William Chappell (27 September 1907 – 1 January 1994) was a British dancer, ballet designer and director. He is most noted for his designs for more than 40 ballets or revues, including many of the early works of Sir Frederick Ashton and Dame Ninette de Valois.
William Chappell | |
|---|---|
| Born | William Evelyn Chappell 27 September 1907 Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 1 January 1994 (aged 86) Rye, East Sussex, England |
| Other names | Billy Chappell |
| Occupation(s) | Dancer, ballet designer and director |
| Years active | 1930s – 1970s |
Early life
editChappell was born in Wolverhampton, the son of theatrical manager Archibald Chappell and his wife Edith Eva Clara Black (née Edith Blair-Staples). Edith, the daughter of an army officer, was raised in Ceylon and India; in pursuing a career in repertory acting, she moved away from her upper-middle-class roots and married twice to fellow actors, by the first of whom she had a daughter, Hermina, the second time being to Archibald Chappell, by whom she had two daughters, Dorothea and Honor, followed by Billy. Chappell was acutely aware of his apparently 'déclassé’ origins; whereas his mother's brother had maintained a conventional upper-middle-class life, being a tea-planter in Ceylon and able to provide his son, Patrick (who was close to Billy and spent time with his aunt's family in school vacations) with a private school and Oxford University education, Chappell studied at Balham Grammar School.[1]
[2] After his father deserted the family when he was still a baby, Chappell and his mother moved to Balham, London, where she pursued a career as a fashion journalist.[3] Edith's daughter by her first marriage, romantic novelist Hermina Black, Chappell's half-sister, was living nearby in Wandsworth.[4] Chappell studied at the Chelsea School of Art where aged fourteen he met fellow students Edward Burra and Barbara Ker-Seymer forging a life-long friendship.[3]
He did not take up dancing seriously until he was seventeen when he studied under Marie Rambert,[5] whom he met through his friend Frederick Ashton.[3]
Career
editDance
editFor two years Chappell and Ashton toured Europe with Ida Rubenstein's company under the direction of Massine and Nijinska. Chappell returned to London in 1929 to dance with Rambert's Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert), the Camargo Society and Ninette de Valois's Vic-Wells Ballet becoming one of the founding dancers of British ballet. Throughout the 1930s he created more than forty roles for Rambert and Vic-Wells including:
- The Rake's friend in de Valois's The Rake's Progress
- The popular song in Ashton's Facade
- The title role in Ashton's The Lord of Burleigh
- The recreation of two Nijinsky roles, Le Spectre de la rose and the faun in L'Apres-midi d'un faune[5]
Design
editHis flair as a designer was encouraged by Rambert and for this he is best remembered. In parallel with his dance career he designed more than 40 ballets or revues, including many of the early works of Ashton and de Valois including:
- Antony Tudor's Lysistrata
- Oxbridge partnership Norman Marshall & Geoffrey Wright's revue Members Only (With Charles Hawtrey and Hermione Gingold at the Gate Theatre Studio, 16A Villiers Street - 1937)[6]
- Ninette de Valois' The Wise and Foolish Virgins, Bar aux Folies-Bergère and Fête polonaise (music by Glinka - 1941)
- Ashton's Les Rendezvous (music by Auber - 1936), Les Patineurs (music by Giacomo Meyerbeer, arranged by Constant Lambert - 1937) and The Judgement of Paris (music by Lennox Berkeley - 1938)
- Giselle and Coppélia for the Sadler's Wells Company
- Costume design for Ashton's Capriol Suite, (music, Peter Warlock’s arr. sixteenth century peasant dances) and La Péri (music by Paul Dukas - 1931)
also
- The Blue bird (The Enchanted Princess), (music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky for the Vic-Wells Ballet - 1936)
- Frank Staff's The Seasons (music by Glasunov for Tudor's London Ballet - 1940) and the dance suite Tartans (music by William Boyce - 1940)
- Mona Inglesby's Amoras (music by Elgar for the International Ballet - 1941) and costume design for Everyman (music by Richard Strauss, arranged from the original scores by Ernest Irving - 1942)
His designs for Les Patineurs remained in the repertory and his conception for Les Rendezvous, although frequently revised, continues. He brought his vast experience of ballet design to opera, musical theatre, revues and drama, as both director and designer.[5]
Direction
editChappell has been credited as directing the following productions:
- The Lyric Revue (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith and the Globe Theatre, London with Dora Bryan, Graham Payn and Ian Carmichael - 1951–1954)[7]
- High Spirits (revue) (London Hippodrome with Cyril Ritchard and Diana Churchill - 1953)[7]
- Sheridan's The Rivals (Saville Theatre, London with Laurence Harvey - 1956)[7]
- Noël Coward's South Sea Bubble (Lyric Theatre with Vivien Leigh - 1956)[8]
- Arthur Macrae and Richard Addinsell's revue, Living for Pleasure (Garrick Theatre with Dora Bryan, Daniel Massey, George Rose and Lynda Baron - 1958)[7]
- Wolf Mankowitz's Expresso Bongo (Saville Theatre with Paul Scofield - 1958)[7]
- Frank Loesser's Where's Charley? (Palace Theatre, London - 1958/59)[9]
- On The Avenue (revue) (Globe Theatre Beryl Reid and George Rose - 1961)[7]
- Passion Flower Hotel (Ambassador) 1965
- George Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem (Chichester Festival Theatre - 1967).[10]
- The West End revival of Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden (Theatre Royal Haymarket, London with Gladys Cooper and Joan Greenwood - 1971)[7]
Libretto and production
editCinema
editChappell played the part of the court painter Titorelli in Orson Welles' The Trial (1962 film), based on the Kafka novel of the same name (along with many of the other actors in the film, his voice was dubbed by Welles himself).
Military service
editAt the outbreak of war in 1939, he was the first male dancer to join, spending the duration of the war as a second lieutenant and entertaining the troops.[5]
In his book Studies in Ballet he describes an occasion in North Africa when his company had no transport and had to march to their destination about eighteen miles away. He used this story to illustrate the benefit of ballet training to legs and feet, allowing a middle-aged man to arrive fresher than men nearly half his age, who had only received the routine Army physical training. He also emphasised the importance of a long unbroken tradition and continuity in the training of male dancers. He was of the opinion that the war was a factor that had caused chaos in the Sadler's Wells Company and rendered valueless years of work. He contrasted the treatment of the ballet in England and in Russia, where male dancers were considered important enough in their work to be kept in it.
Personal life
editHe was invited by writer and lecturer on dance Peter Brinson to take part in a series of eight lectures on 'The Ballet in Britain' at Oxford University where he entertained an academic audience with his thoughts on problems of ballet design. Other speakers included Dame Ninette de Valois director of the Royal Ballet, Marie Rambert, Arnold Haskell, William Cole and Douglas Kennedy[12]
He retired to his home in Rye, East Sussex and died there after a long illness.[5]
Filmography
edit- Nijinsky (1980) - restaging: of "L'Après-midi d'un faune" (as William Chapell)[13]
- The Trial (1962) - as the painter Titorelli[14]
- Expresso Bongo with Paul Scofield (BBC recording of Saville Theatre, London production, 1958) - Director[13]
- The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) - dance arranger[15]
- Moulin Rouge (1952) - dance director[16]
- Flesh and Blood (1951) - Dancer (uncredited)[13]
- Golden Arrow (1949) - costume designer[13]
- The Winslow Boy (1948) - costume designer[13][17][18]
- Le Lac des Cygnes with Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann and the Vic-Wells Ballet Company on BBC Television (13 December 1937) - as Benno[13][19][20][21]
- Job with Robert Helpmann, and the Vic-Wells Ballet Company (now The Royal Ballet) produced and choreographed by Ninette de Valois on BBC Television (11 November 1936) - as Elihu/The Three Messengers.†[13][20][21]
† This was the second broadcast of ballet on British television following the official start of the BBC high definition television service on 2 November 1936.
Bibliography
edit- Studies in ballet, William Chappell, John Lehmann Ltd, London (1948) ISBN 978-1340914226
- Fonteyn: Impressions of a ballerina, William Chappell, Rockcliff Publishing Corporation Ltd, London (1951)
- Edward Burra: A painter remembered by his friend, William Chappell, HarperCollins Distribution Services (1982) ISBN 978-0233974507
- Well Dearie!: The Letters of Edward Burra, William Chappell, Gordon Fraser Gallery Ltd, London (1985) ISBN 978-0860920762
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Edward Burra: Twentieth-Century Eye, Jane Stevenson, Pimlico, 2008, pp. 39-40
- ^ England Census, Worcestershire, Balsall Heath. The National Archives, 1911.
- ^ a b c "William Chappell (1907-1994), Artist biography". www.tate.org.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
- ^ "Edith Blair-Staples". bearalley.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
- ^ a b c d e Brinson, Peter (4 January 1994). "Obituary: William Chappell". London: www.independent.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ "An Intimate Revue at the Gate Studio Theatre". elvirabarney.wordpress.com. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Other works for William Chappell". IMDb. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
- ^ Edwards, Anne (1978). Vivien Leigh, A Biography (Biography). Coronet Books. ISBN 978-0-340-23024-4. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
- ^ "'Where's Charley?' Production, Synopsis, and Musical Numbers". Guidetomusicaltheatre.com, accessed 22 February 2011
- ^ "Production Archive: Chichester Festival Theatre". cft.org.uk. Chichester Festival Theatre. Archived from the original on 27 April 2012. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
- ^ "Opening Night! Opera & Oratorio Premieres - The Violins of Saint-Jacques". Stanford University Libraries. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
- ^ de Valois, Ninette; Chappell, William; Rambert, Marie; Haskell, Arnold; Cole, William; Kennedy, Douglas (1962). Brinson, MA, Peter (ed.). The Ballet in Britain - Eight Oxford Lectures. London, New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g "William Chappell (I) (1908–1994)". IMDb. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
- ^ Schumann, Howard. "Trial and Error". www.cinescene.com. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ "The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), Technical Crew". Cursum Perficio. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ Reid, John Howard (30 April 2006). Hollywood Movie Musicals. Lulu.com. p. 119. ISBN 1-41169-762-6.
- ^ "The Winslow Boy, Production Team". www.britmovie.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ "Winslow Boy, The (1948)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ "List of Original Documents held in the Archive as of 1st February 2000". Alexandra Palace Television Society. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ a b Penman, Robert (1993). Jordan, Stephanie; Allen, Dave (eds.). Parallel Lines: Media Representations of Dance (Arts Council Series), Chapter 5 Ballet and Contemporary Dance on British Television. London: John Libbey & Company Ltd. p. 105. ISBN 0-86196-371-7.
- ^ a b Davis, Janet Rowson (1983). Dance Chronicle. Vol 5, No. 3, Ballet on British television, 1933-1939. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. pp. 245–304.
External links
edit- William Chappell at IMDb
- William Chappell as Elihu in 'Job', by Gordon Anthony. National Portrait Gallery.
- Sir Frederick Ashton - 'Foyer de Danse' (1932) on YouTube Filmed at the Mercury Theatre, London, by Walter and Pearl Duff. Choreography: Frederick Ashton, inspired by Degas' ballet paintings. Costumes: William Chappell, after Degas.
- Gale, Matthew (October 1997) Tate Gallery Artist Biography: William Chappell 1907-1994
- Painting of William Chappell by Edward Burra
- Edward Burra, episode of BBC's Culture Show series, broadcast 21 October 2011. References to Billy Chappell and photograph at 5:16 on YouTube
