Royal Swedish Ballet

Sweden’s ballet has a fascinating and international history, having given the world a choreographer such as Charles Louis Didelot, whose talent was recognized and financially fostered by Sweden’s famous “Theatre King”, Gustav III. Sweden was also the birthplace of Marie Taglioni. Without the existence of the Swedish ballet, these people would not have been able to be there for the rest of the world.

Remarkable dancers performed in Sweden, e.g. Filippo Taglioni, Antoine Bournonville, his son August Bournonville, Giovanna Bassi, Charles Louis Didelot, André Isidore Carey and Joséphine Sainte-Claire. Two people who were to influence the Russian ballet came via or from Sweden: its founder Jean Baptiste Landé, and later the Swede Per Christian Johansson who took the French influence from Bournonville’s teaching to Russia and trained generations of Russian dancers. Memorable visits by Michel Fokine, Antony Tudor and Leonide Massine are dealt with in the book, as well as Skeaping’s epoch-making directorship, and the Swedish choreographers Anders Selinder, Birgit Cullberg, Birgit Åkesson and Ivo Cramér and their ballets.

The book contains many illustrations which have never been published before, a table with detailed information about ballet performances in Sweden from 1638 to 1962, and biographies of the ballet masters and theatre directors.