Keith Lester: the resurrector of the Pas de Quatre
An insight into the man who brought one of the Romantic Era's greatest ballets back to the stage
There exists a lithograph that acts as a visualisation to a ballet that was first presented to the public 180 years ago. This lithograph is one of four dark-haired ballerinas, each wearing a light pink Romantic tutu; their hair and bodices adorned with roses. Two are kneeling at the front, one is standing at the back and they are surrounding the fourth ballerina, who is standing en pointe, her neck and wrists adorned with pearls, as if she is their queen. These are not just any ballerinas - they are Marie Taglioni, Lucile Grahn, Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Cerrito, four of the great ballerinas of the Romantic Era.1 The lithograph, designed by Alfred Edward Chalon, immortalising these danseuses, is depicting a “sculpturesque group” from the Pas de Quatre, a ballet divertissement created especially for the four women to bring them together and showcase their individualities by probably the Romantic Era’s greatest duo, choreographer Jules Perrot and composer Cesare Pugni.
The Pas de Quatre premièred on the 12th July 1845 at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London and it was a wonderful success, though it was only performed four times with its original cast. The third performance was attended by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Afterwards, the Pas de Quatre was rarely if ever performed; it was revived in 1847 at its London home for just two performances with Carolina Rosati dancing Lucile Grahn’s role. On three occasions, it was staged abroad by Filippo Taglioni - first on the 14th March 1846 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; second on the 12th October 1847 at the Court Theatre, Warsaw and then nine days later at the Teatr Wielki on the 21st October.
Today, the Pas de Quatre has been danced all over the world, though it is still one of the more rarely performed ballets. But the reason why it is active today is thanks to the man who resurrected it 89 years after its last known performance… a British dancer, choreography and teacher by the name of Keith Lester.
Who was Keith Lester?
Keith Lester is one of those important ballet figures who has long been ignored, unheard of and/or forgotten.
He was born in Guildford, England on the 4th April 1904, which, by coincidence, was the same year in which some of ballet’s other most important figures were born - Sir Frederick Ashton, Sir Anton Dolin, George Balanchine, Alexandra Danilova and Sonia Gaskell. It was when Lester saw a performance by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that he found the calling to dance. He trained with two graduates of the Saint Petersburg Theatre School and dancers of Marius Petipa’s Imperial Ballet - Serafina Astafieva, a Petipa soloist, who subsequently danced with the Ballets Russes, and Nikolai Legat, who had been one of Petipa’s Premier Danseurs. Lester made his professional début in 1923 and his early performances included the ballets of Mikhail Fokine. He partnered some of the greatest ballerinas of his time, including Olga Spessivtseva, Lydia Kyaksht and Tamara Karsavina. Lester became Karsavina’s partner during a European tour she was embarking on when her original partner Pierre Vladimirov abruptly left. Suddenly partnerless, Karsavina had to quickly find a replacement and Lester was discovered by ballet enthusiast Poppoea Vanda. Lester quickly set out for Riga to join Karsavina and it all worked out well. He also danced with Ida Rubenstein’s company in 1934 and with the Markova-Dolin Ballet from 1935 to 1937.
Karsavina wrote of Lester:
Keith was certainly strong, and tall for a ballet dancer and, to my agreeable surprise, highly competent in support. When I learned that he had been Olga Spessivtseva’s partner in Fokine’s seasons, I understood where his skills came from. I also realised, in the course of our collaboration, that he must have given much serious study and analysis to the “whys” and “hows” of the intricacies of double work. Not a small achievement was to have memorised the whole of our programme in one afternoon. No doubt, his work with Fokine contributed to our mutual understanding and enabled us to use a common language, that of the Russian school, its definitions and terminology.
The rest of the season in Riga went without a hitch, as if we had been partners for a long time. I felt safe in Keith’s hands; he was alert to my slightest variation of movement.2
As well as dancing, Lester had a talent for choreography, something he would first showcase when he was commissioned to choreograph several works for the Markova-Dolin Ballet, including a ballet called David in 1935 and in 1936, he revived and recreated the long-lost Pas de Quatre. He also danced with Antony Tudor’s London Ballet in 1939, for which he choreographed the Pas des déesees, a divertissement from Le Jugement de Paris, another lost ballet by Perrot and Pugni3. In 1940, Lester co-founded the Arts Theatre Ballet, for which he choreographed his own version of Léo Delibes’ Sylvia. His last commissioned work was for Festival Ballet (now, English National Ballet) in 1955. Between 1946 and 1966, Lester worked as choreographer at the Windmill Theatre in London’s West End where he choreographed several works that featured naked dancers and fan/feather dances.
In 1961, Lester began teaching at the Royal Academy of Dance and during his tenure, he codified the teaching syllabus that is now known as the Karsavina Syllabus, which combines elements from Fokine, the 19th century Imperial Ballet and the Italian method of Enrico Cecchetti. In 1965, Lester became Principal of the College of the RAD and he would remain in the post until his retirement in 1975. He died on the 8th June 1993 at the age of 89.
Keith Lester undoubtedly made some important contributions to ballet, but his legacy is one of those that was overshadowed by those of others, in his case, Sir Anton Dolin. It is Dolin’s version of the Pas de Quatre that is commonly performed today and for years, he has been erroneously credited as having revived the ballet, primarily because he claimed he did. But what about Lester? How did Dolin get the credit while Lester was pushed into the shadows?
Revival of the Pas de Quatre
It was during his tenure with the Markova-Dolin Ballet that Lester resurrected the Pas de Quatre. The ballet had not been performed since the 19th century and Perrot’s choreography did not survive. But in the 1930s, British ballet historian and writer Cyril Beaumont discovered the piano reduction score in the British Museum and shared it with Lester, Dolin and Markova. Lester was commissioned to revive the ballet divertissement, so he studied the lithograph by Challon and other 19th century lithographs, and accounts and reviews from eyewitnesses. Lester’s recreation of the Pas de Quatre premièred in London in 1936. So why does Dolin’s name always appear as the choreographer and not Lester? It all started in 1940.
That year, Dolin travelled to New York and joined the newly-form Ballet Theatre (now, American Ballet Theatre). The co-founder, Lucia Chase requested for the Pas de Quatre to be staged for Ballet Theatre and Dolin sent word to Lester, asking for his notes on the ballet. Lester agreed and sent Dolin the notes. However, Dolin claimed that the notes never arrived, that they were lost on the transatlantic crossing, so he took it upon himself to stage the Pas de Quatre. Dolin’s staging premièred on the 16th July 1941 at the Majestic Theatre in New York, starring Nana Gollner, Alicia Alonso, Nathalie Krassovska and Mia Slavenska. According to an associate of Lester, Lester said that Dolin’s staging was “a straightforward pinch of his 1936 version.” A student of Paul Petroff, the husband of Nana Gollner, said Petroff told them “that [Dolin’s version] was basically stolen from Keith Lester’s staging.” What is clear is this is a case of plagiarism: Dolin staged Lester’s work in his own fashion and never credited Lester, though Lester was still paid by Lucia Chase. Lester never sued Dolin because at the time, copyright in ballets did not yet exist, so it would have been too troublesome to sue, let alone publicly accuse. But according to one of his students, he made peace with the matter and carried on with his career.
Although Dolin’s version has been danced around the world ever since, Lester was not completely ignored. In 1948, Alicia Alonso staged her own staging of the Pas de Quatre for her newly-founded company the National Ballet of Cuba and she credited Lester for the version she staged, having learned of it when she was at ABT. Alonso revived her staging in 1966 and she also staged it for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1973 and for the Polish National Ballet in 1980. Lester’s version, or at least one that was heavily based on it, was staged for the National Dance Company in Mexico, first in 1953 by Felipe Segura and then again in 1966 by ABT Ballet Master Michael Land. Other stagers of Lester’s version, or that are heavily based on it, include Cuban ballerina and teacher Aurora Bosh and Mexican dancer and teacher Laura Echevarría. And, there is another place where it was not absent from…
As I learned from some of his students, Lester taught his Pas de Quatre at the RAD for student performances. One of his students recalled how she danced it at her graduation performance in 1984. Adding to the importance, his version was notated by Michelle Groves in 1980 and by Dr Ann Hutchinson-Guest in Labanotation and I believe the scores are located in the RAD library and archives. So, Lester’s Pas de Quatre has survived and is available for staging should companies and/or schools decide to come calling.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article is not to point the finger at anyone, but to correct the history and to give credit where credit is due. The correct history is that it was Keith Lester who recreated the Pas de Quatre, not Anton Dolin. Unfortunately, Lester’s legacy fell into the shadows, but his students know what he did and now, more of us are learning what he did, so it is important that we all know his name. I only hope that with this essay, I can help contribute to getting him the recognition he deserves. Not only did he bring back to life a legendary ballet, he also greatly contributed to the development of British ballet, not in the least in the form of a teaching syllabus bearing the name of his great dance partner, one should be known by many outside the RAD. The ballet world owes Lester a huge debt of gratitude and respect, and his legacy should be recognised for his contributions as a teacher and as the real resurrector of the Pas de Quatre.
References
There were five great ballerinas of the Romantic Era, the fifth was Fanny Elssler, who did not participate in the Pas de Quatre.
Tamara Karsavina (1967) An English Partner: Keith Lester. Dancing Times, December 1967, p. 143
Le Jugement de Paris premièred at Her Majesty’s Theatre on the 23rd July 1846. Something of a successor to the Pas de Quatre, it starred Marie Taglioni, Fanny Cerrito and Lucile Grahn as the three goddesses (there is confusion regarding their identities, but according to Grahn, they were Venus, Juno and Minerva), Arthur Saint-Léon as Paris and Jules Perrot as the god Mercury. This was the ballet in which Taglioni danced her farewell performance from the stage on the 21st August 1847.
Sources
Kennetha O’Heany
David Leonard
Mark Carlson
Blandine Lamaison
Rue Lynn Galbraith
Adam Huczka
Dr Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, New Steps, Old Steps: Retracing the legacy of Keith Lester (1904-1993). Royal Academy of Dance, London, UK
Peter Brinson (1993) Obituary: Keith Lester. The Independent, 21st June 1993
Tamara Karsavina (1967) An English Partner: Keith Lester. Dancing Times, December 1967, p. 143, 145, 147, 148
Ivor Guest (1954) The Romantic Ballet in England. Hampshire, UK: 2014 ed. Dance Books Ltd
Ivor Guest (1985) Jules Perrot: Master of the Romantic Ballet. London, UK: Dance Books Ltd
Oxford Reference - Keith Lester
YouTube: Pas de Quatre - ENDCC INBA, Jules Perrot & Keith Lester (1997)