The Ballet Master: Sir Peter Wright at 90

November 2016, on the stage of Covent Garden,

the Royal Ballet celebrates the 90th birthday of Sir Peter Wright.

CHEERING

They were paying tribute to a great man of British ballet.

One whose accomplishments exceed his fame.

CHEERING

Peter Wright's outstanding productions of the classics

are among the glories of the Royal Ballet.

With The Nutcracker,

he brought a new magic and dramatic flair to the Christmas favourite.

And he underlined the supernatural beauty

and dark romanticism of Giselle.

THEY CHEER

Peter Wright was the founding father of Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Following a career as a dancer, teacher, television director,

choreographer and producer.

I think he is incredibly aware that he's had a blessed life

and had amazing talent that was around him all of his own career.

And wants to use all that knowledge to keep passing on.

In his 90th year, Wright continues to supervise productions

of his ballets around the world - from Florida to Toronto,

to Budapest, where he staged The Sleeping Beauty.

We mustn't ever lose our great classical heritage.

It is so important.

Especially these days, when dance is going through quite a change.

And we're getting a lot of contemporary dance, which I love.

Also, it's getting very athletic and you haven't got much more

to do than step, kick, bash, roll on the floor.

Check one thing.

The top boys, he's downstage with the girl

-and he started upstage with the girl.

-All right,

we need to remember that.

I felt incredibly lucky to have him as my first director.

Because he was so informative

and happy to say exactly where I was going wrong.

-That was terrible on the stage.

-Yeah, yeah.

Peter always speaks his mind and he encourages people to ask questions.

And he thinks about it seriously and then he'll come back with why

he wants it to be his way.

And not, sort of, too much up, up, up.

Forthright, fair, great sense of humour,

really a true man of the theatre.

In this film, Sir Peter Wright gives the first major television

interview about his life and career.

In recent years, Peter Wright has been a judge for the annual

Princess Margaret Competition, at London's Francis Holland School.

Most children today begin ballet lessons at a very young age.

When Wright decided to train as a dancer, he was already a teenager.

I first became interested in ballet when I was about 16

and my mother had taken me to see a ballet, Les Sylphides.

I was absolutely mesmerised.

Those beautiful ladies in their white dresses

in the moonlight.

And suddenly, seeing this wonderful atmosphere of dancing,

with this good-looking man surrounded by these ladies,

I, sort of, saw myself in that position.

I turned to my mother and I said, "Now I know what I want to do

"with my life, I want to be a dancer, like that."

That went to my father.

He was absolutely appalled.

My father was against my becoming a dancer.

Mostly, I think, because he was a very good, strict Quaker.

He was very keen that, whatever his children did, they had

security in their lives and would have a good salary and all that.

I didn't care a damn about that. I just wanted to dance.

Now, we'll start with a single pirouette to the right

and a single pirouette to the left.

This is that a time when even girls going onto the stage

was slightly scandalous for a nice, middle-class family.

It's just something you didn't do.

Eventually, you're going to do two pirouettes in the air.

Right, now, I'll show you.

For a boy especially to go into dancing was really frowned upon

and it was all a kind of unspoken thing that,

"Oh, you are a homosexual."

So, actually, Peter Wright was really quite determined and tough

to go and do that and stand up against his father.

Wright was so determined, he even ran away from school.

His father then agreed to accompany him, to see the presiding

force of British ballet, Ninette de Valois.

Would you like to see anything else?

She founded the pioneering Sadler's Wells company,

as well as the leading dance school in Britain.

What do you think of her, from your point of view, Mr Haskel?

Well, we must check up on her school reports.

She said, "Well, I'll let you go to my school,

"but I'm afraid I can't give you a scholarship, because of the war."

I said, "Well, I'm afraid my father won't pay,

"so I won't be able to go."

She said, "Well, that's too bad."

But she said, "Persevere."

She said, "You've got quite a good face."

Peter Wright's first apprenticeship in ballet was in

The Green Table, a modern dance drama.

It was performed on tour in Britain in 1943 by a German company,

run by Kurt Jooss.

Wright directed this film of the ballet for the BBC

over 20 years later.

The Green Table deals with the futility of war.

Diplomats fail to achieve peace and the innocent suffer and die.

To work with this company doing a ballet with such a strong,

important message, I thought I had made the right decision.

This is worth doing.

Of course, we were at war with Germany and we were touring and the

bombs were dropping and, at the same time, this ballet was being shown.

Jooss's great belief was, once you're in the theatre,

whatever you do has to have an idea

and communicate something to the audience.

Over 20 years before this film was made,

Wright was actually dancing in the ballet.

That soldier, that was the first role I ever did.

You can just see where I get killed.

So, I died a death on my first appearance.

While pursuing his early dream to be a dancer,

Wright took part in a film made as an introduction

to the art of ballet.

The pas de chat, in this case, a dance for the four men

who will play the character parts in our ballet.

Although I was learning a lot about theatre,

I decided I really should get some classical training

and I had heard a lot about this teacher called Vera Volkova.

She had been Vaganova-trained in Russia.

And Vaganova really was the best sort of Russian training.

It really changed my life, my whole attitude to dance.

The way she would explain a step and the feeling of the step,

she was marvellous.

The late 1940s, you worked with a number of different ballet

companies, but also to earn your living, you did other work.

Oh, yes.

I worked in the commercial theatre in London.

I was in a lot of musicals.

I sometimes used to get a job as a model.

I was a film extra.

Just to get enough money to pay for classes with Volkova.

In that case, let us dance.

I was in that film Anna Karenina, with Vivien Leigh.

Because I could waltz and there was a waltzing scene,

I let it be known very quickly that I could waltz.

Most of the extras couldn't. They were like...

At a time when dancers were obliged to perform wherever and whenever

they could, Wright benefited from his exposure

to all forms of theatre.

In 1949, he was finally accepted by Ninette de Valois

as a dancer in the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet.

The company toured extensively in Britain and abroad.

In these formative years, Wright became close friends

with two dancers who developed into great choreographers.

Kenneth MacMillan...

..and John Cranko, loved for his witty, narrative ballets.

I think what distinguishes Cranko from other choreographers is,

first of all, his very strong theatricality,

his sense of humour - and that's quite rare for

a choreographer to have a good sense of humour.

He was quite mercurial and unpredictable.

Eins, zwei, drei, vier. Renverse, renverse.

And I'm glad to say that I was never on the wrong side of him,

otherwise I think that might have been quite scary.

I know that he and Peter had a great relationship.

One, two, three...

LAUGHTER

He did such diverse things, like Lady and the Fool,

which was a very touching story, in a way.

I danced in it a lot.

This grand lady had three suitors and I was one of the suitors.

Dancing in another Cranko ballet brought Peter Wright

face-to-face with his future wife.

We all met at John Cranko's house and there was a dancer,

half-Japanese, called Sonya Hana.

She actually didn't like being in ballet companies,

because she was well-known in the West End and she was

a principal dancer in a lot of big shows.

I fell madly and deeply in love with Sonya.

She wanted to be a star and just missed out,

cos we were in Flower Drum Song together, an American musical,

and she was understudy to one of the principals, but she never got on.

Some people are never, ever off.

MUSIC: Un Bel Di Vedremo

She made a wonderful film of the opera, Madam Butterfly.

She played Madam Butterfly,

but mouthed the whole thing.

The whole cast was like that.

The action was done by actors and dancers.

MUSIC: Un Bel Di Vedremo

While Sonya Hana appeared in a BBC Opera production,

her husband danced in a studio version of The Nutcracker,

in which he was seen partnering the most beloved of all

British ballerinas, Margot Fonteyn.

I think Margot Fonteyn became the star,

because of all the different parts of being a ballerina,

she had, first of all, a natural, a wonderful musicality.

She had the perfect form in her physical shape. The proportions

were absolutely right - the length of the leg compared with the torso.

And the head... All was just right.

In The Sleeping Beauty, filmed a year later,

Wright appeared this time as the Indian prince

to Fonteyn's Aurora in the famous Rose Adagio.

As I was so full of adoration, almost, of Fonteyn,

I was very, very gentle with her and everything.

So, we were going along and it was sort of going OK,

but I felt she wasn't really very comfortable with my partnering.

Suddenly, she stopped and put her hands on her hips and faced me

and said, "Peter, will you please remember I'm just a dancer

"and I need to feel that there is someone there, holding me there."

So, I said, "Oh, right. OK."

And that broke the ice and we were fine then.

I did, I just thought of her as a dancer.

Now with a young family to support, Wright was thinking to his future.

His success making a television dance piece

on the BBC directors course led to the offer of a full-time contract.

I didn't accept it at once, because I had to discuss it with my wife.

I got home and before I could talk to my wife,

the telephone rings and it's John Cranko.

He had been offered this wonderful job as the director

of the Stuttgart Ballet. And he said, "Oh, Pete, come to

"Stuttgart, I need your help.

"I need a ballet master.

"What are you doing?"

I said, "John, I'm just about to sign a contract with the BBC,"

and he was appalled and horrified.

He said, "You can't go into television.

"Your work should be in the theatre. Come and join me."

John had a way of persuading people to do things for him,

even if they really didn't think they could.

Stop. Now, coming off pointe, it's lovely through the foot,

but can you stay a little bit more.

I think it was because of his great loyalty and his admiration

for Cranko that Peter decided to change his mind about

the television career and give himself to Cranko.

And...

John was, in a way, one of the most important,

if not the most important, influences my life.

Yes!

Now, why not?

Every time.

Because he made me believe in myself.

He gave me huge responsibilities and he got me to choreograph.

I was doing a bit of choreography and actually I produced

one or two things which were quite good.

And...

Yes.

In building up the company in Stuttgart,

Cranko needed new productions of the classics

and asked Peter Wright to stage the great romantic ballet, Giselle.

Giselle is a peasant girl,

who is wooed by Duke Albrecht in disguise.

When his secret is revealed, she supposedly dies from heart failure.

Whoops.

I said, "John, no way can I do Giselle.

"I don't like the ballet particularly.

"That simpering little girl hopping around with her funny heart."

Of course, I actually had never taken Giselle very seriously,

except one time when I had seen the Bolshoi do it, with Galina Ulanova.

APPLAUSE

Who, even to this day, remains the greatest Giselle I've ever seen.

She was just wonderful.

I can see why I was mad about her.

Every particle of her body is Giselle.

She so light and she's... You can see she's a young, excitable,

very excitable young girl.

I'd never seen it performed like this before

and it was an absolute revelation.

John, of course, persuaded me.

He said, "Well, I'm telling you, you've got to do it.

"You can have six weeks off to go and do some research

"and see what you can make of it."

Giselle became Wright's calling card around the world

and his version is still performed by the Royal Ballet.

The crucial scene in the ballet is when Giselle discovers

the Duke is already engaged to a noblewoman.

Many of the greatest dancers, including the Natalia Osipova

and Carlos Acosta, have embraced Wright's vision of the ballet.

If you go back to the beginning and realise how it was first evolved,

how it first evolved with the whole thing about Giselle,

whether she was a suicide or whether she died of

a broken heart, and I discovered in the original production,

it says she took out a great sword

and plunged it into her heart and died.

But over the years, some ballerinas didn't like killing themselves.

Sylvie Guillem was an absolute pain about it all.

She's so...

Well, she's very selfish.

And she said, "I don't care what it says in the programme.

"I don't care, it's me. I am dancing this role.

"And I, I don't kill myself.

"I am a modern Giselle and it's because my heart is affected."

And I said, "Well, OK."

She was a wonderful dancer, but my relationship with her

was not terribly good, because she didn't want to listen.

MUSIC: Giselle by Adolphe Adam

After 40 years, Wright's Giselle is still in the repertoire

of the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich,

where he recently restaged it.

If you're naughty, like Rudolf Nureyev used to be...

..you, you put her...

He takes your hand and he does...

Kisses it that way, which is a bit suggestive. Yes?

And then, you take your hand.

'When Peter starts a production,

'I think he really goes for the dramatic truth.'

-OK, does that make sense?

-Yes.

And I think for me, that's what makes

those productions work so well.

And the thing is, your character is a peasant.

And it needs that feeling all the time, that you love dancing.

You've got all these people and everything.

And for you, when you're dancing, it has all this dam-de-dam,

we used to...there and there.

-So, as much of that, if you can keep the feeling in this.

-Mm-hm.

Because you'll do it very, very well.

Of course, we're all in tights and pointe shoes

and all of those things, but it has to be as real as possible.

PIANO PLAYS

'And I think that's why people love those productions.

'Because they can really immerse themselves in them.'

And I think, for me, that's the genius of them.

One, two, three, four, five, six. One...

The second act of Giselle features the Wilis,

the ghosts of young women who have been betrayed by men.

Three, four, five, six.

One, two, three, four, five, six...

The Queen of the Wilis was one of the first major roles

performed by young Darcey Bussell almost 30 years ago,

under the direction of Peter Wright.

-That's more over.

-Mm-hm.

'I remember having to step into the role quite quickly,

'so I'd learned all the steps

'and it's also very strenuous and exhausting.

'And he said straight away, "OK, forget about this.'

"Forget about all the steps.

"I know you're preoccupied about trying to balance,

"in the fog, in the mist," we have all this mist on the stage.

He says, "I want you to play the story.

"It has to be all about who you are and why you're there.

"And your purpose."

And it changed the whole way I danced.

As soon as I had that in my head, of my character,

suddenly, all the steps made sense.

I thought it was one of the best advice I ever got very early on.

HE HUMS

-Evil.

-Evil, yes. Really, quite...

As if something terrible happened to you on your wedding night.

This is, "I'll never forgive that man!" Yes, but all the time.

So, it's not just a solo. Because you dance it very well.

PIANO PLAYS

Peter Wright's talent as a teacher and ballet master

was demonstrated in a television experiment in 1964.

All right, for the next exercise, Derek,

if you'd like to just come down here.

And we'll do battements glisses.

It was a specially shot class with Wright instructing

some Royal Ballet dancers soon to achieve fame.

They were very worried, actually,

when they thought they were being exposed,

because they didn't know where the camera was going to be

and I think they did feel uncomfortable.

'Good, and...'

Lynn Seymour there.

She, of course, is probably the most famous dramatic and classical dancer

that the Royal Ballet ever produced.

'Lynn, come here, would you? Demonstrate with you...'

She had a very pliable...

..wonderfully rounded way of moving.

Five, stretch,

and just bend the back, the head and neck.

Of all the dancers I knew,

she was the one who used to really dance the most.

'And she had exquisite feet.'

Three, and port de bras right round.

Round, and...

'And I just adored her, absolutely adored her.'

Up.

Good, all right...

I don't remember that at all, doing that. I'm pleased I did that.

Right, girls. Now, brainteaser.

-And two in.

-PIANO PLAYS

Two.

Eight, count.

Three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Glissade, feet, glissade, feet, glissade, feet...

Quite honestly, it wasn't my idea to have a brainteaser like that.

It was Maggie Dale, the director.

She wanted to show that dancers had to think.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

THEY GIGGLE

'Really did take them by surprise.'

All right. Do you want another go?

PIANO PLAYS

It was in his role as a teacher at the Royal Ballet that Wright

found himself faced with the mercurial star, Rudolf Nureyev.

'He arrived at class, ten minutes late.

'He went up to one of the boys at the barre,

'said, "You've got my place here." '

So, I went, "Excuse me, Mr Nureyev.

"The class is already started, this young man is...

"Look, there's plenty of space over there."

And no-one ever dared to speak to him, you see,

everyone was so in awe of him

because he's this famous runaway star.

And he was so amazed that I would even dare to say that.

And he did, he behaved absolutely perfect,

he did every exercise and that, and right through the class.

And it was because, I think, he was pushing people

because he was just establishing himself as this great star

and wanted to see how far he'd go

and he found he couldn't go very far with me,

so we had a very good relationship, actually.

By 1965, Wright's family had moved back to London,

and he took up a guest contract with the BBC,

to produce studio-based films of contemporary ballets.

The Sisters was the creation of his friend Kenneth MacMillan.

It was based on a play by Lorca

about repressed desires in a family of women.

'That's the thing I'm most proud of, in my television work.

'Kenneth had done this in Stuttgart.

'I decided it would really work rather well on television.

'So, we got some of the cast from Stuttgart

'and some from the Royal Ballet.'

Somehow, everything seemed right

and Kenneth was in fairly good form too

and he was keen on it being done.

And it had Marcia Haydee and Ray Barra,

Monica Mason was in it as the jealous sister.

We felt like dance actors, because Peter took such great care

about the cameras and how we were going to be filmed.

It was wonderful, because, of course,

they'd built the house and there was an interior and an exterior.

The wonderful thing about television

is you can make the eye go to the right place at the right time,

and that's, I think, what choreography should do

much, much more on the stage.

So many times, you're on the stage, there's so much happening,

it's only on about the fifth time you've seen it,

you actually get the whole thing.

Something downstage left, they're handing over some vital piece...

Oh, yes.

What's good about it is it's a very strong story.

It's a very strong narrative and therefore,

you could get right inside the people's reactions.

And it's a story you can tell in vision and movement, absolutely.

These days, narrative ballets, when they do happen,

they are so complicated and so difficult,

-you spend it trying to work out...

-Who is who.

And yet, you can only really understand by reading the programme.

So, why bother?

The whole thing is to do it,

communicate the story in movement and dance and everything.

Frederick Ashton, the great choreographer,

was impressed by Peter Wright's talents as a storyteller

and invited him to mount a brand-new production

of The Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Ballet.

The Sleeping Beauty had been one of the glories of Covent Garden

for over 20 years, so the stakes were high.

'I always found the most tiresome part

'was when it comes to the big moment,

'the kiss and waking up and falling in love.

'That's when you need a pas de deux.

'As it was, at the Opera House, she wakes up...'

..looks at him, they all get up and all run forward into a pose.

Isn't this lovely?

-I'm being a bit beastly now, but...

-HE LAUGHS

But anyway, I decided and I got, I asked Frederick Ashton,

"Couldn't he do a pas de deux?"

I said, "I found the most wonderful music."

And Fred listened to it and he adored it.

But the purists weren't keen about it at all.

They didn't like the fact I'd changed such a major moment.

And when the next production came, it was...thrown out.

Wright was offered another chance to produce The Sleeping Beauty

by the Dutch National Ballet,

who have kept his version in their repertoire.

He incorporated ideas suggested by his research

into the original 19th-century choreography by Petipa.

I've always thought that those two characters,

Carabosse, the evil side, and the Lilac Fairy, good...

They should be two symbolic figures and should be dressed accordingly,

as they were in the original.

Of course, in the original, the Lilac Fairy didn't dance.

She was in a longish dress and her main part was mime.

And the same with Carabosse.

I wanted to get back to that.

I do it now all the time, with many productions I've done,

is to make the two characters equal in power.

'Peter is producing more or less'

old classics, one might call them.

And breathing fresh life into them and really producing them.

He's great at that.

Some traditions in ballet have, however,

proved resistant to Peter Wright's ideas.

Those four beastly cygnets...

..in Act Two...

..suddenly came on, and they pranced around the stage.

Nothing to do with the story at all.

I would like, I'm still thinking of it,

but I think it's a bit late now, to put that same dance,

it's a brilliant dance they do, brilliant, it brings the house down,

but it spoils the acts for me, where it could be wonderful

in a different way they're dressed and everything,

as an entertainment in Act Three, and it would fit in much better.

It would be an outcry if I'd just got rid of it.

Everyone loves those cygnets.

I don't, I think they're...

I love the dance, everything about it,

except it doesn't belong to the story.

In 1970, a wind of change at Covent Garden

saw Kenneth MacMillan as the new director of the Royal Ballet.

He brought in Peter Wright as his deputy,

and to run a much reduced touring company.

Peter Wright was very much his right hand.

And really, Kenneth was very busy creating.

Yeah, let's just sort Mary's feet out.

But the person who was in the office was Peter,

and the person who was available for them,

for the moans that inevitably we had, was Peter.

He wanted so much to be director, but he found it very difficult.

Mainly because he was so involved with his choreography,

and he did find it very hard to mix the two.

Good, fine.

When MacMillan resigned in 1977,

Wright was passed over as his successor.

But now, at the age of 50,

he was promoted to full-time director

of the Royal Ballet's touring company.

Based at Sadler's Wells, and renamed Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet,

it grew in size and could again perform such classics as Coppelia -

danced in Wright's own exuberant production.

At that time, the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet

performed more than the Royal Ballet.

And so there was a lot of opportunity to do roles, get ahead.

And he was a really great director.

Very approachable.

Also demanded of the best.

We tour between 20 and 23 weeks a year.

It's a hard slog, of course it is.

But there's never a feeling, really, of the same old routine.

Someone will be sick,

and the people whose names are just in brackets on the cast list

nearly always get a chance to shine.

And the fact sometimes you have to get up, and at a moment's notice

get out on that stage and do your thing without too much preparation

is the best training in the world, in a way.

I remember my very first tour joining the company

and going out in September and coming back at Christmas.

And because nobody in those days really had cars

and we performed six days a week and travelled on a Sunday...

I say "travelled on a Sunday" - you TRIED to travel on a Sunday.

You know, back in the '70s,

trying to travel on British Rail in the '70s,

I remember going from here, from Birmingham to Norwich once,

and it literally took the entire day.

You know, we had nothing to eat.

I think the ballet mistress had a packet of digestives.

You know, they were gone by the time we'd arrived in Norwich.

In the 1980s, the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet frequently

toured to all the corners of the world.

And Wright would often have to leave his wife, Sonya, behind.

Because we had two children,

she could only very occasionally come out on tour with me.

Sonya was absolutely wonderful, the way she coped with me.

Because I did work incredibly hard

and I used to get in a state about things.

She'd say, "For God's sake, Pete, it's only a ballet."

Which is how she felt about it much more than I did.

I thought everything was so, so important.

There are some directors of ballet companies

who are artistic directors.

Peter was always the director,

and he saw that as an opportunity

to be involved in every aspect of what the company did.

Not just what happened on the stage or happened in the studio,

but in the wardrobe department, in the press and marketing.

He checked every single photograph that went on a leaflet.

He could be quite irritating at times, it has to be said.

But that is the mark of a true director -

getting involved in everything.

Peter was very exacting, not just in how you performed the technique,

how you behaved, and how you looked.

I remember doing one of my first big roles

and I thought I'd done quite well.

You know, it had gone OK and I was pleased.

And Peter came down and the first thing he said was,

"We've got to do something about your eyebrows!"

He'd always say,

"You've got to close your mouth, you've got to close your mouth!

"You can't go around like this... all the time!"

And he also said, "You look like you're chatting when you smile,"

and I think that was also about trying to gasp air.

He said, "Come on, you've got to breathe through the nose."

So there was always instruction

on how I looked and how I presented myself.

It wasn't just about performing well.

Darcey Bussell was finishing ballet school

when Peter Wright selected her for the touring company.

He was impressed by her talent, but not her name.

I said to her,

Darcey, maybe you should talk to your parents or something

about perhaps changing your name.

Erm... OK, so what have you got in mind?

You know, thinking, oh, I won't try and stand my ground here,

I'll just ask straight away. And he said, "Russell".

And I went, Russell? Bussell?

I don't think that's a big enough change for me - like that!

And he went, well, at least there's a different meaning.

I mean, everybody's going to think you must have something attached.

I said, it's spelled different. It's not a bustle in a costume.

And so I was able to fight my way through that one and go,

"No, I'm not changing my name.

"I understand, but I'm going to stick with it."

Thank God I was wrong.

And I was totally wrong.

Because it's been a very different sort of name

and it's caught on.

In 1987, Peter Wright heard by chance that the Royal Opera House

was planning with the city of Birmingham

to make the Hippodrome Theatre a new base for his company.

Your fear was that the city council just wanted to buy a ballet company?

Buy a ballet company and use it for its own purposes

of advertising Birmingham

and all the wonderful culture that was going on

and use it for big occasions and all that.

But, anyway, I came up and I talked to the director

of the theatre, and the chairman. and various other people.

And I was pleasantly surprised.

I felt their intentions were honourable, shall we say?

And they really wanted to have a ballet company,

and give it all it needed

to develop and even go further.

He knew that it's all very well to say, "Agreed."

But somebody, and it was he,

was going to have to persuade every single member of the company

that it made sense for them to agree to stay together

and come with the company to Birmingham.

We had a performance of La Fille Mal Gardee, and we were in Oxford.

Before the show, we were called to the stage at around seven o'clock

or something, wondering what it was, and I can see us all in that set.

And Peter said, "You will hear tomorrow that it will be in the news

"that there's an idea that the company might move to Birmingham."

And, oh...

He was very anxious that the company might refuse to go to Birmingham,

or that some would go and some would say, no, we're staying here.

I think it was very hard for us all to give that jolly, you know,

performance of La Fille Mal Gardee, that exuberance that you need.

Because at that time, Birmingham was a very different city

to what it is now.

The audiences were not good.

When we used to go to Birmingham, it was really hard to fill the houses.

And so it just felt...

Why?

You know, that was it. Really, just why?

-REPORTER:

-Birmingham City Council has already spent £5 million

renovating the Hippodrome.

It's to spend another five accommodating Sadler's Wells

and believes the prestige is worth every penny.

When I saw this company at work,

I thought, this is absolutely terrific.

I'm a bit of a Philistine,

but I can appreciate the great professionalism,

the great artistry that make up this company.

And I think more and more people in Birmingham

will be going to see them.

The great day came when we had to go up to Birmingham formally

to say, "We're here, it's going to happen."

And Peter and I and Ninette de Valois

went up on the train.

Madam didn't want to sit beside the two of us,

because she really wanted to drive the train.

She was nearer 90 than 80, you know.

She was wonderfully cooperative.

Which is right and proper,

because it all stems from her, the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

It really does.

And her traditions.

Ninette de Valois, who created the Royal Ballet in 1931,

was a lifelong force in the history of the company.

And always an inspiration to Peter Wright,

from his first encounter with her when he was a teenager.

I wanted to see the Royal Ballet belong to the whole of England,

not just one little spot.

It's happened.

And for that reason,

I'm a very, very happy old lady today.

APPLAUSE

Hello, welcome.

Glad to see you again.

Peter Wright's company, now named Birmingham Royal Ballet,

moved into their new home in 1990.

Their first performance was given in the presence of royalty.

In gratitude to the city of Birmingham,

Wright staged a new production of The Nutcracker -

the traditional Christmas fantasy ballet.

In Nutcracker, there is very little original choreography.

There's the snowflakes, but it's only the floor patterns.

And of course, there's the grand pas de deux in the last act.

There are several things,

but only about, at the most, 10% of the whole ballet.

So really I guess about 90%,

and all the production's ideas and effects,

they're all mine.

The story of The Nutcracker follows the dream of young Clara,

whose Christmas toy is transformed into a prince,

who takes her to the fantasyland of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Before his Birmingham production,

Peter Wright had staged a version of The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet.

In that production, his aim had been to stay as faithful as possible

to the 19th-century period setting.

It's a much more historically-based production.

Much more authentically designed.

Whereas I think the lovely thing about the Birmingham Royal Ballet

production is that it was designed by John Macfarlane.

It's much more fantastical.

Working with a kind of easel painter who also happens to be a stage

designer, it just brings a whole different kind of imagination to it.

I was so in harmony with the whole way you painted and also

I felt I could say anything to you, actually, which is so important.

-And that has continued, hasn't it?

-It has, yes.

THEY LAUGH

I think for me, of the three Tchaikovskys,

the one I never imagined I would do was Nutcracker.

I wanted the mice to be proper frightening rats, actually,

preferably, and not little children doing it and I'd never...

I know the previous one at the Opera House,

the scale change is extremely, extremely good but, of course,

they have the lifts and the tree comes out the floor from,

you know, two, three floors down.

And I wanted, if possible,

to take the scale change even further than that.

So you honestly felt that she was literally down to sitting on

the fireplace so that she was the same size as

a rat when it jumped out the fireplace.

And the third thing, which,

whenever I'd seen any bits and pieces of Nutcracker,

I'd always disliked, was that at the beginning of Act Two,

Clara arrives and sits on her bottom through

the whole of the act and watches.

And the minute somebody does that onstage, I think you lose a bit of

your audience, because you go, "Oh, I know what's going to happen

"now, how many diverts do we have to go?"

-I'd said all this to Peter.

-Hmm.

In Wright's Birmingham production, Clara now

no longer just watches the action, but participates in the dances.

And I think instantly that changes the goalposts, because you're

saying, "How can we take Clara and travel through it

-"and hold the audience with you?"

-Yes.

Because otherwise, my feeling is,

that the tip into little episodic numbers, which is,

of course, what the scores are, and the thing about Peter's productions,

all of them, they explain the story so that you care about it.

Later today, the ballet world will say goodbye to one of its

greatest figures - Sir Peter Wright,

the director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet is retiring after 18 years.

Wright was obliged to retire following a serious illness,

myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease that particularly

affects speech and the ability to swallow food.

You could die of it and a lot of people did.

I was lucky, because I didn't have it very badly.

And it was the most ghastly period of my life, because it...

I was in the hospital for three months.

He looked very poorly, very frail and of course was not well for

a long time after he had recovered.

Sonya used to come nearly every day.

She managed to make me feel I wasn't really very ill at all.

She was the perfect wife and lover and I remember her all the time.

And I always will.

I don't know anything about the future after death,

what happens then.

I hope I meet her again, but I'm a bit doubtful about that.

Peter Wright handed over the directorship

of Birmingham Royal Ballet to David Bintley,

but he eventually made a full recovery and often returns

to the city to oversee his productions,

including The Nutcracker.

-Good.

-I think, just a sec, I'd like you to hug.

That's it! Say, "Oh, I love you, Daddy! Grandpa..."

Whatever it is. Yes.

And somehow... She's too near. Can't you jump from a bit further away?

No, you see, you're... I want you to just...

Can we just look at the crossings?

One and two and three and four and five and six and seven

and eight and one and two and three and four, five and six... Boom.

That's it. Good. Hug him. Oh, that's it.

Maybe he shouldn't step down as director because, my God,

he's got more energy than I have.

But he's got an extraordinary capacity for work

and an interest in what still goes on in the ballet.

Oh, terrible diagonal.

He really has dedicated his life to this.

He's still takes rehearsals, he still jets about setting

these works all over the place and, well, it's an extraordinary thing.

Good.

Every time he comes here, it's a warmth around the building.

You know, because I think it means so much to him, this company.

It's wonderful for him to kind of pass on

so much knowledge with his ballets.

Here you are, 26 years later, rehearsing Nutcracker in the studio.

-Yes.

-Do you feel it still looks the same?

-Better.

From his early years as a dancer,

through his work as a choreographer, a teacher,

television director, running a great British touring company,

and creating enduring productions of the classics, Sir Peter Wright

has proved himself a master of the ballet in many forms.

But of all his achievements,

he is most proud of Birmingham Royal Ballet,

who perform his Nutcracker almost every year at Christmas.

This is the opening of our Nutcracker season.

It also happens to be Sir Peter Wright's 90th birthday.

APPLAUSE

And he's chosen to spend his birthday with us. Sir Peter Wright.

I've had a most wonderful time here. Wonderful.

And thank you, all of you for coming,

and David for bringing this company up and up and up

and creating a wonderful organisation.

Thank you. Thank you very much.