Sir Peter: I initially had doubts moving to Birmingham was Wright thing to do
BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET ARE STAGING THREE HIT PRODUCTIONS CREATED BY FORMER DIRECTOR SIR PETER WRIGHT – COPPéLIA, A NEWLY REFURBISHED NUTCRACKER AND SWAN LAKE. THE LEGEND, NOW 95, TALKS TO DIANE PARKES
AS director of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet from 1977, Sir Peter Wright spearheaded the company’s move to Birmingham Hippodrome and its relaunch as Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1990.
Sir Peter, who retired as director in 1995 but continued to support the company in the role of director laureate, has now been given the new title of founding director laureate in honour of the huge contribution he made to the development of BRB.
Now 95, Sir Peter is looking forward to seeing three of his works back on stage and helping the company mark more than 30 years since its move. But he admits to having had some initial doubts over the decision to relocate.
“My first reaction, when the company heard about the move, I wasn’t at all keen. I thought ‘how dare these people come to take us away from Sadler’s Wells?’ We used to go to Birmingham a lot on tours but to move there? I was not at all sure.
“But once I had been and talked to people at the Hippodrome, then I saw the advantages of having this big theatre and a home of our own. I knew this would be the answer to so many of our problems and from then on I believed in it. We didn’t have our own city, there were lots of dance companies in London, and in Birmingham we would become Birmingham Royal Ballet.
‘‘And we did feel very welcome. Birmingham is a friendly place, I still love going there. Once we were geared into it, we all got very excited about it, especially as we would have three large, purpose-built studios made for us.”
As a thank you to the city, Sir Peter created a new production of Tchaikovsky’s festive ballet The Nutcracker which was premiered at the Hippodrome at Christmas in 1990. The show was a phenomenal success and has gone on to become one of the most popular BRB works, having been performed more than 500 times.
“I wanted to say thank you to Birmingham with a new work, and dancers love doing new ballets so it was good for the company,” Sir Peter recalls. “They may not always admit it, but dancers love working and developing and trying new ideas.”
Staging a new production did though have its challenges.
“There are people who say the BRB Nutcracker is the best Nutcracker – and I certainly think it is. But I didn’t think at the time it was going to be,” Sir Peter says. “Although I was on a high because the move had gone so well, it’s different when you are in the rehearsal room and you’re concentrating on the steps and if the magic will work.
“There were a lot of things that were touch and go but it was only when we had the lighting rehearsals that I sort of began to think it might all really work.
“Then there was a terrible snowstorm. A lot of the dancers couldn’t get to the theatre and the children
couldn’t come either, so a lot of time was lost. We had to have an allnighter to catch up a bit. It was probably quite a good thing in the end because everyone was on their toes to make it perfect. It must have worked as it’s lasted all this time.”
After 30 years of being staged nearly every Christmas, The Nutcracker showed showing the signs of its age and has undergone a £1 million refurbishment led by the
original designer John Macfarlane. Now, thanks to the extraordinary support of hundreds of individuals, numerous trusts and foundations and BRB investment, The Nutcracker can entertain audiences for the next 30 years.
“Both John and Philip Prowse, who designed Swan Lake and
Sleeping Beauty, have very strong theatrical minds. Designers can be very stubborn, and so can lighting designers and so can choreographers so when we all get together…’
Sir Peter laughs. “I work very well with all of them though we still have disagreements but only about practicalities, maybe something like the impossibility of a dancer moving in some costumes which are too big and heavy.”
The new BRB season opens with
Sir Peter’s Coppélia, which he created in 1995 for the company.
“When you’re on stage, you’re an actor as much as a dancer and I’d have loved to play Dr Coppélius,” he says. “It’s a remarkable role which needs strong characterisation – he’s such an old doddery thing but he can be played in different ways. Frederick Ashton was old and sinis
ter while John Auld was humorous. I think a dancer should do it the way they feel, you have to give them leeway to develop a character, but personally I do think the character is comical rather than sinister.”
And in the New Year BRB present Sir Peter’s Swan Lake, which he created with former prima ballerina Galina Samsova for Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in 1981.
“I don’t have a favourite ballet but I always wanted to be in Swan Lake,” he says. “I love the music, Tchaikovsky is absolutely fantastic, and it’s so dramatic. It’s such a strong story and it can be told in so many different ways. People really respond to Swan Lake.”
Parental opposition to his training to be a dancer led to Sir Peter running away from boarding school at the age of 15. He gained a job as an apprentice with the Ballet Jooss and other dance companies and West End musicals. Then he became a TV director with the BBC before taking over Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet which he then led to Birmingham in 1990.
Sir Peter retired after contracting the neuromuscular disease myasthenia gravis but he has always remained heavily involved whenever the company is performing any of his works.
“I was past my sell-by date by then but I would have fought hard to stay at BRB for another two or three years if it hadn’t been for that wretched illness. Everything seemed to have slotted into place and then I had to slot out. That was the one thing I was unhappy about, I didn’t really feel I had done everything I wanted us to do. I was anxious to get BRB so much more into the city of Birmingham’s social life.”
But Sir Peter knew BRB was in safe hands with his successor, Sir David Bintley, who was artistic director between 1995-2019.
“That worked very well. David is completely different from me but he is a wonderful choreographer. He very much wanted to do new productions and his great strength was his choreographic leadership. That, of course, is the lifeblood of a company – new works and new ideas.
“And touring. I said that was something we should always keep doing and David also ensured that. Touring is part of a dancer’s life, when you’re doing six or eight shows a week, it gives dancers opportunities to have a go at doing different roles.”
Sir Peter has also taken time to see current director Carlos Acosta’s ballet Don Quixote which he created for Royal Ballet and then recreated for BRB.
“He really made the dancers dance up a storm and they looked as if they loved it,” Sir Peter says. “In the future I just hope things will grow and grow.
“I’ve had such a varied, such a marvellous career. I’ve done so many different things with all the touring I’ve done and all the work I’ve put in as a television director, and the musicals I did and the different companies I worked with, but everything finally came together in Birmingham.
“I feel I have made quite a contribution through Birmingham Royal Ballet to the world of dance. Birmingham certainly made us feel wanted and I hope, I feel, that Birmingham still feels that way.”
Tickets for Coppélia (October 26-29), The Nutcracker (November 19 to December 10) and Swan Lake (February 15-25) can be booked at www.birmnghamhippodrome.com. Birmingham Royal Ballet are also be performing Into the Music (Friday and Saturday) as part of their autumn season.