1962 - Russian Dancers come to Dublin

“This wasn’t very straight forward as there was no Russian embassy in Ireland in 1962. They without preamble agreed immediately and suggested that I call on the cultural Embassy in London. A day and date was agreed on. I stayed with Merial Evans and Luke Asquith who kindly put me up. Warned me not to get taken hostage! At the Embassy I talked to the Cultural Ambassador who assured me there would be no difficulty and I was to rest assured that Russia would send over 2 young dancers. So far so good. the Russians had the optimism as I had. On my return and through an ambitious solicitor John Lovett Dolan, I was informed that I would have to have permission from the Irish Government since there was no embassy and the Irish high court would have to be brought in to agree on the Russian visas etc. I suppose on the whole it seemed to go smoothly. No doubt the Russians saw an opportunity to get a foothold in Ireland and vice versa. It was decided that two dancers would perform Act11 from Swan Lake and divertissement.”

“We had the good wishes of Dame Ninette de Valois who gave us 12 long white classical costumes  for the corps and also two dancers from the Royal Ballet, Ronald Hynd & Annette Page who had performed here two years previously. Alls well & we began rehearsals apart from the classical ballets. We had a change of programme through the week.  Also, and not last Ben Stevenson from Festival Ballet would also come over to dance. Christopher West (Covent Garden) worked out rehearsal times & devised the programme changes. So in the end we would have the English dancers at the start of the week  & the Russians to finish it. (Royal Ballet: Monday Tuesday Wednesday) (Russians: Thursday, Friday, Saturday)”