Christopher Saunders 2024

Christopher Saunders

Rehearsal Director & Principal Character Artist, The Royal Ballet

Interviewed by David Bain
American International Church, Thu 05 Sep, 2024

David welcomed Chris to the meeting and started by asking him about the recent wedding of his son, Peter to First Soloist Meaghan-Grace Hinkis. It was lovely! The celebrations had lasted three days after which Chris was exhausted but in a bubble of happiness. For people outside it might appear to be a case of ‘oh, you’re the Rehearsal Director and Meaghan’s a dancer in the company’ but actually that’s neither a problem for Chris or for Meaghan.

Going back a bit, when Chris had first become ‘Management’, it was a bit of a surprise for everyone in the company. Someone had even said “Oh, it’s them and us” – in other words: the dancers and managers. However, Chris disagreed. Apart from Gail Taphouse, who was then what was called the ballet mistress, now female répétiteur, all his friends were dancers, and they had thought it was a bit of a practical joke when he walked in to take the rehearsal for the very first time. Ross Stretton had basically said in you go, it’s Don Q. So, his response had been along the lines of “Well no, it isn’t. They (the dancers) are my friends and they will stay my friends.” And yes, they still are.

Inside the Studio he is the person at the front, taking the rehearsal or coaching but outside it’s as normal. If there’s respect around when you are at work you are at work. He works hard at work but never takes work home, well he might go in early sometimes if he needs to revise something or prepare something - and he has made this model work for him. He switches between being management and being a Principal Character Principal artist -where he sometimes catches himself being chatty in rehearsal to his dismay.

So, there is absolutely no conflict of interest between him and Meaghan, he will correct her in the studio if necessary. He simply doesn’t have favourites.

More about the wedding –which lasted three days. Peter works with Sky Studios and what with his work commitments and the dancers’ summer season (Meaghan was performing at Jacob’s Pilllow ) all the various stag / hen do’s were a while ago. In fact, he was rather upset that wedding hadn’t been in New York as he loves it there.

He hadn’t attended the Ballet Association Annual Dinner as he was in Canada staging Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote. He has always loved the unknown, not necessarily knowing what’s on tomorrow and that was same when he was a dancer too. He does have a good brain and memory; he can remember what he has seen, and comments people made from years ago. This means that when staging a production for another company he can tell the dancers what others had done or said- including such incredible artists such as Margot Fonteyn or Rudolf Nureyev. He wants the dancers in front of him in the studio to be better. He feels than you can’t impose “my way of doing it” on people. So, if he can give them information about how other great dancers in the Royal Ballet or guests of the Royal Ballet approached a role in order to widen /deepen their own interpretation, that’s great.

When he is in Canada or Zurich or anywhere else, he loves it. He doesn’t know any of the dancers- he is shocking at names and always says that he hopes he’ll have everyone’s names by the end. After all, there’s nothing wrong with not being able to do something but he always puts it out at the start of rehearsals. He’s honest too – if something wrong at 6:20pm, he’ll say “Let’s go through it again and if I’m sweating more than you’re sweating, something’s wrong. Let’s go full out!” And at the end of the four and half weeks it was fantastic. He had a ball, and he hopes they had a ball and he’s been invited back to coach Giselle.

He finds it a refreshing experience. Deep down all companies have the same problems around casting and time. In Toronto they have quite new studios- so in the main studio the sets are stored at the side behind the mirrors back and wow, it’s great to be able to have bits of the set out. You can’t do that at Covent Garden where everything must go up in the lift!

With Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote, whatever you think of it, whether you like it or not, it’s his version. It’s very different from Baryshnikov’s version, which as a dancer he had thought was phenomenal. He has danced in three as the Royal Ballet had done Rudolf Nureyev’s version when Ross Stretton took over. And wow, they are all so different. With Carlos’s version the main thing is that whether you are an actor or Basilio you have to be yourself, don’t act Basilio, be Basilio . Sit as you would sit, not as how you once saw Baryshnikov sit because that’s his version, not your version. That approach is the same for everyone , whether it’s the principals who everyone is coming to see right down to those appearing as the peasants.

Act 1 lasts about 45 minutes. Christopher starts by getting everyone to react naturally, walk around as if they are in the market, buying fruit. And it’s not easy. It takes about six hours to put together the act. For it to look like real life everyone has to know not just what they are doing but what everyone else is doing.

And then it works until the principals come on stage whereupon everyone goes what he calls ‘dead’ - just standing and watching the principals. So, the next step is to make it real and he says “If you were buying an orange in the market in real life, you wouldn’t have everyone stop and exclaim ‘Oh look, there’s Basilio !’.”

What would happen in real life? Well, someone else might notice Basilio, they would nudge you and only then would you turn around and look. To get that to be natural for 45 minutes is tough. That’s why he asks for six hours for Act 1 because it takes that long. And then the company does start to get it.

He sees his role as showing the dancers how far they can go in character – because by showtime they all must be involved. And it takes time to learn this especially because most companies don’t do that in other productions. The Royal Ballet does, however, and are quite well known for that. Manonand Romeo and Juliet with their detailed crowd scenes were created on the Royal Ballet so the company is used to it. When he was a dancer, as a huntsman in Giselle he didn’t just stand and watch. They came on, moved about, had a drink interacted with their surroundings. For the younger ones in the Royal Ballet that what you show them and then they begin to do it naturally but with other companies it’s not the same. You must install it in them bit by bit. And it takes time but by Opening Night it was fantastic, and they loved it.

He went up to Birmingham Royal Ballet to stage Don Quixote. Being honest, he feels it’s perhaps not your number one most incredible production of the century. Obviously people want to see Kitri and Basilio but if everyone puts 100% of themselves in it, no matter how good they are to start with, they will become phenomenal. Because it’s not just about the double saut de basque and the pirouette, it’s about the energy. The energy in that production is what has to happen -the energy and setting is fantastic. As the Rehearsal Director it is exhausting especially at 6.30pm if someone has just switched off for a moment. Whatever you think of the production it’s the energy that makes it and it must be out of the planet.

David then asked about the impact of the changes that Carlos Acosta made for his version with BRB, including the changes to the music. Chris agrees that it does alter the production. The tempo of the music affects the energy. Now the arrangement in place at the Royal Opera House has so many notes. That means that that the orchestra can’t play it at the tempo that Carlos would like. It drives him crazy that it all has to be at a steadier pace. So, politics aside, when Don Quixote went to Birmingham there was a new arrangement and therefore a quicker tempo. Also, there were some difficulties with the windmill scene and the designs had to be redone for a touring production. The Royal opera sets are huge. Actually there were few choreographic changes - the new addition was the Act 2 pas de deux. Of course, it’s a smaller company so not as many in the corps de ballet, six couples rather than eight and little things that you might not notice but altogether they do make a difference. That was what Christopher was asked to do – to make the production happen on that smaller scale for the smaller spaces of Plymouth and Sunderland. And it works very well.

Chris came back from Canada in time for the Ashton programmes but actually he had very little to do as Christopher Carr, who had been his own ballet master, has overseen Ashton productions for many years and has so much knowledge about it. Monica Mason, who so warmly and openly had put him under her wing, had steered him towards the Macmillan repertoire. Along the way he had picked up Ashton work such as the Thais pas de deux, the Voices of Spring and more recently Monotones and A Month in the Country. They are incredible ballets and the music too and he loves them. He was in the position where there was no-one to oversee A Month in the Country, so he said he’d help. Since then he has been involved and has loved it. To sit at the front of the studio with Anthony Dowell and Marguerite Porter coming in was a dream.

He had very little to do with Cinderella, he had coached principals when Alina Cojocaru and Johann Kobborg were in the company and now, he coaches the Jester. As a dancer he’d been a courtier, cavalier and a shoemaker and of course Tracy (his wife, Tracy Brown) had danced the Fairy Godmother for years and years and years. So, he went home and asked her for help with some of the steps, she showed him and then he remembered ‘Oh yes!’.

He was away during the rehearsals for the Ashton mixed bills last summer so wasn’t involved in it, ‘on the you can’t have everything’ principle. But he was back in time for the performances. They brought back memories of Ashton productions in the past including all the ones that the Royal Ballet haven’t done for a long time. He loved watching them, thought it was great and hopes that everyone else in the audience tonight thought so too.

Talking about Iain Webb and the Sarasota Ballet, Christopher feels that Iain is incredible for what he has done for the Ashton repertoire and for keeping it going. As for the difficulties of being a director – dealing with the financials and putting together a programme for a season, it’s probably the hardest it has ever been. It’s such a fine balance. When he was dancing in the late 90s, Forsythe was the most modern thing the Royal Ballet did, that and the Prince of the Pagodas, Macmillan’s last full-length ballet. It was a long time of not having choreographers coming in and creating work on the company. He did do Varii Caprici by Ashton but then his (own dancing) career was over and suddenly there were new works coming in.

The more the Royal Ballet does, the less of anything you will see. This does sounds crazy but there is only so much time. It’s a fine balance putting together a programme for the season, quite an unenviable job. While he might say “Oh I want to see this or that or the other again from further back.” you can’t just live in the past. You must keep your heritage, keep your history but press forward for the audience and for the company. Think of Madam! She didn’t just stand still and do the past; she was always looking forward.

An example: he went to Zurich to stage Nijinska’s Les Noces. The ballet is a hundred (and one) years old now. When he had first joined the Royal Ballet and danced in Les Noces he had been fascinated because it just didn’t look old. And now teaching it, he feels that it is indeed timeless because it is not contemporary, it has a classical base. What is amazing is that although there’s a hierarchy in companies - from principals down to the youngest member- in Les Noces everyone has to be together on board and that takes time for people to get that. When the curtain goes up on the first scene, with the lights and then that music starts, as the rehearsal director your heart bursts. He was so proud that after five weeks they had got that and given their all and embraced this creation that was a hundred years old. In fact the whole programme was incredible.

Yes, he feels that the Royal Ballet should have done Les Noces for its centenary. Why didn’t it happen, well, he is the wrong person to ask! It’s like The Rite of Spring, it’s just too good and it comes back to the same issue - the bigger the rep gets, the tougher it becomes to programme. For Christopher, the heritage of the Royal Ballet is everybody who has been associated with the company whether it’s been for 2 years or 5 years or more. Everyone who has come in and done their best and given their best. When you go out and see a show whether it be Don Quixote or The Statement or Monotones, those dancers on the stage, the choreographers invited in, the stagers, the coaches, are all part of the heritage of the Royal Ballet. That is his view for what it’s worth.

Christopher has a photo on his phone, recently sent to him by his uncle, (Ben Stevenson OBE dancer and artistic director) who is getting old now. It’s of his uncle with Margot Fonteyn. His uncle was of the Christopher Newton era, he joined the company very young, then went to the Festival Ballet and danced as a principal, understudied John Gilpin, broke his leg. So he branched out into choreography, then went as a director to Washington, the Harkness Ballet, Chicago , then Houston, and the Texas Ballet Theatre and School. Even now he’s still creating for other smaller companies in Texas. His brain is still going strong. Then he phoned me up “I’ve got his idea because of the Queen passing away, there’s this ballet I could do.” He still has it all in his mind.

They’ve never really worked together apart from once a few years ago when he had gone over to put on DGV. He had asked Monica Mason and Christopher Wheeldon for permission and Chris had said,”Oh he’s your uncle, yes of course.’” And that’s heritage, a part of the Royal Ballet heritage, and what his uncle installed in his dancers when he was younger is also the Royal Ballet heritage. (David mentioned that Ben Stevenson had generously gifted lots of his ballets to Cuba last year and the year before, had covered their expenses and had indeed created a piece for the Queen’s Jubilee.)

Discussing the Macmillan triple bill, Christopher had been dancing in the Royal Ballet when they first danced Requiem. It was created outside of the Royal Ballet, so it wasn’t an original piece. It was fascinating. He was so thankful that Monica Parker and Monica Mason had pushed him towards the MacMillan repertoire rather than letting him just be a general répétiteur. He worked with them for 15 years and learned so much from them, and they were so generous. Monica Mason is so clever, so forward thinking, although at the time he probably didn’t think so. She teaches and can show things without the top down “I’m the teacher and you are the learner” dynamic. He remembers a rehearsal about two weeks after she had taken over as Director. They’d gone through the cast sheet and he had been a bit unsure about someone down as a cover for a principal role. At the end she had asked him if everything was alright. He’d wasn’t sure whether to mention it or not but eventually said would she be happy if one principal was ill and the other fell downstairs and the cover had to go on. She stopped and very quietly said that she would think about it, and then she told him, “Always be honest. You can give an opinion whether I agree with it or not. You don’t have to be rude but do give an opinion.” And since then, that is what he has done. He will give his opinion. Nobody has to take notice of it but he will say are you sure? He isn’t the person casting a ballet but it will give those doing so something to consider. Monica Parker taught him so much about putting on a ballet, that it’s not just about what the notation book says, but about someone’s interpretation, and that flexibility is also needed otherwise a computer could do the job.

With the Macmillan triple bill last season, well it’s at least 11 years since they’d done it any of it. The Royal Ballet have done a lot of new works under Kevin. This is incredible for the dancers because as a dancer you want to be created on.

However, with Requiem it’s different. In terms of steps, it’s amazing how little the corps de ballet actually do during the first and third movements, especially the ladies and there is not much more in the second. Well compared to everything else they dance, its a bit of a disappointment. During the rehearsal you could sense this ‘hmm’ feeling. So, he stopped and explained why the ballet was done, that it was not created here, about the company on which it was created and in whose memory it was made. He also talked about the music, the subtlety and the calmness too. He mentioned the scene in Romeo and Juliet where Juliet is just sitting still on the bed, while the music is full of action. It’s the music that shows how she is feeling and Requiemis much the same. As dancers, they don’t have to do something on every beat. Now that is just his opinion and he doesn’t impose it on people, but he wanted them to give their all for Requiem, and to understand that it doesn’t just mean that you are exhausted and sweating. At the end of the ballet, you have to believe that the light is getting bigger and bigger and the dancers leave he stage believing – in whatever you believe in. It’s the same as in Don Q, the getting everyone to give their all. We can have this image of believing even if everyone’s beliefs are different. He loves Requiem, so coaching it was great and having Darcey Bussell coming in to coach the pas de deux too. A beautiful piece. Such a contrast to the rest of the programme too.

Danses Concertantes – he loved seeing the original costumes and he could see movements that have echoed down the years that come from a certain era of the Royal Ballet, one that both Frederick Ashton and Kenneth Macmillan were influenced by. He thought it was a wonderful programme altogether. As for a future triple bill- well, in response to David’s suggestion of A Valley of Shadows, which hasn’t been seen for a very long time, Chris had joined the company just as it was doing what is quite a depressing ballet. He was covering Stephen Beagley as one of the four men (a motif in Kenneth Macmillan’s ballets), and at one point neither Stephen nor the second cast were there, Kenneth was there with David Wall and the four men in a concentration camp scene. He had learnt it as a student, so he took a deep breath and went on. Then Kenneth stopped and asked him what he was doing and got David Wall, the big star, to show him, the newcomer, the step properly. Now Chris felt sure that he had done the step right the first time but he did as he was told. Then Kenneth made David show it again for him and they all repeated that bit and he said “You still haven’t got it. Oh well carry on.” Afterwards the company were great and reassured him that he had done the right step all along. What was that about? Now Chris just thinks that Kenneth just wanted to see his reaction. And he still thinks he did the step right the first time – albeit not quite like David Wall. In the end he wasn’t scheduled to be in it, having gone through the process and covered so many people. In the last scene in the concentration camp, with all the people on stage. the music is terrifying and it’s all horrific. Monica came to me and said, “We have this spare costume, and you’ll go on.” So I went in at the general rehearsal, it’s a big group number and I went on for Opening Night too, I wasn’t meant to be but there I was.

He remembers silly things, like Margot coming in and sitting on the steps of the old Waverley studio and coaching Aurora and saying quietly. “Oh, like you are throwing petals.. gently.” He was fascinated by all that and watched – which is useful because he can use it now.

Are some of Kenneth Macmillan’s ballets in danger of being lost such a My Brother, my Sisters a wonderful piece? Chris feels that they are, but they shouldn’t be. That’s why Kenneth Macmillan was so good. He felt that you couldn’t confront things happening today by not talking about them. You have to have conversations. But it’s theatre and not an excuse to do anything or say anything to upset people. It’s a form of Art, it’s all very sensitive but it shouldn’t just be pushed aside and locked up, that’s not healthy for anybody in his opinion.

Back to Different Drummer.It was created on dancers such as Anthony Dowell and Wayne Eagling. He looked up to them, he aspired to be like them or even to be able to get close to what they were doing.

Anthony, Wayne and David, they were all so different and with so many unbelievable qualities. Together they were phenomenal - Wayne Eagling’s sense of freedom, recklessness and pushing things to the limit. In a different way as a character artist, it made him think that he should do something until he is told that’s too much. It’s amazing what you need do for something to read out there in the auditorium at Covent Garden. Sitting next to Anthony and Wayne at the front of the studio and watching them coach was like stepping back 30 years. It is also a little bit different for him in that with Anthony as with Monica, they were both his boss.

That generation, Merle Park and Antoinette Sibley when they came back to help coach, well he feels as if he is a sponge and he just wants them to keep talking. He had seem Anthony and Antoinette in The Voices of Spring but he wasn’t in the studio at the time to hear Frederick Ashton. So, the more they can tell him about it the better he can coach the ballet himself. There isn’t enough of that on record so to find out what it was like as the dancer; where you were put, how you were pushed is invaluable.

Alice in Wonderland.For this run they have had some guests in to coach,who danced it or staged it elsewhere. It’s a massive ballet and things move on and progress, it is a live ballet after all. What he finds fascinating is that things have changed such as when he mentions in rehearsal where bits come from and the dancers suddenly realise what the original step was and why, it gives them a different insight into what they can now produce. The Red Queen was created initially on Leanne Benjamin and the pas de trois in the Prologue includes a lift that worked because she was Leanne and he as the father/King was quite strong. But when it was Zenaida Yanowsky, it was a different thing entirely as she is taller than him and it had to change. But it’s important that the dancers know where it came from because you also have Alice and the Knave doing it at the end of the waltz. He would see them doing something else and would show them the correct lift – and at his age now, wished that he hadn’t done that. But it is important to show them where possible where everything came from originally. Just as with Wayne coming back, it won’t be the same and in fact it shouldn’t be but dancers need to know what it was and how things have moved on over 40 or so years.

On to the Balanchine programme later this year. Patricia Neary is coming over to stage it and it’s her retirement production. Chris has a close connection to her now. But initially she scared the life out of him and probably still could. Years ago, when Robert Hill joined the Company as a Principal Guest Artist, the Company was on tour in the USA. Robert was on in Swan Lake at the Opening Night at the Met. His knee went in the pas de deux. Philip Broomhead who had just left, knew the role, was watching out front, came back and finished the ballet because the other principals had gone by then. The next morning Monica gave him a cassette tape (shows how long ago it was) and said “Oh Chris , I think you might want to listen to this. He thought oh no I can’t, anyway it’s a six-week tour and his name was at the end of a long list, Robert Hill, Mark Silver, etc. However, back in London with the tour finished, Pat Neary came over. On day two he was in the practice room, Monica was at the front, Pat Neary was on pointe, and he did the whole pas de deux with Pat, partnering her. He guesses now that was his audition. He was obviously good enough to do it but was only a corps de ballet guy at the time and nothing was said. But he did the Opening Night with Darcy Bussell. That was his first introduction to Pat Neary. As a dancer, she put the fear of God in him but he has always respected the fact that she is passionate about Balanchine, his choreography, what it stood for then and what it stands for now.

When he moved over to management, Monica said that as he got on well with Pat he could do all the Balanchine. So, he has done since about 2000 apart from the first run of Four Temperaments which Jonny Cope did. He and Pat do get on, laugh and connect via humour. However, it’s a different era now, he’s grown up and changed and he realises that it hard for those who are older to acclimatise to the world today. So, he can filter from her to the dancers in order for them to be able to appreciate her passion. And that is his journey with her. He can’t wait for her to come back, to share Symphony in C and Prodigal Son with her and he will be doing his best to make her last visit here enjoyable. For the young kids who haven’t worked with her before, well she is unforgiving but in a good way. We can be a little bit too lenient sometimes.

She doesn’t like new faces and it’s a while since she’s been here. So, I’m ready for her and I’ll tell the new ones to turn up on time, pink tights, hair back like a ballerina person. However, she has tirelessly given to companies around the world, given her life to transmitting what she believes Balanchine to be and that’s what it is about. All the Balanchine ladies have their own take on it, in the same way as we will have on Ashton or Macmillan. He has huge respect for her passion to keep it going and you can’t fault someone with passion.

Do we know who will take over from her? There are new and younger people and other people have to come in to pass it on. In the same way Chris feels that he is not really the generation to be to be doing Macmillan anymore – he’s 60 and has his bus pass. Just as with Alice – he hadn’t seen it since the Royal Ballet had last put it on. If Christopher Wheeldon has changed it elsewhere, well, that’s exactly why you need those guest stagers coming in and making that happen here. You have to learn and be open to moving forward to pass it on. His job is to pass on what the choreographer wants to be performed and if they are dead, to pass on what others have told him.

On the issue of ‘cultural appropriation’ with reference to heritage ballets such as Bayadere.In Art, music, dance, theatre, painting , whatever, you have to be brave but there’s a way of putting it out in a way that doesn’t insult. So maybe certain productions, such as Petrushka, the Chinese dance in the Nutcracker, even La Fille, well there are ways of portraying it. Is it an insult to anyone? La Bayadere– there is definitely a way of putting that story out there in a way that doesn’t insult anybody. There’s always a way to do everything.

David thanked Chris so very much for coming this evening and also thanked him for his ongoing support of the Ballet Association.

Report written by Susan Gordon and edited by Christopher Saunders and David Bain.

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Christopher Saunders 2024

Christopher Saunders

Rehearsal Director & Principal Character Artist, The Royal Ballet

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