Breathless improvisation saved ballet fest during deluge

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This article was published 23/09/2023 (745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AS hosts of the One Great History podcast, Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge love exploring Winnipeg’s past. With Winnipeg’s sesquicentennial approaching, the two have produced a podcast series that explores the city’s colourful history. The series is presented through the lens of 15 historical figures, focusing on critical events surrounding their lives and their impact on Winnipeg. The series will conclude Nov. 9, the day when Winnipeg became a city 150 years ago. Summaries from each podcast will be republished in the Free Press. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and through the One Great History website — onegreathistory.wordpress.com

The Canadian Ballet Festival was off to a rocky start.

It was the spring of 1948, and the Winnipeg Ballet Company was in the midst of organizing a brand-new event: bringing together Canada’s disparate ballet companies for a weekend of performances, highlighting the creativity and talent of Canada’s dancers. Participating were Toronto’s Boris Volkoff Ballet, Quebec’s Ruth Sorel Group, the Vancouver Ballet and, of course, the Winnipeg Ballet. High-profile guests had been invited, the Pantages Playhouse Theatre had been booked and tickets were selling fast.

And then, just 72 hours before the festival was scheduled to start, the basement of the Pantages Playhouse Theatre flooded. Much of downtown was flooded, in fact, as the Red and Assiniboine rivers’ waters had risen over the banks. It had left Winnipeg’s streets water-logged, and the Canadian Ballet Festival without a venue.

The Winnipeg Ballet was left scrambling. Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farraly, the founders of the ballet, and artistic director and ballet mistress respectively, worked tirelessly with stage manager David Yeddeau to find a new space to perform. The three, nicknamed the “Holy Trinity” by dancer Arnold Sphor, had been working together since 1939 — when Lloyd and Farraly had hired Yeddeau as a stage manager and technical assistant. By 1948, Yeddeau had taken on a number of other responsibilities including fundraising and the operation of the Canadian Ballet Festival.

The trio procured a new venue: the Odeon Theatre, which mercifully remained dry. However, the venue fee was too high to also cover the travel costs for all the visiting companies. So, tearfully, the Vancouver Ballet was cut from the festival. And, once Yeddeau visited the Odeon, he discovered a new setback. The last performance to grace the Odeon stage had been a circus act, complete with animals — namely, elephants. Elephants who had, in the process, damaged the stage.

Thankfully, the Winnipeg Ballet had talented friends. The University of Manitoba’s dean of architecture, John Russel, possessed a passion for theatre and had a hand in designing sets for the Winnipeg Ballet for years. After a night of calling in favours, Russel arranged the repairs of the broken stage just in time for the opening performance on May 30. It was a two-day festival with three performances, the last a Saturday evening grand finale with all three troupes performing. Canada’s governor general, Lord Alexander, and his wife were in attendance at the final performance, as were the lieutenant governor of Manitoba and visiting officials from India and Australia. Members of various consulates, too, were in attendance, and the theatre was adorned with various world flags to show it.

The initial schedule looked something like this: Winnipeg Ballet’s noir whodunit Chapter 13, Ruth Sorel’s Three Miniatures, the Winnipeg company performing Etude and the Volkoff group closing the night with dances from Prince Igor. There were meant to be intermissions between the performances; or at least that was the plan until Yeddeau learned the governor general and his wife planned on leaving as soon as the Winnipeg Ballet had finished — thereby missing all the guest companies’ performances. Yeddeau rushed backstage and informed everyone of the plan: they were to run the whole show, start to finish, without a break.

And, despite the setbacks and last-minute changes, the Canadian Ballet Festival was a success. Warmly reviewed, well-attended and popular enough that the National Ballet Association was formed to organize future national festivals.

Dancing at the first Canadian Ballet Festival, to the point of collapse, was Arnold Spohr. Spohr was a mainstay with the company as one of their prominent dancers and the Winnipeg Ballet’s future artistic director — though it would take another decade for him to assume the role.

The early 1950s saw a series of highs and lows for the ballet. They performed during the 1951 royal visit, created the first Canadian-themed ballet Shadow on the Prairie (filmed by the National Film Board in 1953), and were given a royal title by Queen Elizabeth that same year. But behind the scenes, the ballet suffered several years of financial strain, faced a disastrous fire that destroyed all of their early records, and saw the departure of the original Holy Trinity. It was in the aftermath of all this that Spohr took the job of artistic director — a position he would hold for the following 30 years.

Spohr would see many of his old friends from the ballet, along with the dancers from the first Canadian Ballet Festival, together again at the 40th anniversary of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1978. There, in front of ballet members new and old, Spohr spoke fondly of the early days of the ballet and his old mentors: “Thank you dear Gweneth Lloyd, Betty Farraly and David Yeddeau for being my friends. Thank you for teaching me so well, giving me care, time, discipline and preparing my artistic life. You gave me a legacy that I have continued with this company.”