Quixotic Tale Of The Colonial Upstart, The Haughty Arts Aristocracy, Those Sexual Rumours ... And The Ballet That Commanded Royal Attention
The Age
Wednesday June 18, 2008
AN INTERVIEW intended to be kept under wraps for 40 years has shed light on an Australian's disastrous directorship of the Royal Ballet in London.
Ross Stretton's headlong plunge into London's cliquey arts society saw him denounced as a colonial interloper, who offended the arts establishment and embarrassed the Queen at a gala performance. Stretton's struggle against numerous forces began virtually the day he took charge of one of Britain's most prestigious cultural institutions. Leaks were made to the media of deep unhappiness in Covent Garden and allegations of sexual advances by him to young dancers. In the oral history interview, recorded by the National Library of Australia in 2003, Stretton answers those allegations and reveals how he stumbled into battles that had a catastrophic outcome. He fell into "lethal" fights with such influential figures as Australian Lady Deborah MacMillan, widow of choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan, and Royal Opera House board members including Lord Sainsbury and Sir Colin Southgate, then chairman of the Royal Opera House. The latter criticised Stretton publicly after Stretton staged a royal gala for the Queen. The interview paints a picture of a man perceived in London as a colonial, upsetting the status quo of the artistic and management structure at the Royal Opera House, home of the Royal Ballet. The interview has become available three years after Stretton's death. He recorded it on condition that no access be allowed for 40 years. But when he knew he was dying of melanoma, Stretton, a former dancer and artistic director of the Australian Ballet, changed the conditions. He is asked by interviewer and historian Michelle Potter: "Did they hate your guts because you were a colonial?" Stretton replies: "I feel so." Asked if there was a campaign in the British press against him, Stretton says: "I believe so. From the very word go with Don Q (Don Quixote), they absolutely slaughtered it and that (it) was Australian . . ." The last six weeks of his directorship, which ended in September 2002, "came from nowhere", he says. "I don't know what happened. I still don't know what happened." As for the allegations that Stretton was involved with young female dancers: "That wasn't brought to Tony Hall (chief executive of the Royal Opera House), the Opera House or to anybody, to a board level . . . all of that garbage was in the paper, and I can only assume that's from promoting young dancers over dead wood . . . I promoted nine dancers, young dancers, and that's when I think the shit hit the fan . . ." Stretton was supported by his staff, especially Monica Mason, who succeeded him, but his "coming in and changing the casting was upsetting not only the dancers but the artistic staff . . . they didn't know me from anybody." Dr Potter: "From the next colonial?" Stretton: "No, exactly, and they had no idea what hit them." He had one day to prepare a Golden Jubilee gala for the Queen in July 2002. Stretton says he "was not advised well", that "the technical people couldn't handle it" and "the lighting was dreadful" because of the lack of preparation time.Yet on stage, he says: "I gave the best speech I've ever given, to the Queen, and I loved every second of it." He then sat down to find the "whole thing technically fall apart. It was a disaster." At a function after the show, Stretton says, Sir Colin Southgate said he was "very upset with the artistic director, Ross Stretton, because he hadn't chosen works that weren't performed on one side of the stage so the Queen could see it from the box". He "thought he was joking" as the Queen had rejected a suggestion that she sit in the middle of the circle, where many in the audience would not see her.The following day, Sir Colin followed up with a letter of complaint to Stretton. But he was comforted by "a beautiful, beautiful letter" from the Queen praising the gala.Stretton says the biggest factor in his fall from grace was Lady MacMillan, who threatened to withdraw from the Royal Ballet her late husband's work, a linchpin of the company's repertoire, if Stretton did not stand aside.They had fallen out early in his directorship. After the crisis of September 11, Stretton did not have enough money to stage a new Sleeping Beauty. He approached an arts benefactor for support, but Lady MacMillan was a board member of the benefactor's company and asked why he would not stage her late husband's production of Sleeping Beauty.Stretton replied: "I want something new." He got the money he wanted from the benefactor, but "lost Deborah MacMillan", who he says then "hounded" him ."When I was in Australia (with a tour of the Royal Ballet in the winter of 2002), she flew out to see me and her agent flew out separately to see me about doing Manon (a MacMillan ballet) in the round at the Royal Albert Hall, choreographed by (former artistic director of the English National Ballet) Derek Deane, and produced by Raymond Gubbay, who is an entrepreneur, who has bad-mouthed the Royal Ballet, hates the Royal Ballet.... There was bad blood all over the place."Tony Hall also flew to Australia to discuss Lady Mac- Millan's request, but Stretton would not budge. After that, says Stretton, she gave an ultimatum to the board that he step aside or she would pull the MacMillan repertoire from the Royal Ballet.Stretton also talks of a gay push against him, of the press office, which he says was against him, and of how he felt he "let down ... big time" by Australian choreographer Stephen Baynes in staging his ballet Beyond Bach because Stretton, in turn, was let down by people including lighting designer Kenneth Rayner, "who ruined the ballet for me. It was black. I mean, you know, I couldn't see a damn thing."But was he sorry he ever took the job? "No, no, no, I loved it," Stretton says.
© 2008 The Age