The Wise Virgins

The Wise Virgins is a one-act ballet that was created in 1940 with choreography by Frederick Ashton, to a score of music by Johann Sebastian Bach orchestrated by William Walton, and based on the biblical Parable of the Ten Virgins.

The music of the ballet was the first to be decided. Some years before, at an evening gathering in Cambridge with Boris Ord and Constant Lambert (Music Director of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet), the two musicians played some Bach at the piano. One of the pieces was the cantata containing Sheep may safely graze. Believing it to be a religious subject, Ashton, wanting to use this music, chose the parable of the wise and foolish virgins from the Gospel of Matthew . According to Michael Somes, it was a later meeting with Patrick Hadley where Hadley and Lambert played Bach’s music which settled the sequence of musical numbers for the ballet. The numbers were selected from Bach’s cantatas and chorale preludes,

Designer Rex Whistler was chosen for his sympathy with Baroque art, from his studies in Rome. Ashton was also inspired by 18th century sculpture and architecture, and tried to depict with the dancers' bodies "the swirling, rich, elaborate contortions of the baroque."

The Wise Virgins was first performed on 24 April 1940 by the Vic Wells Company (The Royal Ballet) at Sadler's Wells Theatre, with Margot Fonteyn (the Bride), Michael Somes (the Bridegroom), Claude Newman (the Father), and Annabel Farjeon (the Mother) in the leading roles. It continued in the company’s repertoire until 1944. A suite of movements from the ballet has been recorded several times since then.

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