fond of the bright, feisty little girl, the friendship 

died away as she developed into a conventional young woman, and he said more than 

once that she was not the Alice of his books. 

As he grew older Charles remained kind, generous and highly involved with his 

friends and family, but his behaviour with outsiders became increasingly difficult and 

eccentric. He continued to hold firmly to the religious faith in which he had been raised, 

but his piety sometimes appeared extreme. To some of his contemporaries, this also sat 

oddly with his ever-growing entourage of affectionate women-friends, but he insisted 

that he was now entitled to these, having reached an age, he said, when ‘all romantic 

sentiment has quite died out of my life’. His later books were self-conscious and rather 

mediocre, but he continued to tell original, funny and brilliant tales to the children 

he loved. Sadly, they vanished ‘like rainbows’, for none of his young friends had the 

commercial acumen to ask him to write them down. 

We now know that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its companion Through the 

Looking-Glass were both created at times of great personal stress for him. In writing them, 

he would have returned in imagination to the loving and carefree company of the young 

Liddells, to whom they were originally told. His authentic voice speaks in both books 

but, typically, he always refused to discuss them with adults, while simultaneously taking 

endless pains to ensure they reached the widest possible child audience. 

Over the last 150 years, generations of children have grown up on his stories, and 

many of them have later repaid him by producing their own works of art inspired 

by Alice’s adventures: a group of works as interesting and multi-faceted as Charles 

Dodgson himself. 

jenny woolf is the author of the Mystery of lewis carroll, a thematic biography of the 

author of Alice in Wonderland, published by Haus (uK) and st Martins Press (usA) 


Clockwise from top right: toy 

theatre (T in alphabet series), 

woodcut (1875) Duvallon/ 

Leemage/Lebrecht Music & Arts; 

game of chess, pen drawing, 

(late 19th century) Mary Evans 

Picture Library; croquet players, 

photograph (c1875), J.hopwood, 

private collection akg-images/ 

Archie Miles; Lewis Carroll, 

pen drawing by Harry Furniss 

Lebrecht authors 


Top, Tamara Rojo as the Queen of hearts (centre); above, Edward Watson as Lewis Carroll and 

Lauren Cuthbertson as Alice 


Top, Zenaida yanowsky as the Queen of hearts; above, Lauren Cuthbertson as 

Alice, Ricardo Cervera as the march hare and Steven mcRae as the mad hatter 


24 

WhEELDON IN WONDERLAND 

ChRISTOphER WhEELDON INTERVIEWED by mARK mONAhAN 

Mark Monahan: You became Resident 

Choreographer at New York City Ballet 

in 2001, six years later you founded the 

transatlantic ballet company Morphoses, 

and you’ve created pieces for many of the 

world’s greatest dance stages, including 

Covent Garden. Even so, Alice’s Adventures 

in Wonderland is The Royal Ballet’s first 

new full-length work since 1995: do you 

feel an immense amount of pressure? 

Christopher wheeldon: I’ve joked 

before that if anyone else reminds me of 

that, I will probably throw myself off the 

building. It’s three times a day! But you 

know what? I’ve felt that kind of pressure 

and responsibility for so long that I’m 

finally getting over it. It has always been there, right from the word go in New York, 

when I made Polyphonia and everyone went, ‘Wow, great, there’s a new choreographer 

on the scene – but is he the next Balanchine?’. There are always going to be those great 

choreographic shadows over the next generation. Here, it’s Ashton or MacMillan. Over 

there, it’s always Balanchine. 

MM: Last year, you ended Morphoses – in its original form, at least – largely because of 

unrelenting financial difficulties. After the hand-to-mouth existence with that company, 

it must be a relief to have the Royal Opera House’s resources at your fingertips. 

Cw: It was disappointing that Morphoses didn’t work out, though I certainly don’t 

regret having done it. But yes, it’s been wonderful not having to worry. By the end of 

Morphoses, we were down to, ‘Can we find a little lady in an attic in New York who’ll 

make the costumes for a third of the price?’. Here, everything is made beautifully – 

I think people underestimate the amount of talent that there is in this house, the way 

your ideas are turned into reality. Working on Alice has given me so much more of an 

appreciation for what really goes on here. 


MM: So, what first drew you to 

the story? 

Cw: I grew up listening to a tape of 

Alice in Wonderland that I was given one 

Christmas, a childhood thing to get me 

to sleep. Of all people, it was Kenneth 

Williams reading it – not exactly the dulcet 

tones to send your child off! I loved the 

characters, and came to love the mysteries 

and mathematical problems and wordplay 

that are locked in to the literature. It was 

the vividness of the book’s characters, and 

the way they all lend themselves to being 

communicated through movement – 

it’s a very physical story. 

MM: What aspect of the production did 

you tackle first? 

Christopher Wheeldon, Lauren Cuthbertson and 

Edward Watson 

Cw: Many of the problems with Alice 

stem from its episodic nature. The 

challenges we faced were: what is Alice’s journey? Does she just fall down the hole, have 

all those crazy episodes and then wake up? Or is there more of a journey? I’ve developed 

synopses before by myself, but never brilliantly. And so, I thought: get some help here, 

because this is too important. I wanted someone with a real sense of how to put together 

a dramatic arc over the course of an evening, and that’s why I got Nick [Wright, the 

playwright] involved. I spent three fantastic days in my apartment in New York with him 

and Joby [Talbot, the composer], just reading the books, and I hired in a little keyboard 

so Joby had something to tinkle around on. We went through it, scene by scene, first 

deciding which ones would work best in this production, then settling on a structure – 

14 introductory scenes in Act I, just two in Act II. After that, Joby and I went at it the 

old-fashioned way, as choreographer and composer. 

MM: How did that process work? 


Cw: I had never worked on a new, full-length narrative score. Joby had written a lot for 

film, and had orchestrated fantastic dance pieces too: Chroma [for Royal Ballet Resident 

Choreographer Wayne McGregor], and my Fool’s Paradise. In both, he created these 

unusual, shimmering orchestral colours that to me felt absolutely like the right direction 

with Alice – it’s a fairytale, but it’s absurd and a little strange, and I needed a composer 

who could take those elements and create a big symphonic score. His work in film has 

really helped us, because he knows how to write for character – but then, film is very 


25

Top, Eric Underwood as the 

Caterpillar; centre, Steven mcRae 

as the mad hatter; left, Simon 

Russell beale as the Duchess 

Opposite top, Sarah Lamb 

as Alice; bottom, Lauren 

Cuthbertson as Alice 



28 


different from dance, and so for Joby it was about learning how to structure a variation 

for a dancer, and so on. After those days in New York, it was a case of: OK Joby, off you 

go! Every step of the way, we were talking, and he would send me pieces he’d written. 

Even going only by the computerized simulations of the orchestra, you can tell his score 

is very vividly drawn, just like the characters in the Carroll. I love it, and it’s accessible 

too – and that’s important. Alice is a ballet we hope all sorts of people will come to over 

a long period. 

MM: And how did you approach the choreography? 

Cw: Most of my work so far has been kind of exploring the abstract. What I’ve 

learnt from Alice is that if you’re telling a story, the story comes first: your job as a 

choreographer is of course always to communicate through movement. But here, above 

all, it is to convey the building-blocks of the story, and then, within that, to explore 

vocabulary to define individual characters. 

MM: The Carroll is not without its dark side, and nor – it has often been suggested – was 

Carroll himself. Had those two great ‘shadows’ you mentioned earlier each tackled the 

story, Ashton might have delivered a light-hearted bucolic fantasy, with MacMillan 

perhaps pouncing instead on the murkier psychological aspects of the tale and its writer. 

How did you decide on an emotional ‘register’ for your Alice? 

Cw: Well, I did a lot of research on Lewis Carroll, and I do think there was some kind of 

strange, complicated, repressed part of his character. But there’s certainly no proof that he 

ever acted upon it – these creative people do exist who have a connection with children. 

I prefer to believe that Carroll was in fact the brilliant storyteller, mathematical scholar 

and devout churchman that a lot of people believed he was. So no, I haven’t gone 

Freudian with Alice – there’s no MacMillanesque suicide pact at the end, and nor is there 

any suggestion of authorial impropriety. But on the other hand, there is an underlying, scary 

darkness to the story. I think that’s what makes it appealing for kids, and we’ve kept that. 

MM: So, when did you actually start working on the steps? 

Cw: In February of last year – The Royal Ballet were keen on it being a year-long process. 

I work very quickly, always have, and that stems from being in New York and working at 

New York City Ballet. Everything’s done quickly there, and that goes back to Balanchine 

and Robbins: you make a lot of work, keep some, scrap some. So, the idea of taking a year 

to make a ballet was odd to me. I thought, ‘Come on guys – I could make three full-length 

ballets in a year!’. As it turned out, The Royal Ballet just don’t work that way. It was a case 

of, ‘You can have one rabbit, in a small studio, for an hour-and-a-half’, and then for three 

days there’d be nothing, because they’d be getting on with Mayerling or whatever. 


MM: Why such a difference? 

Cw: In New York, it was bang, bang, bang – you learn a ballet in a day, you’re on in the 

evening. But here, the ballets are big and involved – you can’t just throw, say, Mayerling 

at the stage. Whereas the Balanchine ballets are about understanding musicality and 

choreography, they’re not really about developing character. 

MM: Dance is necessarily a collaborative discipline between choreographer and dancer, 

but to what extent is this true for you? 

Cw: I never ‘prep’, never go into a room on my own and create vocabulary – I love 

exploring things with dancers. But at the same time, Alice is actually the clearest I’ve 

ever been. I’ve really known what I’ve wanted out of this ballet. 

MM: Were you tempted to dance in it yourself? 

Cw: Oh no, no… Although maybe if Simon Russell Beale goes off I could replace him 

as the Duchess! That’s probably the only role I could just about carry off. 

MM: From the source material and production team, right down to your choice of 

first-cast Alice and White Rabbit, this seems an overwhelmingly English production. Was 

this accidental or deliberate? 

Cw: A little bit of both. As soon as I decided I was going to do Alice, Lauren 

[Cuthbertson] was absolutely for me the key to making this production work, because I 

knew she would embody the kind of Alice I wanted to portray. She has a unique ability to 

make her dramatic persona on stage natural, honest, fresh and to the point – it’s been a 

long time since there’s been an English ballerina with that kind of capacity, and that 

needs to be celebrated. As for Ed[ward Watson], he and I have been friends from school, 

and we grew up together. Actually, I think everyone always thought I’d got it the wrong 

way round, that Ed should have been the Mad Hatter and Steven [McRae] the White 

Rabbit. But I want my White Rabbit to be a little bit bad, a little belligerent, and Ed’s 

great at that. He does bad-tempered – a little bit tortured – really well! 

MM: So, a dash of MacMillan there after all, perhaps? 

Cw: You might be right… 

Mark Monahan is Dance Critic of the daily telegraph 



29

Top, Lauren Cuthbertson as Alice and 

Sergei polunin as the Knave of hearts; 

left, Sarah Lamb as Alice 

Opposite, top, Lauren Cuthbertson as 

Alice; centre, Sarah Lamb and Federico 

bonelli, and bottom, marianela Nuñez 

as Alice and Rupert pennefather as the 

Knave of hearts 



32 

ALICE’S mULTI-COLOURED SOUNDS 

JOby TALbOT INTERVIEWED by JOhN SNELSON 

before this new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the last time a full-evening 

work was created for The royal ballet was Twyla Tharp’s three-act Mr Worldly 

Wise in 1995, which used music by rossini. we have to go back a further four 

years for the last time a new full-length ballet was created for The royal ballet 

with a completely new ballet score: wilfred joseph’s music for David bintley’s 

three-act cyrano. The creation of a new ballet score of this length 

is as daunting now as 20 years ago, as joby Talbot, the composer for Alice, is 

only too aware. between orchestral rehearsals, he talked to john snelson 

about creating his musical world for Alice. 

thought long and hard before agreeing to write the score for Alice, as I realized 

I what an enormous task it would be, and indeed, it has taken me over two years. It’s 

extraordinary to look at the Prologue now and think back to its inception and the many 

stages it has been through. I’d previously written a 90-minute piece for dance, but that 

was more an orchestral work to which choreography was added, and in five movements, 

it was symphonic and could gradually unfold. Because Alice is made up of small set 

pieces, it was like building a house with just one room, then adding another, then 

another, then another... 

I divide my work fairly evenly between concert music and film scoring, and I had 

thought that writing a narrative ballet would be much more like the latter than it turned 

out to be. Within an hour-long film score, only about ten minutes of music will ever 

really appear in the foreground to drive the narrative. The rest fits behind dialogue, 

provides atmospheric underscore or catches an emotional moment. In ballet, the music 

is absolutely in the foreground all the time: quite literally, the orchestra is between the 

audience and the people dancing on stage. There’s not an easy second in it, so as the 

composer, you’re never off the hook. It was a much more intense – and intensive – 

experience composing two hours of music for Alice; ten minutes more and I might have 

been admitted to a sanatorium. 

Usually I start composing at the piano, throwing ideas around and scribbling them 

down on paper. The initial process for Alice was the same, if somewhat improvised – the 

Muse descended into the studio I was working at in Shoreditch. We’d finished recording 

another project, the mixing was being done in the next room and it was all going rather 

well. I felt inspired, locked myself in a room with a piano for an hour, and came up with 

Alice’s theme, the White Rabbit’s theme, the opening music and a whole lot more, all 

scribbled on the backs of spare bits of music that were lying around the studio. Later I 

started putting the themes together and discovered a strange, shifting bitonal music – a 

restless ticking clock – for Wonderland. Then a love theme, and a theme for loneliness: all 



these recur as storytelling devices. Our version of the story has made Alice very central, 

rather than confining her to the more observational role she has in the book. So we meet 

characters through her experience of them and through the colour of her mood, which 

means great fun for me musically – Alice can be grumpy, happy, sad, lonely or exhausted 

or confused; if she were just amused on the sidelines I’d soon run out of musical ideas for 

her. Instead, we have a scene such as that immediately preceding her encounter with the 

Caterpillar: she’s met all these crazy characters, and she is fed up, tired and lost, as you 

would be; later, when she is finally reunited with the Knave, there’s real ecstatic joy 

musically. I’ve had to really think about making big gestures through musical 

characterization; for example, the Queen is supposed to be completely psychotic, but she 

does have poise – Christopher [Wheeldon] described her as some very on-edge hostess 

at a dinner party, wanting everything to be so perfect that it never is: cold, poised, 

demanding; then an outburst of anger; then the mask goes back on. This was the image 

that informed my writing of her tango music, with psychotic eruptions for no clear 

reason save her having snapped at maximum tension. 

I had worked with Christopher previously on Fool’s Paradise for Morphoses, 

orchestrating and re-editing for the ballet a score I had written for The Dying Swan, a 

silent film from 1917. The score had elements of creaky Edwardian tea dance music, but 

developed in a very modern way with arithmetical games. That may have been a facet of 

my music that appealed to Christopher – given that his own work is steeped in classical 

ballet, but permeated by a very fresh sensibility – and when I sat down to write Alice I was 

mindful of the things that he’d liked about that previous score. So Alice contains melodic 

or harmonic gestural elements that wouldn’t seem out of place in a 19th-century ballet 

score, yet the whole thing is filtered through a minimal, arithmetical prism. An example 

is the process whereby the Flower Waltz material returns, transfigured into a huge love 

theme. It’s the same use of overlapping cells and rhythms that you might find in John 

Adams or Steve Reich, and sometimes, though it may seem easy to wallow in a kind 

of cod-Tchaikovsky kitsch, what you are hearing is only one strand in a whole group of 

musical games that are going on, so actually you’ve got to be absolutely rhythmic and 

metronomically uncompromising. 

Unable to beam myself to a piano stool in New York, I had to get the music to 

Christopher by recording myself at my own piano. To minimize the hazard of wrong 

notes, I also made demos using the computer, during which process other musical ideas 

suggested themselves. Ultimately the composition was a combination of writing at the 

piano, writing on paper, using the computer, making demos, changing them, and then 

being able to settle back and listen to long stretches of it and see how it was panning out 

at a macro level. 

I was aware that when Christopher got into the studio with the dancers he’d want 

changes to the music, so the orchestration was approached relatively late in the process, 

after the detail had been locked down. I think this has been good from Christopher’s 

perspective, offering as it did a degree of flexibility that would have been impossible if I’d 

delivered everything bound, signed and sealed to the music library in one lot. For me, 

however, having climbed a monolithic, two-hour compositional mountain, I then had to 


33

34 


climb it all over again, and much faster, 

orchestrating as I went. I have been 

extremely fortunate to have made this 

return journey with my friend and 

collaborator Christopher Austin, who 

has worked his extraordinary and very 

rapid magic on a good deal of the score. 

Together I think we’ve managed very 

satisfactorily and no limbs were lost. 

With such a beautiful colouristic story, 

I wanted the score to be multi-coloured 

and to have that massive variety and scale. 

It’s a wonderful orchestra, and with Barry 

[Wordsworth] conducting it I wasn’t going 

to fight against what was already on offer, 

but I’ve gratefully received whatever I 

wanted for it. There are instruments 

associated with certain characters; for 

example, the White Rabbit is associated 

with the celesta, there’s an oboe d’amore 

solo for the Caterpillar, and the Queen 

of Hearts is portrayed by a solo violin 

tuned a semitone sharp – highly strung 

for a highly-strung character. 

However, you are limited by what 

can be squeezed into the pit: at the first 

orchestral rehearsal I was amazed to see 

that everything I’d asked for was actually 

there, and very close together. There’s a 

lot of percussion – it takes up probably 

a good third of the space – because I like 

instruments that you can hit and then 

leave to ring on: the weightless, effortless 

tone of a bell sounding long after the 

energy of striking it has been spent. The 

harp, vibraphone, tubular bells and many 

more together can give a wonderful 

glowing halo to the orchestra, and 

individual themes can be coloured in very 

interesting ways, by injecting vibraphone 

or a tremolo marimba into the middle of a 

lovely warm, rich string sound and giving 

it a shimmering glow that really appeals to 

Clockwise from top left: Duchess, 

playing cards, Queen of hearts 

and Caterpillar 



36 


me. Then there’s the impact of timpani and bass drums: if you want people to jump out 

of their seats, the timpani were born to it. 

The Flower Waltz is an interesting demonstration of certain signposts in the music. In 

the first act, Alice’s motivation is that she’s trying to get to the party – this idea is in the 

book, but we have magnified it. She has a glimpse of the flower garden early on, and, 

more importantly, she knows the Knave of Hearts will be there and that she has to get 

to him, so all her travels and everyone she meets in the first act are part of her journey 

to that party: whenever she hears the Flower Waltz music, she knows she should head 

towards it. Sometimes she thinks she’s there, sometimes she’s so close but gets lost and 

finally, when she arrives, we hear the Flower Waltz in its entirety as the culmination of a 

journey that has taken about 50 minutes. We then depart as the waltz is transformed by 

her love for the Knave and her own sense of growing up. That is the journey of the first 

act, and the musical structure it fits around. The second act has more individual set pieces, 

but continually returns to music with an urgency and drive, a sense of danger and disquiet, 

as it all shifts forward to another culmination at the end of the second act, the love pas de deux. 

The strengths of the book are many, but we have forfeited some of the prominent 

ones: people think of Tenniel’s wonderful crazy illustrations, which we don’t have, and all 

the clever word -play, which we don’t have, but we’ve retained Carroll’s imagery and some 

of the humour, both of which are very strong. We had to find a way of making it work 

without all the elements of the book that were simply not at our disposal, and to give it 

more emotional bulk and texture. Very early in the process of creating Alice, Christopher, 

Nick [Wright] and I had the most wonderful few days flagging up possible insurmountable 

problems and finding ways to surmount them. Having Nick there was invaluable, he’s 

such an experienced and talented theatrical craftsman. That allowed Christopher and me 

to more freely throw ideas into the hat: we could be as daring as we wanted as there was 

somebody there with a very clear idea of what might and might not work. From there it 

was a case of problems posing themselves, Christopher thinking of a way to present them 

choreographically, me thinking how to present them musically, and Nick – and then Bob 

[Crowley] – thinking how to present them theatrically and visually. Two years later, and 

here we are with a complete ballet. It has been a wonderful parallel creative process. 


ThE VIEW FROm ThE bATON 

bARRy WORDSWORTh INTERVIEWED by JOhN SNELSON 

Bill Cooper 

For Barry Wordsworth, Music Director of The Royal Ballet, the new ballet Alice’s 

Adventures in Wonderland is an especially important event. New works with new 

music are a regular part of ballet repertory, usually as part of mixed programmes that 

give exciting contrasts between works that demonstrate dance for its own sake. But a 

full-length narrative ballet is a different matter, as Barry explains. 

I am old enough to remember De Valois, and among many other wonderful qualities, 

she was a very canny person. She knew that one of the ways to make ballet popular 

in this country was to make it theatre ballet – that’s why the Company was called 

Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet to begin with. In other words, it was going to be ballet 

that told stories and allegories. I think this is a very important part of The Royal 

Ballet’s heritage, and I’m thrilled to be part of a new ballet that takes that storytelling 

tradition into the 21st century. It’s tremendously important and something I think 

the ballet public will love seeing continued here. 


37

38 


His first involvement with Alice was when he was working with Christopher Wheeldon at 

Sadler’s Wells on a programme that included a ballet piece with music by Joby Talbot. 

We had a brief conversation in the vaguest of terms: if Christopher were to create a 

new full-length ballet, who might he use for the music? I was acutely aware that there 

was a good working relationship between Christopher and Joby. Since I was enjoying 

working with them both on that piece, the idea was there that maybe this could 

blossom into something. Which is what has happened, so I am thrilled. 

But some time passed before Barry was again directly involved, which was when the 

newly composed music began to arrive. There were the demo tapes from Joby with which 

Christopher could develop the choreography; Barry had these, but it was the piano score 

that was his first main reference point for getting to know the music, and not just for him 

but for the dancers too. 

They’ve been working for months with a piano version of the score – unusually, we’ve 

been rehearsing this to two pianos rather than one. And next comes the transition 

from piano to orchestra. An important part of my job is to make sure that as the 

dancers rehearse they hear what they need to hear, and that everything is balanced 

properly. It is terribly important to make sure that when the Company get to work 

with the orchestra there aren’t too many surprises. So, I’ve been thrilled to get the full 

score and start the serious work on it: to understand it, to get inside the orchestrations, 

to make it work on the orchestra so that the score comes to life. The sound is extremely 

vibrant and colourful with vivid orchestrations. I think it will underpin the action so 

well at every moment of the ballet. We have a good team of music staff working on 

the ballet, and I will tell them at various points what orchestral qualities the piano 

rehearsal version is representing. That affects the way they play the piano – colouring 

things certain ways or bringing elements to the fore that may not be evident just 

from the piano score. So we’re all working towards this seamless transition to 

the orchestra. 

Besides being the guide for the rehearsal pianists, the conductor is the ‘lynchpin’, as Barry 

describes it, between the orchestra and the stage. He has been in the studio with the 

dancers since November, getting to know how the music works with the choreography. 

Setting the right speeds is very important to both the technical and emotional power of 

a performance. In the music for Alice, Joby Talbot has been extremely detailed about his 

intentions for the different speeds. And 

the demo recordings helped with this too. 

But only up to a point, Barry explains: 

When you see the ballet being created, 

maybe a slightly slower tempo or a 

slightly faster tempo is more 

Clockwise from top left: flower girl, 

flamingo, flower man, Executioner, 

red guard and march hare 



40 ThE VIEW FROm ThE bATON 

comfortable. And what you find also is that, as the dancers become more at home with 

the choreography, so their feelings about what they want to do come into play, and the 

sensitive conductor is mindful of that. Nothing should be too rigid: we must 

remember that we will give a live performance, and I will be responsive to the way 

performers think. But we have achieved a consistency of tempo throughout the 

creative period, which has been a help and has been possible as we’ve had the same 

group of pianists on every rehearsal. 

When Barry discussed the orchestral practicalities with Joby he needed to establish how 

big the orchestra would be and which instruments were required. 

I became aware that because of the essential fantasy and magical element to the story 

we would probably be using quite an array of instruments that you don’t hear every 

day. I think the largest change really from what you might call a conventional ballet 

orchestra is with the percussion. We’ve got an enormous percussion section: five 

players and a terrific variety of instruments. 

And then the music has to be rehearsed. Five rehearsals to get to grips with two hours of 

completely new and technically demanding music before rehearsing with the dancers is 

more generous that it may at first seem when one considers the demands on the Orchestra 

of the Royal Opera House, which serves both The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera as 

well as giving concert performances in its own right. But there’s a lot to get through in 

the rehearsals – it is only with the final one that the whole score will be played through 

complete in one go – and what that time will be needed for is not always predictable. 

I think that’s one of the most exciting things about a new score. You anticipate that 

one movement is going to take a little while to sort out. It may be because the balance 

between the various sections of the orchestra could be something new that players 

need to spend time with to understand properly, or because it’s very busy with lots 

of notes – they’re sightreading and need time to get round it in a technical sense. But 

then there are always these great surprises. The things that you think are going to be 

extremely difficult just happen, other bits that look inherently simple can take much 

more time than you ever thought, as with the music for the Cheshire Cat. It is not 

hard technically, but the sound that it needs is so particular and has to be balanced so 

carefully that everyone has to understand what everyone else is doing. So it’s difficult 

to predict what will go easily. All 70 of the players in the pit need to know the music 

and get inside it in order achieve a satisfactory result. You can never think of the 

orchestra simply as being a musical machine. 

For Barry, the music comes together so convincingly because Joby has been careful to 

weave thematic threads throughout the whole piece, creating a sense of telling a story 

and going on a dramatic journey. That continuity is a quality Barry thinks especially 

important for a theatre audience. But there are also those moments when something 



unexpected or unusual comes brilliantly into focus. Even in rehearsals, that combination 

has clearly been leaping off the page and into life. 

I love the Mad Hatter’s music. The role, which has been created on Steven McRae, 

has a lot of tap-dancing in it, and Joby has welded that element of it into the score in 

the most wonderful way. It’s a joy, it brings a smile to the face. The music for the 

caterpillar is wonderfully sensuous. The first act ends with the most luscious waltz, and 

then in the second act there is a wonderful send-up of the Sleeping Beauty Rose Adage. 

All these moments are going to stay in people’s minds long after they leave the theatre. 


41

42 

JOby TALbOT 

Composer 

Joby Talbot’s compositional aesthetic threads through his classical and concert 

works, scores for film and television, and collaborations with major contemporary 

choreographers, as well as with internationally acclaimed pop musicians. 

Talbot’s music has appealed to some of Europe’s leading choreographers, including 

Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet Wayne McGregor, with whom he 

collaborated on Entity for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Genus (co-written with 

LA musician Deru) for the Paris Opera Ballet; and Chroma for The Royal Ballet. This 

last work is choreographed to Talbot’s arrangements of songs by The White Stripes from 

the album Aluminium, conceived by XL Recordings founder Richard Russell. Talbot has 

previously collaborated with Christopher Wheeldon and Morphoses on Fool’s Paradise, 

choreographed to his work The Dying Swan. 

For the concert platform, Talbot has composed widely for major orchestras, soloists 

and vocal groups. Works for large ensembles have included the trumpet concerto 

Desolation Wilderness for Alison Balsom and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; 

Tide Harmonic, a collaboration with choreographer Carolyn Carlson and the Orchestre 

National de Lille, soon to be released on Signum Classics; and the 60-minute a cappella 

choral work Path of Miracles for Nigel Short’s Tenebrae. Talbot’s madrigal The Wishing Tree 

for The King’s Singers and Sneaker Wave for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales were 

both commissioned by the BBC Proms. In 2004 he was appointed Classic fM’s inaugural 

Composer-in-Residence. 

In his work for film and television, Talbot graduated from scoring silent films 

The Lodger and The Dying Swan for the British Film Institute to writing the themes and 

scores for British comedy series The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville, as well as scoring 

feature films The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Son of Rambow, Penelope, Franklyn, Burke 

and Hare and Is Anybody There?. 



44 

ChRISTOphER WhEELDON 

Choreographer 

Christopher Wheeldon was born in Yeovil, Somerset, and began his ballet training 

when he was eight years old. He began studying at The Royal Ballet School at the 

age of 11. He joined The Royal Ballet in 1991 and won the Gold Medal at the Prix de 

Lausanne competition. In 1993, he was invited to become a member of New York City 

Ballet, where he was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He began choreographing for NYCB 

with Slavonic Dances for the 1997 Diamond Project; his Scènes de Ballet, a collaboration 

with artist Ian Falconer, was created for the School of American Ballet’s 1999 Workshop 

Performances and NYCB’s 50th anniversary season. 

After creating Mercurial Manoeuvers for NYCB’s spring 2000 Diamond Project, Wheeldon 

retired from dancing to concentrate on his choreographic work. In the 2000/01 season, he 

served as NYCB’s first-ever Artist in Residence, creating two ballets: Polyphonia, set to piano 

music by György Ligeti, and Variations Sérieuses, set to music by Felix Mendelssohn. In July 

2001 he was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer. Since then he has choreographed 

at least one ballet a year for New York City Ballet, including Morphoses and Carousel 

(A Dance) (2002), Carnival of the Animals and Liturgy (2003), After the Rain and An American 

in Paris (2005), Klavier (2006) and The Nightingale and the Rose (2007). 

Wheeldon has also been in demand with other leading companies and has created 

such notable works as Continuum for San Francisco Ballet, Tryst and DGV: Danse à 

grande vitesse and Electric Counterpoint for The Royal Ballet, a full-length Swan Lake for 

Pennsylvania Ballet (2004) and Misericors for the Bol’shoy Ballet (2007). Outside the ballet 

world, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for the Metropolitan Opera’s production 

of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (2006), as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center 

Stage (2000) and a Broadway version of Sweet Smell of Success (2002). 

Throughout his career, Wheeldon has been interested in working with other artists to 

provoke new dance directions. Among the composers who have written scores for him are 

James MacMillan, Bright Sheng and Michael Nyman. He has also worked with such artists 

as Ian Falconer, James Buckhouse and Jean Marc Puissant; designers Adrianne Lobel and 

Narciso Rodriguez; the author and actor John Lithgow and director Nicholas Hytner. 

In 2007, Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company with the goal of 

introducing a spirit of innovation to classical ballet by fostering collaboration among 

choreographers, dancers, visual artists, designers, composers, and others who can bring 

new life and perspective to the art form. Morphoses was launched at the Vail International 

Dance Festival in August of that year and performed at Sadler’s Wells in London in 

September and New York City Center in October. For the inaugural season, Wheeldon 

choreographed two new works: Fools’ Paradise and Prokofiev pas de deux. 

In 2009 Wheeldon worked with Richard Eyre on a production of the opera Carmen at 

the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. His new version of The Sleeping Beauty had 


ChRISTOphER WhEELDON 

its premiere with The Royal Danish Ballet in 2010, and 2011 will see the premiere of his 

ninth work for the San Francisco Ballet. Early next year New York City Ballet will run a 

full evening of his work for the first time. 

As Wheeldon’s choreography has pushed ballet into new territories, he has been 

widely praised by critics and audiences alike. He received the Martin E. Segal Award 

from Lincoln Center and the American Choreography Award, and in 2005 received the 

prestigious Dance Magazine Award. He won the London Critics’ Circle Award for best 

new ballet for Polyphonia, and a performance of the piece by NYCB dancers received a 

Laurence Olivier Award. DGV: Danse à grande vitesse was nominated for a Laurence Olivier 

Award in 2006, and the inaugural season of Morphoses at Sadler’s Wells won a South 

Bank Show Award. 


45


Johan Persson

mONICA mASON 

Director of The Royal ballet 

Monica Mason was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She came to England at 

the age of 14, training at the Nesta Brooking School of Ballet and The Royal Ballet 

School. She joined The Royal Ballet in 1958 when she was only 16, the youngest member 

of the Company at that time. While still in the corps de ballet, she was selected by 

Kenneth MacMillan to create the demanding role of the Chosen Maiden in The Rite 

of Spring, first performed in 1962. One year later, in 1963, she was appointed Soloist. 

She became a Principal in 1968. 

Technically a strong dancer, she was particularly noted for the warmth of her personality 

and her dramatic sense. Her range embraced purely classical roles such as Odette/Odile 

in Swan Lake, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, the title role and Myrtha in Giselle, 

the Prelude and Mazurka in Les Sylphides and the leading role in Raymonda Act III as well 

as dramatic parts such as the Hostess in Les Biches and the Black Queen in Checkmate. 

In 1974–5 MacMillan created four roles for her: Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon, Calliope Rag 

in Elite Syncopations, Summer in The Four Seasons and the Midwife in Rituals. 

A highly praised interpreter of the leading roles in MacMillan’s Song of the Earth 

and Nureyev’s Kingdom of the Shades scene from La Bayadère, she was in the first 

performances by The Royal Ballet of Hans van Manen’s Adagio Hammerklavier, Jerome 

Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering and In the Night, George Balanchine’s Liebeslieder Walzer 

and Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies. Other major roles have included the Lilac Fairy 

in The Sleeping Beauty, Empress Elisabeth and Mitzi Caspar in MacMillan’s Mayerling and 

the title role in The Firebird; for Frederick Ashton, Three Variations in Birthday Offering, 

the Fairy Godmother and Winter Fairy in Cinderella and Lady Elgar in Enigma Variations; 

and the Queen of Denmark in Robert Helpmann’s Hamlet. She created a leading role 

in David Bintley’s Adieu in 1980, Nursey in MacMillan’s Isadora in 1981 and Mrs Grose 

in William Tuckett’s Turn of the Screw in 1999. 

In 1980 Mason was appointed Répétiteur to Kenneth MacMillan, then in 1984 

Principal Répétiteur to The Royal Ballet. In January 1991, after four years of assisting 

Anthony Dowell, she became Assistant Director; in September 2002 she was appointed 

Acting Director following the resignation of Ross Stretton, and Director in December 

2002. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Surrey in July 1996, 

an OBE in 2002 and the Achievement in Dance Award from the Dance Teacher’s 

Benevolent Fund in 2003. In June 2008, she was created a Dame Commander for 

her services to dance. 


47

marianela Nuñez as Alice 


staff of the royal ballet 

Jeanetta Laurence associate Director 

Born in Oxford, she trained with June Christian and later at The Royal Ballet School. In 1969 

she joined The Royal Ballet Touring Company under John Field, and went on to dance in the 

New Group, formed under Peter Wright in 1970. She created roles in ballets by, among others, 

Jack Carter, Ronald Hynd, Joe Layton and Lynn Seymour, and was promoted to Soloist with SWRB. 

She was appointed Assistant Ballet Mistress in 1978 and left the company to have a family in 1979. 

In 1983, with fellow dancer Rashna Homji, she founded Dance Directory, an agency for freelance 

dancers and choreographers, which ran successfully for eight years. She left the agency to work for 

director and choreographer Gillian Lynne before joining The Royal Ballet as Artistic Administrator 

in 1990. She was appointed Assistant Director in 2003 and Associate Director in 2009. 

Kevin O’Hare administrative Director 

He was trained at The Royal Ballet School and, through an exchange programme, Royal Danish 

Ballet. He joined SWRB and was promoted to Principal in 1990 (BRB). His repertory included all 

the leading classical roles and works by Balanchine, Cranko, Van Manen, Tudor and Tharp. He 

also created many roles, working with Ashton, De Valois, MacMillan, David Bintley and Peter 

Wright, among others. He retired from dancing in 2000 to work with the RSC, training in company 

management. He returned to BRB as Company Manager in 2001 and joined The Royal Ballet as 

Company Manager in 2004. He was appointed Administrative Director in 2009. 

Barry Wordsworth Music Director 

He was appointed Conductor Laureate of the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2006, having been its 

Principal Conductor since 1989. He is also Principal Conductor of the Brighton PO and a frequent 

guest conductor with many British orchestras. He appears often with European orchestras and 

further afield, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Toronto SO, Seoul PO, Guangzhou 

SO, Rotterdam PO, New Zealand SO and Sydney SO. In addition to his symphonic career, he was 

Music Director of BRB from 1990 to 2008 and Music Director of The Royal Ballet from 1990 to 

1995, reappointed to this post in 2006. He has recently conducted productions with the Tokyo 

Ballet, Leipzig Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet. He has a large catalogue of recordings across all the 

main UK-based companies and most recently recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. 

Wayne McGregor resident Choreographer 

He is founder of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Resident Company of Sadler’s Wells, for which 

he has made more than 30 works including Entity, Amu, Nemesis and AtaXia. He has created works 

for The Royal Ballet (Limen, Infra, Nimbus, Chroma, Engram, Qualia, Symbiont(s)), NDT1, Stuttgart 

Ballet, ENB, San Francisco Ballet, Rambert Dance Company and Paris Opera Ballet. His theatre and 

opera credits include Kirikou et Karaba (Paris), The Woman in White (London, Broadway) and productions 

at La Scala, Milan, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Scottish Opera, ENO, Old Vic, NT, Royal Court and 

for the Peter Hall Company. He has worked on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros) 

and for Channel 4, BBC TV and Arte. His awards include two Time Out and two Olivier awards, a 

‘South Bank Show’ Award and two Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. He was made Resident 

Choreographer of The Royal Ballet in 2006 and appointed a CBE in 2011. 

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49

50 staff of the royal ballet 

Andrew Hurst Company Manager 

He trained with Virginia Orwell and then at The Royal Ballet School. He joined Basel Ballet in 1993 

and appeared as a guest with its sister companies in Bonn and Dortmund. Having worked with 

Mats Ek and Nils Christe in 1994, he developed an interest in contemporary dance and went on 

to work with Ballet Gulbenkian, Portugal, NDT and Rambert Dance Company, where he studied 

Business and Management and led the newly formed Dancers’ Management Team in 2006. He 

retired from dancing in 2008 to work as General Manager for Phoenix Dance Theatre, Leeds. He 

joined The Royal Ballet as Company Manager in 2009. He is an Equity-nominated Trustee of the 

Dancers’ Pension Fund. 

Christopher Carr Guest Principal ballet Master 

The son of a Yorkshire coalminer, he trained in Barnsley with Mavis Burrows and at The Royal Ballet 

School. In 1967 he joined The Royal Ballet Touring Company and in 1970 transferred to The Royal 

Ballet, Covent Garden. He was promoted to Soloist, 1975, and later to Senior Soloist; he continued 

to perform until 1990. He became Assistant Ballet Master, 1983, Répétiteur to The Royal Ballet, 

1984, Ballet Master, 1988, and Rehearsal Director, 2001. He has rehearsed and staged the majority of 

The Royal Ballet’s extensive repertory and has taught and staged various ballets for most of the leading 

companies around the world. In 2007 he elected to become Guest Principal Ballet Master. 

Christopher Saunders ballet Master and Principal Character artist 

Born in Gosport, he trained with Joan Stevenson, then at The Royal Ballet School. He joined the 

Company in 1983 and was promoted to Soloist, 1991, then Principal Character Artist, 1997, and 

was made Ballet Master in 2001. His repertory includes Don Quixote, Tybalt, Paris, Lord Capulet, 

Drosselmeyer, Von Rothbart, Hilarion, Dr Chebutykin, Lysander, Edward Elgar, Poet (La Ronde), 

Fox (Tales of Beatrix Potter), Rakitin, Moor (Petrushka), Monsieur G.M., King of the North (Prince of 

the Pagodas), Prince Gremin, Tsar (Anastasia) and roles in Cinderella, Agon (pas de deux), Gloria, 

Les Patineurs, Mayerling, Judas Tree, This House Will Burn, Isadora and There where she Loves. 

He created roles in Tombeaux, Love’s Fool and The Seven Deadly Sins. 

Ursula Hageli ballet Mistress 

Born in Zürich, she began her training there, then at The Royal Ballet School. During a performing 

career of over 30 years her repertory included most of the leading classical roles, and she had 

many roles created for her. Her professional career began aged 17 with Stuttgart Ballet under the 

direction of John Cranko. Three years later she joined Northern Ballet as a Principal and, in 1980, 

London City Ballet, where she was coached by Svetlana Beriosova for Odette/Odile, Giselle, Aurora 

and many other roles. While there she met Richard Slaughter, and together they founded Ballet 

Creations and produced A Portrait of Pavlova, re-creating Pavlova’s famous dances, and The Little 

Mermaid, Cleopatra and Cinderella, in which she created the title roles. 

Gary Avis ballet Master and Principal Character artist 

Born in Ipswich, he joined The Royal Ballet in 1989, promoted to Soloist, 1995, and Principal Character 

Artist, 2005. He was made Assistant Ballet Master, 2007, and Ballet Master, 2010. His repertory 

includes Drosselmeyer, Orion, Von Rothbart, Tybalt, Lord Capulet, Monsieur G.M., Gaoler, Hilarion, Tsar 

Nicholas, Madge, Dr Coppélius, Paris Singer, Kostcheï, High Brahmin, Prince Gremin, The Man (Song 

of the Earth), ‘Fire’ (Homage to The Queen), Gloria, La Valse, Polyphonia, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, Seven 

Deadly Sins, Tsarina’s Slippers (Royal Opera), Ek’s Carmen, Step-Sister (Cinderella), Sensorium and Lieder. 

He has created roles for and worked with MacMillan, Tharp, Tetley, Morris, Hynd, Bruce, Wheeldon, 

Tuckett, Bintley, Page and Marriott. He co-founded K Ballet, Japan, and has performed with ENB and as a 

special guest with Darcey Bussell and Katherine Jenkins in their Viva la Diva Arena Tour. 

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staff of the royal ballet 

Alexander Agadzhanov senior teacher and répétiteur to the Principal artists 

Born in Mary, USSR, he studied with Alexander Zaitsev, Margarita Nazarova and Genrikh Maiorov 

in Kiev and joined Moscow Ballet Theatre as a Soloist in 1969, becoming a Principal in 1972. He 

danced leading roles as a guest soloist in New York, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and at Deutsche Oper 

Ballet, Berlin, and as a Principal with Bonn Opera Ballet. As a teacher at The Royal Ballet School 

(1985–8), his pupils included Sergiu Pobereznic, Stuart Cassidy, Michael Nunn, William Trevitt 

and Tetsuya Kumakawa. He was Ballet Master/teacher at La Scala Ballet, Milan (1988–9). Since 1989 

he has taught and coached Royal Ballet Principals. He has also been guest ballet master/teacher at 

Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and Teatro di 

San Carlo, Naples, among others. He has worked with choreographers such as Serge Lifar, Alvin 

Ailey, Flemming Flindt, Yuri Grigorovich, Kenneth MacMillan, Rudolf Nureyev and Roland Petit. 

Lesley Collier répétiteur 

Born in Orpington, she won a scholarship to The Royal Ballet School and took private lessons 

from Winifred Edwards. She was promoted to Soloist, 1970, and Principal, 1972. She danced all 

the classical ballerina roles and was praised for her dramatic heroines in MacMillan’s repertory. 

Ashton’s Rhapsody for H.M. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s 80th birthday was built around 

Baryshnikov and Collier. Her television appearances included The Dancing Princesses and Dizzy Feet. 

She was a guest star at the World Ballet Festival, Tokyo, 1982. She received the 1987 Evening Standard 

Ballet Award and was appointed a CBE in 1993. In 1995 she retired from dancing and became Ballet 

Mistress at The Royal Ballet School. In 2000 she returned to the Company to coach Soloists and 

Principals. 

Jonathan Cope répétiteur 

Born in Devon, he trained in Wales before attending The Royal Ballet School. He joined the 

Company in 1982 and was promoted to Principal, 1986. His repertory included Prince Siegfried, the 

Prince (Cinderella, The Nutcracker), Romeo, Prince Florimund, Solor, Albrecht, Des Grieux, Armand, 

Poet (Illuminations, La Ronde), Apollo, Rudolf, Beliaev, Palemon, Her Lover (Lilac Garden), Foreman 

(Judas Tree), The Boy (Triad), Jean de Brienne, Escamillo, Rasputin, Aminta, Song of the Earth, Requiem, 

Les Biches and Remanso. He created the Illusionist (Sawdust and Tinsel) and roles in Different Drummer, 

Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus, A Broken Set of Rules, Le Baiser de la fée, Galanteries, ‘Still Life’ at 

the Penguin Café, Prince of the Pagodas, Fearful Symmetries, Tryst and Les Saisons. In 2003 he won the 

‘South Bank Show’ Dance Award and was appointed a CBE. He retired from dancing in 2006. 

Grant Coyle Principal Dance Notator and répétiteur 

Born in Australia, he attended the Australian Ballet School and danced with companies in Australia 

and Germany. In 1976 he moved to London, where he trained at the Institute of Choreology. After 

graduating in 1978 he worked as a dance notator with Scottish Ballet and SWRB. In 1987 he was 

invited to join The Royal Ballet as its Principal Notator. He has worked with many choreographers, 

including Balanchine, MacMillan, Ashton, Peter Darrell and Bintley, reproducing ballets for many 

companies abroad including Paris Opera Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, ABT, San Francisco 

Ballet, Boston Ballet, Bavarian State Opera Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, National Ballet of Hungary and 

La Scala Ballet, Milan. In 2008 he was made a Fellow of the Institute of Choreology. 

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51

52 staff of the royal ballet 

Philip Mosley artistic administrator and Character artist 

Born in Barnsley, he trained at the Rosalyn Wicks School and The Royal Ballet School. In 1985 he 

danced in Graduation Ball and Wanting, Running, Running at the School’s annual matinee. He joined 

the Company in 1986, promoted to First Artist, 1993, and became Artistic Co-ordinator, 2001, and 

Artistic Administrator, 2007. He continues to dance as a Character Artist. His repertory includes 

Widow Simone, Sancho Panza, Step-Sister (Cinderella), Richard Baxter Townshend and Hew David 

Steuart-Powell, Tutor (Swan Lake), Gallison, Dr Coppélius and Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. 

David Pickering artistic and education Co-ordinator and soloist 

Born in Barnsley and brought up in Leeds, he trained at the Jean Pearce School, Ratcliffe Academy 

and The Royal Ballet School. He joined the Company in 1990 and was promoted to Soloist, 1999. His 

repertory includes Von Rothbart, Benno, Paris and Tybalt, Escalus, Rakitin (A Month in the Country), 

Gentleman with the Rope (Rake’s Progress), Count Hoyos and Prince Philipp, High Brahmin, Groom 

(Les Noces), Andres and Captain (Different Drummer), Mouse King (The Nutcracker), Fox (Tales of 

Beatrix Potter), Richard P. Arnold and Basil G. Nevinson (Enigma Variations), He (My Brother, my 

Sisters), Terrestrial (Shadowplay), Demetrius, leading roles in Serenade, La Valse, Galanteries, 

Les Biches, Ballet Imperial, Symphony in C, Birthday Offering and Raymonda Act III. He created roles in 

All Nighter, Horseplay, Judas Tree, Winter Dreams, Masquerade and There where she Loves. 

Elizabeth Anderton Principal Guest teacher 

Born in London, she studied with Nesta Brooking, then at The Royal Ballet School. She joined 

Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet in 1955 then Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet the following year, promoted 

to Principal, 1961. Her repertory included Aurora, Giselle, Raymonda and Swanilda and she created 

roles in Cranko’s Sweeney Todd, Ashton’s Two Pigeons, Tudor’s Knight Errant, Cauley’s Lazarus and 

MacMillan’s Création du monde. In 1970 she damaged her achilles tendon and it was the following 

18 months of rehabilitation and coaching with Winifred Edwards that inspired her to teach. She was 

invited to coach Australian Ballet by Robert Helpmann in 1975, London Festival Ballet as teacher 

and répétiteur by Beryl Grey in 1977, and The Royal Ballet by Anthony Dowell in 1991. She also 

assisted Nureyev on his production of Romeo and Juliet and created the role of the Nurse. She was 

Assistant Artistic Director of London Festival Ballet 1979–83 and 1984–90. 

Robert Clark head of Music staff 

Born in Kettering, he began playing the piano at the age of five. He studied with Jean Anderson and 

then Niel Immelmann and Ruth Gerald at the RCM. In 2000 he joined the music staff of The Royal 

Ballet and in rehearsal has played for much of the Company’s repertory. His solo performances with 

The Royal Ballet include Gong, Polyphonia, Ondine, Fantasy (‘Inspired by Ashton’, Linbury Studio 

Theatre, 2005), ‘Rubies’ (Jewels), Nimbus, Electric Counterpoint, Infra, Elite Syncopations, Of Mozart 

(New Works, Linbury Studio Theatre, 2008) and Asphodel Meadows. In August 2010, he was 

appointed Head of Music Staff. 

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alice's adventures in wonderland - The National Ballet of Canada

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