The first, Checkmate, features the swords and comes from Dame Ninette de Valois. She was born in Ireland in 1898 – giving herself the French-sounding name while a teenager – and went on to found a London ballet school that was the precursor to the Royal Ballet School. Her Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet toured to Australia in 1956, sowing the seeds for what would become the Australian Ballet. She gifted Checkmate to the Australian Ballet in 1986. Her dramatic, expressionistic 1937 work danced upon a chessboard stars the duplicitous Black Queen who leaves a trail of death and destruction in her wake.
Concerto is from the Scottish-born Sir Kenneth MacMillan - he wrote to Dame Ninette at age 15 using his father’s name to score a place in her ballet school. His 1966 work, danced to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 2, is considered technically fiendish. “It’s an extraordinarily taxing ballet,” says McAllister. “He put in all these really, really hard steps. It’s a beautiful piece of music – quite glorious – but it’s tricky with these quite intricate rhythmic patterns.”
Christopher Wheeldon created After the Rain in 2005 for the New York City Ballet. Continuing the intergenerational thread among these choreographers, Sir Kenneth once gave Wheeldon inspirational advice: “You seem to have some talent for choreography; you should take every opportunity you have to practice it and make ballets.”
Wheeldon took Sir Kenneth’s advice to heart. Today, he’s still just 38 but is considered one of the world’s best choreographers. “His work looks contemporary but it’s so timeless,” says McAllister.
For those ballet aficionados wondering what might be in store for the company’s 50th anniversary next year, McAllister says: “Next year is the year – we’ve got a mixture of heritage, new and important works.” All will be unveiled in August.
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