Britain: An official handbook > 1959

PROMOTION OF THE SCIENCES AND THE ARTS
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which give performances both in London and elsewhere. The opera company,
which numbers about 200 and has a permanent orchestra, makes an annual tour
of provincial centres. The ballet company, which in January 1957 was incorporated
with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and the Sadler’s Wells School to form the
Royal Ballet, has a high international reputation gained as the Sadler’s Wells Ballet
during its visits in recent years to Canada and the United States and its European
tours, arranged by the British Council.
Seasons of opera and ballet are also given at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in
London; and at Glyndebourne in Sussex, an opera season, for which a company
is specially assembled, is held every year. Other opera companies include the Carl
Rosa, one of the oldest opera organisations in Britain; the English Opera Group,
formed in 1947, and noted for its performances of operas by Benjamin Britten;
Intimate Opera, which performs eighteenth and twentieth century works for
small casts in any hall available, and the Welsh National Opera Company. The
Arts Council manages a small operatic group (Opera for All) which specialises in
introducing opera to audiences who hitherto have been unfamiliar with it. There
are also a number of amateur opera clubs both in London and in the provinces.
Among the ballet companies are the Ballet Rambert, Britain’s oldest ballet company,
which has discovered many distinguished dancers and choreographers, and the
Festival Ballet.
The Royal (formerly Sadler’s Wells), the Arts Educational, and the Rambert
Ballet Training Schools and the Royal Academy of Dancing are among the teaching
institutions which have played an important part in raising British ballet to its
present high standard.