The mother of British ballet: the founder of Britain's Royal Ballet, still a formidable presence at the age of ninety-five, recalls her long and illustrious career.

It was one of those mornings too often thought of as being typically English: dark and dreary, with a steady, misty drizzle that penetrated both body and soul. The ground-floor apartment overlooking the Thames River in Barnes, southwest of central London, made a warm and welcome retreat. I was shown into a sitting room whose furniture was more attuned to comfort and familiarity than elegance and style. There were, surprisingly, few memorabilia on view: I expected more remembrances of the dynamic career that has spanned more than eighty years. For this was the home of a remarkable woman whose equally remarkable vision and unflagging perseverance established the art of ballet in Britain.

Dame Ninette de Valois, born Edris Stannus on June 6, 1898, in County Wicklow, Ireland, is the mother of English ballet and a jewel in Britain's cultural crown. She has devoted her long life to her art as a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and, most notably, as the founder of today's Royal Ballet. Her wit, intelligence, and determination have made and still make her a formidable figure - many young dancers have been reduced to tears by her forthrightness and bluntness. Yet her inexhaustible drive, her clear sense of direction, and her quick administrative mind have set a standard of excellence. Even in her ninety-fifth year, Dame Ninette, known affectionately as "Madam" in ballet circles, still regularly attends performances and shows great interest in the training of young dancers. Petite, with wispy white hair, bright eyes, and rosy apple cheeks, she invited me to sit down and came straight to the point: "What is it you want to ask me?" Lying on the coffee table were several obituaries of Rudolf Nureyev. De Valois, as director of the Royal Ballet in 1962, was responsible for giving the legendary Russian dancer his first permanent job in the West. It seemed a good place to start our talk.

"I knew when I first saw him that I wanted him in our company," Madam said. "Rudolf came to dance here for charity just after his walkout [from the Kirov Ballet]. You see, he did that in Paris, but it was London he wanted to get to. He walked into a perfect paradise here, into a theater scene ready for his talents.

"We loved having him. He was a great lift to us and was very helpful with all the classics we were putting on. He was a genuine admirer of comedy and wanted to move on to modern ballet. We were after his past, and he was after our present. Compare him with Nijinsky?" she queried. "No, I couldn't do that. I did see Nijinsky dance, just once at Covent Garden, but I was young, too young to understand. No, I couldn't compare the two dancers. The legends about them are very even, though. They both sprang from the same roots, you see - the Russian Imperial Ballet."

Nureyev had left the Kirov, with its two-hundred-year tradition, and joined this relative youngster - the Royal Ballet, which in 1962 was only thirty-one years old. The Royal's roots came from the careful fusion of Russian and French classicism with the diverse traditions of English theater life, evolving as a result of de Valois's experience and steadfast and determined efforts over many years.

It all started with an Irish jig at the turn of the century. Young Edris Stannus, daughter of a wealthy army officer, was acutely shy. Yet at a children's party, when she was only five or six, she plucked up enough courage to let go of her nanny's skirts and perform the little dance she had learned from the wife of a herdsman in a cottage on her father's estate. When she finished, she immediately hid herself again - but it was a start.

When she was seven, the family moved to an English seaside town, and she was enrolled in a local dancing school. She had such a natural gift for dancing that, by the age of fourteen, she was touring England with a troupe known as The Wonder Children. Discipline and supervision were very strict for the youngsters, and Edris and two cousins were cared for by her aunt. The tours. though packed with performances, were short; Edris regularly returned to her schoolwork and her governess. "Mother didn't mind me performing," she recalled. "She recognized I had some talent but hoped I would find something in London rather than go away on tours."

At the outset of World War I she had her first London engagement as principal dancer in a pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre. She soon recognized the need to continue serious study, and took early-morning private lessons - first with Edouard Espinosa and later with the great Italian ballet master Enrico Cecchetti, whose classes she described as "grueling but wonderful."

For the next few years, Ninette de Valois, as she was now known ("My mother thought of the name because our family had French connections"), performed at most of the London music halls. The work was physically challenging, for there were often three shows a day. "I never did anything but pure ballet; it was very much part of the music-hall program in those days," she commented. Ballet extracts were woven around the comedy and musical acts, which starred such famous music-hall names as Whimsical Walker, Wee Georgie Wood, and Little Tich. "Our dances may have had some connection with the show, but quite often they were just abstract. It was the only ballet we had, so there was nothing else we could do," Madam reminisced, munching on the biscuits that her home helper had brought in with the coffee.

In 1923 de Valois received an invitation to join Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris. "It was a very important period in the development of classical ballet. Diaghilev was moving out of his Fokine period into his Balanchine period. He was very lucky, because he got a permanent engagement in Monte Carlo for us. We had to do the opera ballet work, but during our time there, Diaghilev was able to do other work for his own seasons and tours. I remember Balanchine producing his first ballet-I think I was in it!" she said with a giggle. "|The young George,' we used to call him. Diaghilev thought a great deal of him - and he was quite right."

After two years de Valois felt stifled by all the often-fatalistic Russian emotion. Always an independent soul, her thoughts were now intent on making dance an integral part of English theater life, an art that could stand on its own with dignity.

A good company first needed good schooling. In 1926 an advertisement appeared in the Dancing Times announcing "The Academy of Choreographic Art." For twenty-four shillings per week, it offered the following classes: "6 Operatic, 1 Character, 1 Composition, 1 Dance rehearsal, 1 Theory, 1 Costume and Scene Design and 1 Make-up." In addition, there were promises of Public performances early in the New Year."

De Valois also wrote a letter at this time that laid out her plans for a resident ballet company, and, as a result, on a summer's day in 1926, she set off across Waterloo Bridge to take a step, she recalled, the repercussions of which are to be felt today." Her historic meeting with Lilian Baylis, manager of the Old Vic Theatre, resulted first in a job - teaching and arranging dances at the theater - and later in the fulfillment of her dream: the establishment of a ballet company and school at the newly opened Sadler's Wells Theatre.

There were six pupils - all girls - in the original company, but devotion and sheer hard work soon attracted others, including Frederick Ashton, Anton Dolin, Robert Helpmann, conductor-composer Constant Lambert, Alicia Markova, Lydia Lopoukhova, and the young Margot Fonteyn.

De Valois continued indefatigably to direct, teach, and choreograph numerous new works, not only in London but in theaters in Cambridge and Dublin, where she worked with the poet William Butler Yeats. Her choreography was vivid and alive and cleverly conceived. Among her most acclaimed and long-lasting works are Job, The Rake's Progress, and Checkmate, all still performed today.

Do dancers have the same dedication and drive today?" I asked. The youth of today show tremendous courage in many ways," Madam responded. "Every century makes its demands on them. You've only got to watch them going off to work in the morning, the crowded buses, the noise, the energy. I think there's plenty of guts today. I don't see anything wrong with the young today."

World War 11 claimed many male dancers "Those that came back had lost three years of their careers - very difficult for them," Madam remembered). The company, on tour in Holland, barely escaped when the Nazis invaded. It managed to get to the coast on a rickety bus and spent fifteen hours holed up in a packed cargo boat on the rolling North Sea. "It was an expensive adventure: We lost eight major productions - the costumes and sets, plus the musical scores and orchestral parts, were all left behind."

When the Royal Opera House reopened at the end of the war, Sadler's Wells Ballet performed a new production of The Sleeping Beauty ("our signature tune, if you like," de Valois noted), with Fonteyn and Helpmann in the leading roles. (Madam remembered the strong smell of mothballs in the auditorium, emanating from the evening clothes the audience were able to wear for the first time in years.) The entire royal family and the full cabinet turned out for the gala evening. The company's stupendous success saw results in the box office: Every ticket for all seven performances a week for a full month was quickly sold. De Valois's dream of a national ballet had come true.

The company so expanded that it could now be halved: While one part stayed at the Opera House, the other became the touring company, based at Sadler's Wells Theatre (it has since become Birmingham Royal Ballet). The school flourished and has provided talent worldwide. In 1949 the company made a triumphant tour of America, the first of many. In 1956, de Valois saw Queen Elizabeth II confer the title of Royal Ballet on her company. Madam herself has also received many awards and medals, including honorary degrees from several universities, the title of "Dame" (the female equivalent of knighthood), and, recently, the Order of Merit, one of the highest British honors.

"Ballet has a very solid place in the theater life of England today," Madam concluded. "In the world, you could say. I think it's splendid." And she nestled back into her armchair contentedly.