Page 509 - The Secret Museum

‘I’M DEALING WITH MEMORIES,’ SAID Judith Dore, conservator of the Royal Opera

House’s precious historical costumes as we walked through the greatest dressing-up
box in the world. ‘People know what they think a production looks like. If a little girl
comes to the Royal Opera House and sees something magical, that is a memory she
carries with her for life.’

To preserve the magic and the memories, the Royal Opera House keeps over
6,000 items – headdresses, Cinderella dresses, delicate fairy tutus, swathes of huge
opera robes – hanging on rails, or packed away in tissue paper in a storage site in the
Kent countryside. The humidity is controlled to keep the costumes in perfect

condition; the levels are sent through to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden
every day for monitoring.

Among them is this beautiful blue hand-painted tutu worn by Dame Margot
Fonteyn in 1946 when she danced the role of Princess Aurora in The Sleeping
Beauty, the show that kissed the Sadler’s Wells ballet company into stardom at its
new home.

During the Second World War, the Royal Opera House was taken over by Mecca
– of bingo hall fame – and became a dance hall. The American troops loved it. While
they swung the nights away in Covent Garden, the ballerinas of Sadler’s Wells

danced, under the direction of Ninette de Valois, all over the country, to lift the
spirits of their audiences with their leaps and pirouettes. Margot Fonteyn was one of
the ballerinas in the company.

I spent an afternoon in the collection’s office in Covent Garden listening to
rehearsals, which are piped up from the main stage, and reading letters Fonteyn
wrote during the war years to a boyfriend – ‘My Dearest Patrick’ – telling of how
‘sad and terrified’ she felt, how London was being destroyed and of her sore feet,
boils in her mouth and feeling ‘confused about myself and everything …’ She also

felt uncomfortable writing – ‘I feel like a mermaid walking on land when I have to
express myself in words’ – just as most of us would if up on the stage at the Royal
Opera House.

When the war ended, the American troops went home. The Royal Opera House
floor was cleared of chewing gum, and seats were put back into the auditorium. It
was decided that resident ballet and opera companies were needed. Ballet had
become much more popular as an art form during the war years, and so the Sadler’s
Wells ballet moved to Covent Garden and has been the resident dance company at the

Royal Opera House ever since (it became The Royal Ballet in 1956). The Covent
Garden Opera Company, now the Royal Opera, was created at the same time in
1946; auditions were held the length of the country. The first performance after the
war was The Sleeping Beauty with Margot Fonteyn in the lead role.

The opening night was a Royal Gala performance. The royal family were there in
their finery, and the dress code was changed so that service men and women could
come in their uniform if they didn’t have evening dress. Just imagine the sighs of