Nymphs and Shepherds (1928)

MUSIC

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (from Les Petits riens)

DANCERS

Passepied: Pearl Argyle, William Chappell
Entrée de Cupidon: Andrée Howard, Harold Turner
Gavotte joyeuse: Pearl Argyle, Andrée Howard, Harold Turner
Courante: Pearl Argyle, Andrée Howard, Harold Turner, William Chappell

FIRST PERFORMANCE

Ballet-Divertissement by Pupils of Marie Rambert, Arts Theatre Club, London, 9 March 1928 (repeated the following day at a reception in her studio in Ladbroke Road)

I have been unable to discover whether the first Suite de danses from Les Petits riens and Nymphs and Shepherds had any choreography in common. According to Lionel Bradley’s Sixteen Years of Ballet Rambert, ‘The complete ballet was performed, privately, in practice costume’–presumably in Rambert’s studio–in June 1928. He identifies Nymphs and Shepherds as ‘excerpts’ from this. I have not found any account of the June 1928 performance from which it would be possible to deduce what the ‘complete ballet’ consisted of and how, if at all, it differed from the versions listed here

New Stagings / Productions

Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 1930

NEW PRODUCTION

Four Dances from ‘Les Petits riens’ were included in the programme at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on 25 February 1930, and these would seem to have been drawn from both previous versions, as follows:

DANCERS

Entrée de Cupidon: Pearl Argyle, William Chappell
Gavotte sentimentale: Marie Rambert, Frederick Ashton
L’Indifférent: Frederick Ashton
(Gavotte sentimentale survived into early performances at the Ballet Club)