The Royal Ballet is an internationally renowned
classical ballet company based at the
Royal Opera House in
Covent Garden,
London,
England. The largest of three major
ballet companies in
Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by
Dame Ninette de Valois and was granted a
Royal Charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship national ballet company. The Royal Ballet was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century, and continues to be one of the world's most renowned ballet companies to this day.
In 1926, the Irish-born dancer Ninette de Valois founded the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls. Her intention was to form a repertory ballet company and school, leading her to collaborate with the English theatrical producer and theatre owner Lilian Baylis. Baylis owned the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells theatres and in 1925 she engaged de Valois to stage dance performances at both venues.
Sadler's Wells reopened in 1931 and the Vic-Wells Ballet and Vic-Wells Ballet School were established in premises at the theatre. These would become the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. Prior to her return to Britain, Ninette de Valois had been a member of the Ballets Russes, one of the most renowned and influential ballet companies of the 20th Century. The company disbanded in 1929 following the death of it's founder Serge Diaghilev and when de Valois formed the Vic-Wells Ballet, she employed some of the companies former stars including Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin and Tamara Karsavina, who retired as a dancer, worked with the company as an advisor.
After losing the link with the Old Vic theatre, in 1939 the company was renamed Sadler's Wells Ballet and the school became Sadler's Wells Ballet School both continuing at Sadler's Wells theatre until 1946 when the company was invited to become the resident ballet company of the newly re-opened Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, under the direction of David Webster. The company relocated to the opera house the same year in 1946, with their first production at the venue being Sleeping Beauty.
