Voices of British Ballet

It really does seem true that dancers in the difficult years of World War Two were happy to exist on the bare minimum. The common bond was that they all loved dancing and that appeared to keep them going. In this interview with the dancer and teacher Robert Harrold, which was recorded in 2007, Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, talks with him about a career that commenced during a time of conflict. The interview is introduced by Jane Pritchard. Robert Harrold was born in Wolverhampton in 1923. His first dancing lessons were in Birmingham with Evelyn Goodwin, and his stage career began with the Anglo-Polish Ballet in 1940. For the next few years, he danced with Ballet Rambert, where he experienced a fine repertoire of ballets with an enviable range of choreographers, in which he often partnered Rambert’s charismatic ballerina of the time, Sally Gilmour. During the later years of World War Two, Harrold was a member of the Central Pool of Artists (CPA), and he was a part of groups that entertained the troops in Italy, via India, Ceylon and Australia. After the war he danced in musical theatre and television and began to develop his choreographic ability. Most important was the beginning of his lifelong love and involvement with National and Folk Dance. He was a tireless advocate of this form of dance and, along with his friend and mentor Helen Windgrave, wrote books and formed groups – notably the Modial Company – and educational enterprises to interest people in general and to win converts if possible! Dancer, teacher, examiner, adjudicator and writer, Robert Harrold had a very full and busy life in dance and contributed unstintingly to the many ventures in which he was involved. In 1986 he received the Imperial Award for Outstanding Services to the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD), an organisation he had been involved with for many years.Photograph: CAPRICCIO by Richard Strauss; Valerie Davie and Robert Harrold as the Dancers Conducted by Pritchard; Directed by Rennert; Scenery Designed by Lennon; Costumes designed by Powell; Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Glyndebourne, Lewes, East Sussex, UK; 1963; © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd.; Credit: Guy Gravett / Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. / ArenaPAL ;  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This interview is a reminder of how lucky we in Britain have been with our great choreographers – in this case Christopher Bruce. Talking to Deborah Weiss, dance writer, editor and former first soloist with London Festival Ballet, Kevin Richmond also reminds us about taking chances, fun and friendship. The interview was recorded in 2018 and is introduced by Deborah Weiss.Born in Nottingham in 1958, Kevin Richmond was the eldest of three boys. His interest in theatre began at primary school where he was encouraged to participate in drama classes. At the age of ten he was recruited as a child actor to appear in a number of productions, including Waiting for Godot with Peter O’Toole and in the 1972 Harold Becker film The Ragman’s Daughter. Initially, Richmond wasn’t keen to learn to dance but was convinced by his teachers that it may help his acting career.Richmond’s first professional dance job was with an education project called Dance for Everyone when Richmond was just 17. He joined London Festival Ballet in 1977 under the directorship of Beryl Grey and remained with the company, now English National Ballet, for 22 years. He worked with five directors during this time and among his most memorable experiences was working with the choreographer Christopher Bruce on Swansong. Bruce created the ballet on Richmond, Matz Skoog and Koen Onzia in 1987 and this work and its cast were celebrated worldwide. Other important roles included the title role in Christopher Hampson’s Scrooge, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and Dr Coppélius in Coppélia.After retiring from the stage, Richmond completed the Professional Dancer’s Teaching Diploma at the Royal Academy of Dance and taught at London Studio Centre, Basler Ballett, Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble and latterly, at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künst in Zürich where he taught the BA in Contemporary Dance course. He also taught as a guest teacher with many companies including Rambert. He became ill with cancer in 2018 and died the following year.The photograph shows Kevin Richmond in The Nutcracker; Kevin Richmond; Peter Schaufuss production; Designs by David Walker; English National Ballet; 1986; at the London Coliseum; London, UK; Photo by Bill Cooper licensed by Areanpal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jill Tookey, the founder of National Youth Ballet of Great Britain (NYB), in conversation here with Frank Freeman, explains how she set about it, and what her vision was. She gives a breathtaking insight into how all the different and necessary strands of activity plait together to create something worthwhile. She speaks engagingly about some of the ballets created for NYB, and about working on them with esteemed members of the ballet world, such as John Lanchbery and Wayne Sleep. The interview was recorded in 2010 and is introduced by Anna Meadmore.Born in Kent in 1937, Jill Tookey arrived at what was to be her dancing destiny by an unusual route. She had enjoyed ballet as a child but was swallowed up by the fashion industry of the 1960s, becoming fashion editor for both Woman and Beauty and Honey magazines. By the 1980s, and as mother of four children, she had begun writing childrens’ books. Pedro the Parrot, published by Thames and Hudson, was to be the springboard for an extraordinary adventure. To set Pedro dancing, music was found and also a choreographer. From there Tookey never looked back. She was alert to the huge interest in dancing and performance in the young and how, with the right build up, they could channel their excitement into something truly worthwhile.By 1988 Tookey had founded the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain (NYB) and she remained its artistic director until she died in 2016. She was always able to see the bigger picture as well as the details, with many ballets specially created for NYB and many young choreographers and dancers encouraged. As a result of her inspired and energetic leadership, literally thousands of children have had opportunities to enjoy the magical world of the theatre, with a number going on to dance professionally. Jill Tookey was appointed a CBE in 2016, but died that same year, and, sadly, was unable to collect her award. She was represented at the investiture by her ten-year-old granddaughter, who had danced with NYB for four years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What agony to hear this gorgeous, beguiling woman lament the lack of interest she feels was shown to her generation in passing on their knowledge and experience to the next. Irina Baronova’s no nonsense approach is mysteriously interwoven with intuitive artistry – we could expect no less from one of the original “Baby Ballerinas” of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In this interview, recorded in 2006, Irina Baronova is interviewed by Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet. The interview is introduced by Jane Pritchard of the V&A.Irina Baronova was a Russian-born ballerina and actress, known as one of the “Baby ballerinas” of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She was born in Petrograd in 1919. Her father, Mikhail Baronov, was a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, and in 1920 he and his family had to flee the country following the Russian Revolution. They crossed the border into Romania disguised as peasants and eventually settled in Bucharest. They had no money in a foreign country where they did not know or speak the language. Baronov eventually found a job at a factory, and the family spent the following years living in the city slums.At the age of seven, Baronova began taking her first ballet classes when her mother (who was a ballet enthusiast) found her a teacher, Madame Majaiska, a former corps de ballet member of the Imperial Russian Ballet. She was also a refugee from Russia and so conducted Baronova’s classes in the kitchen of her one-bedroom house, using the kitchen table as a barre. To provide Irina with professional training, the family moved to Paris when she was ten years old, where she was taught by Olga Preobrajenska and Mathilde Kschessinska. In 1930, at the age of 11, Baronova made her debut at the Paris Opéra. The catalyst for her career came in 1932, just before her 13th birthday, when George Balanchine engaged her for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, along with the equally youthful Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska. The English critic Arnold Haskell dubbed this illustrious trio the “Baby Ballerinas”.Baronova was 14 when she was given her first principal role, as Odette in Act II of Swan Lake, in which she was partnered by Anton Dolin. At the age of 17, she eloped with an older Russian man, German (Jerry) Sevastianov, in order to get married. Their marriage came two years later, in 1938, with a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. Baronova then joined Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in the United States of America, subsequently divorcing Sevastianov. In 1946, in the United Kingdon, she met the theatrical agent Cecil Tennant who asked her to marry him, which she did, retiring from her career in ballet at the age of 27. Between 1940 and 1951, Baronova appeared in several films, including Ealing Studio’s Train of Events (1949). Much later she worked as ballet mistress on the 1980 Hollywood film Nijinsky. During her marriage to Tennant, she gave birth to three children: Victoria, Irina and Robert. In 1967, Tennant was killed in a car accident, and Baronova subsequently moved to Switzerland. She then resumed her marriage with her first husband, Sevastianov, who died in 1974. Baronova then began teaching master classes in the UK and the USA. In 1986 she staged Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides for The Australian Ballet, and in 1992 returned to Russia to help the Maryinsky Theatre with an archival project. In 1996 she received a Vaslav Nijinsky Medal in Poland and an honorary doctorate from the North Carolina School of the Arts. In 2000, she went to live in Australia with her daughter, Irina. In 2005 she appeared in a documentary on the Ballet Russe, and published her autobiography Irina: Ballet, Life and Love. She died in her sleep in Byron Bay, Australia, on June 28, 2008, at the age of 89. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Ninette de Valois’ Academy for Choregraphic Art in March 1926, and to mark 25 years since her death, Patricia Linton talks to Dr Anna Meadmore, archivist at The Royal Ballet School. In the first of a series of special programmes across 2026, they discuss the early years of what would become the Vic-Wells, Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and then The Royal Ballet School. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Darcey Bussell talks to the dance critic Alastair Macaulay about her graduation performance at The Royal Ballet School, her early career with both Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet, and the creation in 1989 of the role of Princess Rose in Kenneth MacMillan’s The Prince of the Pagodas, as well as her experience of being coached by Margot Fonteyn. The interview, which was recorded in 2017, is introduced by Alastair Macaulay.Darcey Bussell was born in London in 1969. After initial vocational training at the Arts Educational School, she joined The Royal Ballet Lower School at the age of 13. In 1987 she graduated from The Royal Ballet Upper School and joined the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet that same year, but it was whilst still at the school that her talent had been noticed by the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, who decided to create on her the leading role of Princes Rose in his new version of The Prince of the Pagodas. Bussell joined The Royal Ballet in 1988 and was promoted to the rank of principal dancer in 1989 on the opening night of MacMillan’s new ballet.During her distinguished career with The Royal Ballet, Bussell became one of the most famous British dancers of her time, and indeed of any time. She was particularly noted for her combination of a tall, athletic physique with a lovely soft lyricism. During her dancing career she performed in as many as 80 different ballets, including the majority of the classical roles, and had 17 new roles created on her. She stayed with The Royal Ballet until her formal retirement from the stage in 2007 (in a performance of MacMillan’s Song of the Earth), but she had also appeared as a guest artist with many major companies abroad, including New York City Ballet, the Ballet of La Scala, Milan, the Kirov Ballet, the Hamburg Ballet and The Australian Ballet.Even while dancing professionally, Bussell had begun to work in television and other media, and this side of her career developed at a fast pace on her retirement from ballet. As well as writing, modelling and presenting – both for television and for the Royal Opera House relays – she became a household name as a judge on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing (2009 to 2019). Since 2012, Bussell has been the President of the Royal Academy of Dance. Also in 2012, she danced the Spirit of the Flame at the Closing Ceremony of the London Olympic Games, leading a troupe of 200 dancers. She supports many educational and charitable causes, both artistic and in other fields. She has received many honours, including a gold medal from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 2009. Darcey Bussell was appointed an OBE for her services to dance in 1995, a CBE in 2006 and was made a DBE in 2018. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jean Bedells talks about the 1930s as if it was yesterday. Full of detail and feats of memory, we are given an idea of the sense of foreboding that descended when their artistic home, Sadler’s Wells, was taken over as a refugee centre at the start of World War Two. In this interview, which was recorded in 2005, Jean Bedells talks to former Royal Ballet principal dancer Bruce Sansom. The interview is introduced by Alastair Macaulay.Jean Bedells was born in Bristol in 1924 as Jean McBain. She was the daughter of Phyllis Bedells, the great British ballerina, teacher and, later, a founding member and examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance. Jean Bedells first studied ballet with her mother and then trained at the Vic-Wells Ballet School for a year in 1936 before joining the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1937, making her debut as Clara in The Nutcracker. She had leave of absence from the company to dance as the Herald of Spring in Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall in 1937, 1938 and 1939. When she rejoined the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1938 she danced in Les Patineurs and The Haunted Ballroom, as Rose and Silver Fairies in The Sleeping Princess [The Sleeping Beauty], as Bathilde in Giselle, and in The Quest and, later, as one of the Three Fates in Adam Zero. She also appeared in a number of early films made of the company, notably as the Fairy Silver in The Sleeping Princess (1939), a Red Pawn in Checkmate (1939) and, later, a character role in a film of The Nutcracker (1958).In 1946, Jean Bedells became ballet mistress for Sadler’s Wells Ballet when the company moved into the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. (The Vic-Wells Ballet was re-named Sadler’s Wells Ballet in the early 1940s.) She became a teacher after her retirement from the company, often teaching at The Royal Ballet School, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. Her granddaughter, Anne Bedells, was a member of London Festival Ballet. Jean Bedells died in 2014. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The distinguished choreographer and director Richard Alston explains to Alastair Macaulay, how, as a teenager, he was entranced by watching ballet. After studying fine art, he began working on the Martha Graham technique with what became the London Contemporary Dance Theatre. He eventually found this too restricting and embraced the freer, less floor fixated approach of contemporary dance associated with Merce Cunningham. Alston goes on to discuss how his own choreography began, and how it developed in line with this expansion of his aesthetic. He speaks about his dealings with Cunningham and with the composer John Cage and also about his long and immensely fruitful creative partnership with Sue (Siobhan) Davies. The interview is also introduced by Alastair Macaulay.Richard Alston was born in October 1948 in Sussex. He is a British choreographer as well as having been artistic director for several dance companies. His education began at Eton College, followed by two years at Croydon School of Art. His passion for ballet was first sparked after attending performances by the Bolshoi Ballet and The Royal Ballet Touring Company, and also by Merce Cunningham and the Martha Graham Dance Company, which excited an interest in modern dance. As a result, he started attending classes with the Rambert School of Ballet, and in 1968 he became one of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre’s original students. After only three months there, he created his first work, Transit. In his third year at the School he organised a group of students to tour schools, colleges and universities demonstrating the Graham technique. After choreographing for London Contemporary Dance Theatre, he created an independent dance company, Strider, in 1972.In 1975, Alston travelled to New York to study primarily with Merce Cunningham at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio. He returned to Europe two years later, working as an independent choreographer and teacher. In 1980, he was appointed resident choreographer for Ballet Rambert. He founded Second Stride with Siobhan Davies and Ian Spink in 1982, and in 1986 was appointed artistic director of Ballet Rambert, a post he held until 1992. To reflect the changing nature of the company and its work, in 1987 Ballet Rambert changed its name to become Rambert Dance Company. During his years with Rambert, Alston created 25 works for the company, as well as pieces for the Royal Danish Ballet and The Royal Ballet.After working in France and at the Aldeburgh Festival, in 1994 Alston became artistic director of The Place and he also formed Richard Alston Dance Company. A steady stream of over 50 dance works created by Alston over the next decades was interspersed with collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and Harrison Birtwistle in 1996, and several television productions, including The Rite of Spring, commissioned by the BBC for their Masterworks series in 2002. The Richard Alston Dance Company celebrated its tenth year with its first appearance in New York in 2004. In 2006 the company made its first full tour of North America, followed by further tours in 2009 and 2010. Alston created a new ballet, En Pointe, A Rugged Flourish, for New York Theatre Ballet in 2011. In March 2020, the Richard Alston Dance Company was wound up after a quarter of a century of critical acclaim., giving its last performance at Sadler’s Wells. Richard Alston received the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in 2009. He was appointed a CBE for services to dance in 2001, and was knighted in 2019. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is introduced by Dame Monica Mason. Violetta Elvin was one of Frederick Ashton’s favourite ballerinas. She was born Violetta Prokhorova in Russia. Here, in this interview with Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, Violetta traces her evacuation to Tashkent at the start of World War II and how she returned, via Kuibyshev, to Moscow to join the Bolshoi Ballet. Despite being warned by the authorities not to talk to foreigners, she married the British diplomat Harold Elvin and managed to come to London in 1946. Only weeks after her arrival she joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Covent Garden and danced the “Blue Bird” pas de deux on the second night of their opening production of The Sleeping Beauty. The interview is introduced by Monica Mason.A dancer of rare beauty, Violetta Prokhorova was born in 1923. She trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow and joined the Bolshoi Ballet in 1942, following her graduation performance, for which she was coached by Galina Ulanova. When Moscow was evacuated and the Bolshoi was scattered, she danced as a ballerina with the State Theatre of Tashkent. In 1944 she re-joined the Bolshoi in Kuibyshev, on the Volga, where she fell in love with a young Englishman, Harold Elvin. The Bolshoi returned to Moscow in early 1945. She danced with the Stanislavsky Ballet for a year, then married Elvin and obtained permission from Joseph Stalin to leave Russia.Once in London Violetta started training with Vera Volkova, where she was seen by Ninette de Valois and immediately offered a place in the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. She adored and was true to her Russian training, but with her intelligence and sensitivity she was able to fit in beautifully with the British repertoire. From the Black Queen in de Valois’ Checkmate, through all the classical ballerina roles to Roland Petit’s Ballabile in 1950, Violetta Elvin as she was now known, danced with exquisite vivacity, a hint of exoticism and always impeccable port de bras. Frederick Ashton created several roles for her, notably the Summer Fairy in Cinderella (1948), Lykanion in Daphnis and Chlöe (1951), and one of the seven ballerinas in Birthday Offering (1956). For a decade Violetta Elvin was a unique and irreplaceable member of the developing Sadler’s Wells Ballet. She went to live in Italy in 1956, and although she guested with several companies, including La Scala, Milan (where she performed alongside soprano Maria Callas) in 1952 and 1953, and briefly directed the Ballet of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1985, she retired from ballet when her heart called her elsewhere. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this no-nonsense, down-to-earth account of writing music for Northern Ballet Theatre’s production of Aladdin, choreographed by Laverne Meyer in 1974, composer Ernest Tomlinson talks to Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet. The interview is introduced by Stephen Johnson.Ernest Tomlinson was a British composer, well known for his contributions to light music and for founding The Library of Light Orchestral Music (which prevented the loss of 50,000 works released from the BBC’s archive and other collections). He wrote the music for the ballet Aladdin for Northern Ballet Theatre in 1974.Tomlinson was born in 1924, in Rawtenstall, Lancashire. His parents were musical, and he sang as a chorister at Manchester Cathedral. After a grammar school education, he studied at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester School of Music, with a break for war service in the RAF. He moved to London after graduation in 1947, working first for music publishers. In 1955, after some of his compositions had been performed by the BBC, he formed his own orchestra – the Ernest Tomlinson Light Orchestra – and set out on a highly successful freelance career as a prolific composer, conductor and director of choirs and orchestras. He was particularly concerned to counter the notion of a strict division between art music and popular music. His own Sinfonia 62 was written for jazz band and symphony orchestra, while his Symphony 65 was performed at festivals in London and Munich and in the Soviet Union in 1966, where it was the first symphonic jazz to be heard there. In 1975, Tomlinson won his second Ivor Novello Award for his ballet, Aladdin. Among many other professional appointments, he was the chairman of the Light Music Society from 1966 until 2009. Ernest Tomlinson was appointed an MBE for his services to music in 2012. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In April 2017, Marcia Haydée was in Stuttgart for a week to celebrate her 80th birthday. Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, knew this was her only opportunity to see Haydée in Europe, so she telephoned Stuttgart Ballet to see if she could interview her. Patricia takes up the story in her own words: “They listened to my request, and, in perfect English, said they would ask Miss Haydée. With a full schedule of rehearsals all week, Marcia said she was free on Thursday from 3.30pm to 4.30pm. She didn’t know me at all, but it was enough for her to know how much I loved Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet, Song of the Earth. So, I jumped on a plane…This is the extraordinary Marcia Haydée…”In the interview Haydée explains how she was aware of both John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan as a student at the Sadler’s Wells (now Royal) Ballet School, without suspecting her later close involvement with both men. In working with them, Cranko came to appreciate her melding of a Russian and a British approach to dancing; MacMillan was demanding and uncompromising, but she always strove to fulfil his requirements. She speaks revealingly about working in Stuttgart with Cranko on Onegin and with MacMillan on Song of the Earth and suggests that in those days and in those works, dancers took things at a speed and with risks that today’s dancers, for all their qualities, do not attempt to emulate. The interview is introduced by Dame Monica Mason.Marcia Haydée is a Brazilian-born ballerina, choreographer and company director. She was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1937, and after studying in Brazil, came to the Sadler’s Wells (now Royal) Ballet School in London in 1954, joining the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Monaco in 1957. Haydée joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1961 and was named prima ballerina the following year by the company’s director and choreographer, John Cranko. Their relationship – her dancing, his choreography – was to become the foundation of Stuttgart Ballet’s international reputation in works such as Onegin, Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew, among many others. She also worked closely withKenneth MacMillan on works such as Las Hermanas, Miss Julie and, above all, his Song of the Earth and Requiem. In 1976, she became director of the Stuttgart Ballet, a position she held until 1996. During her dancing career she performed as a guest artist for notable ballet companies throughout the world. From 1992 until 1996 Haydée directed the Ballet de Santiago de Chile, and again from 2003 until 2004. Since retiring from performing she has pursued a career as a choreographer, teacher and coach, and she also stages many ballets.The episode photograph shows John Cranko in rehearsal with Marcia Haydée and Bernd Berg, 1962. Photo: Hannes Kilian, courtesy Stuttgart Ballet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Romayne Grigorova has had a long, distinguished career in ballet and the theatre. Here, in conversation with Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, she focuses on her early years, much of which was coloured by World War Two. In 1943, after training at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, she worked with the Sadler’s Wells Opera on The Bartered Bride in London during the Blitz and on tour. In 1945 she travelled to Germany with the opera under the auspices of ENSA. She then joined Ballet Rambert, and went to Germany again, to Berlin, where she delivered food parcels to a German singer and her family in the Russian zone, and scissors to Lotte Reiniger, a famous German film director and pioneer of silhouette animation. Romayne Grigorova also speaks of her dealings with Marie Rambert and Andrée Howard, joining Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1951 and touring to North America.The interview was recorded in 2003, and is introduced by Monica Mason who spoke to Natalie Steed before Romayne's death in July 2025.Romayne Grigorova was born in Sandwich, Kent, in 1927. She studied under Vera Volkova, Ninette de Valois, George Goncharov and Ailne Philips. Her first appearance on the professional stage was in 1942. In 1943, after training at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School for a further year, she danced in ballets with the Sadler’s Wells Opera in this country and, in 1945, on tour in Germany under ENSA. She joined Ballet Rambert in 1946 and then danced with the Anglo-Polish and Metropolitan Ballets until 1947, when the latter folded.Grigorova then worked in the commercial theatre until 1951, including performing in three pantomimes, before joining Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, where she remained until 1955. She was ballet mistress for the stage musical Can-Can in 1955, and for the St Gallen Ballet in 1956. In 1957 she became ballet mistress for the Opera Ballet at the Royal Opera House, for whom she choreographed many ballets. She retired from this post in 1992 but continued to teach on a freelance basis. She performed small character roles with The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, many of which had been created for her, such as Lady Montague in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet and The Housekeeper in Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker. Romayne Grigorova was appointed an MBE for her services to dance in 2017. She died in July 2025.Photo by Donald Southern courtesy of The Royal Ballet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.