Frederick Ashton

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Lore & Background

Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fourth of the five children of George Ashton (1864–1924) and his second wife, Georgiana (1869–1939), née Fulcher. George Ashton was manager of the Central and South American Cable Company and vice-consul at the British consulate in Guayaquil. In 1907, the family moved to Lima, Peru, where Ashton attended a Dominican school. When they returned to Guayaquil in 1914, he attended a school for children of the English colony. One of his formative influences was serving as an altar boy, which inspired in him a love of ritual, as demonstrated in The Wise Virgins. Another, still more potent, influence was being taken to see Anna Pavlova dance in 1917. He was immediately determined that he would become a dancer. His father sent him to England in 1919 to Dover College, where he was miserable. Homosexual, and with an accent that his classmates laughed at, he did not fit in. He left the school in 1921 and worked for an import–export firm in the City of London. In January 1924, George Ashton committed suicide. Despite family disapproval, Ashton pursued his ambition to dance professionally. He auditioned for Léonide Massine; at the unusually late age of twenty he was accepted as a pupil. After Massine left London, Ashton was taken on as a student by Marie Rambert along with William Chappell. She encouraged him to try choreographing. His first attempt was in 1926 for a revue staged by Nigel Playfair and Rambert's husband Ashley Dukes. The Observer commented on 'an engaging little ballet called A Tragedy of Fashion: or The Scarlet Scissors'. Rambert sought to widen her students' horizons, taking them to see London performances by the Diaghilev Ballet, which had a great influence on Ashton—most particularly Bronislava Nijinska's ballet Les biches. In 1930 Ashton created Capriol Suite, using Peter Warlock's 1926 suite. The following year Rambert founded the Ballet Club, with Alicia Markova as prima ballerina and Ashton as the main choreographer and one of the leading dancers. His ballets of the early 1930s included La péri (1931), The Lady of Shalott (1931), Façade (1931), Foyer de danse (1932) and Les Masques (1933). Ashton's association with Ninette de Valois began in 1931, when he created a comic ballet, Regatta for her. In 1935 de Valois appointed him as resident choreographer of her company, where he worked alongside Constant Lambert, the musical director from 1931 until 1947, and a company including Markova, Anton Dolin and Robert Helpmann. In 1941 Ashton was called up for war service. He was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Air Force, at first analysing aerial photographs and later as an intelligence officer. While in the RAF he was granted occasional spells of leave to carry on his work with the ballet. After the war, David Webster invited de Valois to move her company from Sadler's Wells to be resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Reader's Guide

Frederick Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until his retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet, and the Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970. Among his best-known works are Façade (1931), Symphonic Variations (1946), Cinderella (1948), La fille mal gardée (1960), Monotones I and II (1965), Enigma Variations (1968) and the ballet film The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971). His first years with the Vic-Wells were a richly productive period: 'His Apparitions in 1936 was by many compared favourably with Massine's Symphonie Fantastique on a similar theme, and that year saw also the touching Nocturne to Delius's Paris. These works have vanished, but the following year's witty A Wedding Bouquet and Les Patineurs are still with us.' During the war he created Dante Sonata, which symbolised the unending struggle between the children of darkness and the children of light. His collaboration with William Walton continued with The Quest (1943). After the war, his first ballet for the company at Covent Garden was Symphonic Variations (1946). The historian Montague Haltrecht writes of it, 'It is a masterpiece created for the Opera House and for the company's dancers, and almost of itself defines a style of English dancing.' Another plotless ballet was Scènes de ballet (1947). In 1948, at the urging of de Valois, Ashton created his first major three-act ballet for a British company, his version of Prokofiev's Cinderella.

Did You Know?

• Ashton was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the fourth of five children; his father was manager of the Central and South American Cable Company and vice-consul at the British consulate.
• He was taken to see Anna Pavlova dance in 1917, which immediately determined him to become a dancer.
• Ashton was accepted as a pupil by Léonide Massine at the unusually late age of twenty.
• His first attempt at choreography was in 1926 for a revue, resulting in 'A Tragedy of Fashion: or The Scarlet Scissors'.
• In 1941 he was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Air Force, analysing aerial photographs and later serving as an intelligence officer.