Symphonic Variations (ballet)

Symphonic Variations
Choreographer	Frederick Ashton
Premiere	24 April 1946 Royal Opera House, London
Original ballet company	Sadler's Wells Ballet
Design	Sophie Fedorovitch

Symphonic Variations is a one-act ballet by Frederick Ashton set to the eponymous music (M. 46) of César Franck. The premiere, performed by the Sadler's Wells Ballet, took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 24 April 1946 in a triple bill; the other works were Ashton's Les Patineurs and Robert Helpmann's Adam Zero. The ballet was conducted by Constant Lambert and the set designed by Sophie Fedorovitch.

During the Second World War, Ashton listened to Franck's Symphonic Variations a great deal and he decided to develop an elaborate scenario to be set to the music. Constant Lambert, music director for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, at first objected to the use of Franck's music for a ballet; Ashton dropped his original scenario and created an abstract ballet. During the war, the repertory had become increasingly literary, and Ashton's purpose was to counteract this. It was not his intention to display ingenuity of invention but to construct a more abstract piece, setting three men and three women dancing on the vast expanse of the Opera House stage uncluttered with scenery and effect.

The critic A V Coton described the ballet:

The curtain rises on a vast stage, and before the deep-set backcloth of sprayed white and green are seen six immobile and minute dancers, clad all in white, with a little black relief here and there. Nothing is stated about place, person, condition or circumstance. ...The disparity between these persons and all the vast area of their action proposes an imagery of infinities. ... In each of these instances a choreographer of assured mastery, moving perhaps to some degree deliberately, and to some extent intuitively, has re-stated the primary function of theatrical dancing by re-shaping in basic material into a new and exciting assemblage of images.

In the opening season the cast was

In the following season Shaw and Danton were replaced by John Hart and Alexander Grant. In the first production and early revivals the work was regarded as making such demands on the dancers that they took no part in any other ballet on the same evening's bill. Margaret Dale in conversation with David Vaughan commented, "Even though Symphonic Variations more than any other ballet creates a feeling of serenity, for the dancers, in the beginning it was an 'absolute marathon', and made demands on them that had never been made before. ... It was a test of sheer stamina that very few British dancers could stand at that time."

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