Sadler's Wells Theatre
Address | Rosebery Avenue London, EC1 England |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°31′46″N 0°06′22″W / 51.529444°N 0.106111°W |
Owner | Sadlers Wells Trust |
Designation | Grade II listed |
Type | Dance, production and receiving house |
Capacity | 1,500 on three levels 200 Lilian Baylis Studio |
Opened | c. 1683 |
Website | |
www |
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a London performing arts venue, located in Rosebery Avenue, Islington. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site. Sadler's Wells grew out of a late 17th-century pleasure garden and was opened as a theatre building in the 1680s.
Lacking the requisite licence to perform straight drama, the house became known for dancing, performing animals,
The philanthropist and theatre owner
The current theatre dates from 1998. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive rehearsal rooms and technical facilities also housed within the site. Sadler's Wells is now chiefly known as a dance venue. As well as hosting visiting companies, the theatre is also a producing house, with associated artists and companies who create original works for the theatre. Sadler's Wells maintains an additional base at the Peacock Theatre in the West End.
History
First theatre: c. 1683–1765
Details of the origins of Sadler's Wells are disputed. According to Dennis Arundell in his history of the theatre, its founder was called Dick Sadler.[1] Many other sources, from the 18th century onwards, say the same,[2][n 1] but others give Sadler the forename Thomas,[4][5] and according to the Survey of London he was Edward.[6] It is also uncertain when Sadler established his auditorium: many sources give the year as 1683;[7] others give it as 1684 or 1685.[5][8] According to Arundell, Sadler had already opened his "Musick-House" at an unspecified date before 1683;[1] a history of the house published in 1847 confines itself to saying that the house was built at some time after the creation of the adjoining New River in 1614.[9]
A well with water from a mineral spring was discovered on Sadler's land in
The initial popularity of Sadler's spa did not last long, and by 1691 it had ceased to be a fashionable resort. He sold two of his wells, and the original one dried up for a time; his entertainments became the main draw for those of the public still interested.[13] There is no documentary proof, but Arundell conjectures that by 1697 Sadler had either died or retired; Forcer went into partnership with a glover, James Miles, and the wooden auditorium was renamed "Miles's Musick-House".[13] Under their management the public could hear ballad singers and see jugglers, wrestlers, fighters, dancing dogs and, according to the theatre's 21st-century historian, "even a singing duck".[14]
In the early years of the 18th century the reputation of the spa declined. By the time Hogarth produced his Four Times of the Day series in 1736, the theatre had lost any vestiges of fashionability and was satirised as having an audience consisting of tradesmen and their pretentious wives. Ned Ward described the clientele in 1699 as:[15]
Butchers and bailiffs, and such sort of fellows,
Mixed with a vermin train'd up for the gallows,
As Bullocks and files, housebreakers and padders,
With prize-fighters, sweetners, and such sort of traders,
Informers, thief-takers, deer stealers, and bullies.
The proprietors advertised for a new manager in 1700, but the decline continued. In 1711, after its fashionable clients had taken their trade elsewhere, Sadler's Wells was described in The Inquisitor as "a nursery of debauchery",[16] and the place was frequented by many "unaccountable and disorderly" people.[17] In 1712 a man called French was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for killing a Mr Thwaits at Sadler's Wells.[18]
Miles died in 1724,[19] and under Forcer's son the auditorium was "entirely new modelled and made every way more commodious than heretofore for the better reception of company".[20] Forcer junior sought to improve standards – according to one historian he "succeeded, to a great degree," in driving away "the mass of incomprehensible vagabonds"[9] – but after his death in 1743 John Warren took over, and standards fell again, to the extent that the authorities closed the place. The lease was acquired by Thomas Rosoman and Peter Hough, who reopened Sadler's Wells in April 1746. According to Arundell they "thereby started twenty years' prosperity for the old wooden theatre".[21] Rosoman substantially reconstructed the wooden building in 1748–49.[22]
Rosoman engaged a regular resident company of actors, and the old Musick-House became a theatre. Rosoman introduced burlettas, at that time a genre new to England.[23] According to the current laws, only the two patent companies were permitted to present non-musical dramas.[24] Sadler's Wells and other theatres were obliged by the Minor Theatres Act (1751) to avoid spoken dialogue. To circumvent this rule, theatre managers had their actors speaking against a continuous background of instrumental music, so that it was passed off as a musical entertainment. In general the authorities did not enforce the letter of the law with particular rigour.[25] The Tempest was performed there in 1764, but Arundell suggests it was not Shakespeare's original, but "Garrick's version of the Dryden-Shakespeare-Purcell work castrated into an opera".[26]
In 1763 Rosoman engaged the dancers from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. This suited both theatres, as at that time Sadler's Wells customarily opened from late spring to early autumn and the patent theatres were open for the other half of the year. Arundell comments that this engagement added to the prestige of Sadler's Wells "and ultimately benefited the place enormously, for the new Ballet Master was Giuseppe Grimaldi".[26] (Grimaldi's son, Joseph, later became one of Sadler's Wells's star attractions.) Rosoman prospered and in the summer of 1764 he announced that Sadler's Wells would be pulled down at the end of the season and rebuilt "in a most elegant manner".[27]
Second theatre: 1765–1802
Rosoman was a builder by trade, and he had the wooden theatre replaced with a brick structure. The new building was completed in seven weeks, and cost £4,225; it opened in April 1765.[23] The new house was well received: a London newspaper reported, "Sadler's Wells is now rebuilt and considerably enlarged; each of the entrances is decorated with an elegant iron gate and pallisades [with] a degree of splendor and magnificence ... that do equal honour to the taste and liberality of the Proprietor".[28]
In 1771 Rosoman retired. He sold his three-quarter share in the theatre to Thomas King, a friend and Drury Lane colleague of Garrick.
In the 1790s Dibdin was stage manager as well as composer,[n 3] with Grimaldi as comic star.[36] The theatre was by now in need of renovation, not least because of concerns about safety. The proprietors, led by William Siddons, husband of Sarah Siddons, proposed "an Entire new inside" so that "the Building will be a stable one for fifty years to come".[37]
Third theatre: 1802–1879
Sadler's Wells reopened in 1802 with an interior "entirely re-built at an immense Expence".[38] In 1804 it acquired a new attraction, dubbed the Aqua-show. A huge water tank[n 4] was installed under the stage for the production of aquatic spectacles. This tank and a second, above the stage to provide waterfall effects, were supplied with water from the New River alongside the theatre. The historian Shirley S. Allen writes that such was the remarkable realism in the performance of sea stories that Sadler's Wells became for thirty years the home of the "nautical drama".[39] Grimaldi, by the early 19th century established as "the unchallenged king of clowns",[40] continued as the theatre's principal clown until 1820, while pursuing a parallel career at Drury Lane.[40]
The law restricting non-musical drama to the two patent theatres was repealed by the Theatres Act 1843,[41] and the following year serious drama came to Sadler's Wells. From 1844 to 1862 the actor Samuel Phelps managed and starred at the theatre. He intended to bring Shakespeare to the masses. Sadler's Wells at this stage had a largely local Islington audience, working class and relatively uneducated; economically the theatre had its advantages: a large capacity (2,500) and a low rent.[42]
Phelps believed that the theatre should be a "place for justly representing the works of our great dramatic poets", particularly since the leading London theatres were not presenting "the real drama of England".[42] His biographer J. P. Wearing writes:
Among the leading players in Phelps's company were Laura Addison, George Bennett, Fanny Cooper and Isabella Glyn;[43] Phelps starred in roles from Hamlet to Falstaff.[42] His productions purged Shakespeare's texts of 18th-century alterations and additions, and he presented the plays with attention to period detail and dramatic veracity.[42] The theatre began to attract audiences from beyond Islington, including literary figures such as Charles Dickens and John Forster.[44]
After Phelps's withdrawal in 1862 the theatre presented a variety of shows, but despite appearances by stars such as
Fourth theatre: 1879–1915
Bateman commissioned C. J. Phipps to design a new interior for the theatre, which reopened in October 1879. Phipps remodelled the auditorium, with a stronger horseshoe profile for the front of the dress circle and the gallery above. These extended further toward the stage than the previous circle and gallery, increasing the theatre's capacity.[47] The theatrical newspaper The Era reported, "The changes made are so remarkable that Sadler's Wells may now claim to be one of the largest and most conveniently-constructed London Theatres". By this time Islington was no longer an isolated village but an inner suburb of the capital, and The Era remarked, "no part of London can be reached with greater facility, as omnibuses, trams, &c, from various directions pass the Angel, not two hundred yards from Sadler's Wells."[48]
Bateman hoped to restore the theatre's reputation as a classical playhouse, as in Phelps's time, but she died in 1881. The historian Philip Temple quotes an earlier writer's comment that despite Bateman's improvements, "in the 1880s the Saturday night gallery contained the most villainous, desperate, hatchet-faced assembly of ruffians to be found in all London".[49] There were several attempts to convert the theatre into a music hall, but the authorities refused to license it.[50]
The only major changes to Phipps's building was the addition by the architect Bertie Crewe of a new portico in 1894, aligned to the newly completed Rosebery Avenue. In the early years of the 20th century the theatre doubled as a cinema, showing films on Sundays, with live shows – described as "cowboy melodramas" – during the week, but it did not prosper. The drama critic of The Daily Chronicle wrote in February 1914, "Poor wounded old playhouse! Here it stands even now, shabby and disconsolate, its once familiar frontage half hidden with glaring posters".[51]
With the support of leading theatre figures including
Fifth theatre: 1931–1998
Since 1914 the theatre proprietor and philanthropist Lilian Baylis had run drama and opera companies at her south London theatre, the Old Vic, with cheap prices aimed at attracting a local, working-class audience.[53] In 1925 she began a campaign to reopen the derelict Sadler's Wells on a similar basis. She raised the necessary funds and the new theatre was designed by F. G. M. Chancellor, who had succeeded Frank Matcham as senior partner of Matcham and Co..[54]
The new theatre opened with a gala performance on 6 January 1931 of Shakespeare's
For the first few years the opera, drama and ballet companies, known as the "Vic-Wells" companies, moved between the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells but by 1935 the established pattern was drama at the former and opera and ballet at the latter.[58] In 1935 both the opera and ballet companies went on summer tours for the first time.[59] In their absence the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company took the theatre for a season of Gilbert and Sullivan, the first of 21 such London seasons at Sadler's Wells, returning in every decade until the 1980s.[60][n 5]
After Baylis died in 1937 the Vic-Wells Ballet was led by de Valois and the opera company was under the direction of
In the 1960s there were plans for a new opera house on the
After the opera company moved out, Sadler's Wells hosted operatic productions by, among others,
In 1994 a new chief executive, Ian Albery, led a campaign to transform Sadler's Wells into a purpose-built dance theatre. During the two-year rebuilding, Sadler's Wells moved temporarily to the Peacock Theatre in the West End, where it has maintained a presence ever since.[14]
Sixth theatre: 1998–
The new theatre was designed by the Arts Team division of the architects RHWL.[78] It opened in October 1998 with a design that incorporates the skeleton of the 1931 Chancellor theatre (which itself contained bricks from the Victorian structure). It has an expanded 15 m2 sprung stage, a 1,500-seat auditorium, three rehearsal studios and the smaller 200-seat Lilian Baylis studio theatre for the development and presentation of small-scale work.[14] The current building retains the Grade II listing applied to the Matcham theatre in 1950.[79]
The opening season included performances by
In 2004 a new director, Alistair Spalding, concluded that Sadler's Wells "had been at its best when it had had resident companies and new works being created within its walls".[14] He announced:
In accordance with this policy Sadler's Wells has appointed an increasing number of choreographers and other associate artists and has commissioned and produced new work.
Notes, references and sources
Notes
- ^ Other sources give Sadler the full forename Richard.[3]
- ^ The other quarter was held by a goldsmith called Arnold, who appears to have taken no direct part in the running of the theatre.[29]
- ^ Before the 20th century, the term "stage-manager" covered the artistic functions now ascribed to directors as well as the purely technical aspects of staging to which "stage-manager" has subsequently come to be restricted.[35]
- ^ The tank was 90 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 5 feet deep (approximately 27.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 metres).[39]
- ^ Sadler's Wells had the advantage over the Savoy Theatre, D'Oyly Carte's traditional London home, of a substantially larger seating capacity: 1,639 as against 1,138.[61] The company gave sixteen seasons at the Savoy and other London theatres between 1938 and its closing in 1982, but it gave most of its London seasons at Sadler's Wells from 1935 onwards.[60]
- ^ The main company became the Royal Ballet in 1956. In 1957 the Sadler's Wells company was renamed the Royal Ballet Touring Company, and in 1976 it became Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. In 1990 the company left Sadler's Wells and moved to Birmingham as the Birmingham Royal Ballet, but has continued to present London seasons at Sadler's Wells.[63]
- ^ The Coliseum's seating capacity (2,500) was more than 40 per cent greater than that of Sadler's Wells, and the proscenium opening of 55 feet (16.7 metres) – compared with Sadler's Wells's 30 feet (9.1 m) – was the largest in London.[70]
References
- ^ a b Arundell, p. 2
- ^ Carey, p. 105; Craine and Mackrell, p. 380; Jarman, p. 3; Rice, p. 67; Thomson, p. 128; and Urban, p. 798
- ^ Lay, p. 101; and Rendell, p. 26
- ^ Hembry, p. 99; Law, p. 443; and Pinks and Wood, p. 760
- ^ a b Hartnoll, Phyllis and Peter Found. "Sadler's Wells Theatre", The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Oxford University Press, 2003 (subscription required)
- ^ Temple, p. 141
- ^ Carey, p. 105; Craine and Mackrell, p. 380; Jarman, p. 3; Rice, p. 67; and Urban, p. 798
- ^ Thomson, p. 128
- ^ a b c "Sadler's Wells", The Theatrical Times, 5 June 1847, pp. 172–174
- ^ Addison, p. 4
- ^ Arundell, pp. 2–3
- ^ Arundell, p. 4
- ^ a b Arundell, p. 6
- ^ a b c d e f g h Crompton, Sarah. "History" Archived 10 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Sadler's Wells Theatre. Retrieved 9 June 2023
- ^ "Victorian London – Publications – History – Views of the Pleasure Gardens of London, by H.A.Rogers, 1896". Victorian London. Retrieved 2 June 2007.
- ^ Highfill et al., p. 224
- ^ Arundell, p. 8
- ^ Temple, p. 144; and "London, Sept. 13", Flying Post, 13 September 1712, p. 2
- ^ "News", Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, 18 April 1724, p. 4
- ^ Arundell, p. 11
- ^ Arundell, p. 15
- ^ Temple, p. 147
- ^ a b "Sadler's Wells", The Theatrical Times, 12 June 1847, pp. 182–183
- ^ Kinservik, Matthew "patent theatres", Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, Oxford University Press, 2005 (subscription required)
- ^ Thompson, pp. 129–130
- ^ a b Arundell, p. 23
- ^ Arundell, p. 24
- ^ "News", Lloyd's Evening Post, 6 March 1765, p. 7; and "News", Lloyd's Evening Post, 12 April 1765, p. 3
- ^ a b Arundell, p. 27
- ^ "Sadler's Wells", Public Advertiser, 25 May 1774, p. 1
- ^ Arundell, p. 29
- ^ "Sadler's Wells", The Morning Chronicle 3 May 1773, p. 1
- ^ "Sadler's Wells", Public Advertiser, 23 August 1773, p. 5
- ^ Arundell, p. 34
- ^ "stage manager". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Arundell, pp. 54–55
- ^ Arundell, p. 64
- ^ Advertisement, True Briton, 17 April 1802, p. 1
- ^ a b Allen, p. 77
- ^ a b Moody, Jane. "Grimaldi, Joseph (Joe) (1778–1837), actor and pantomimist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2014 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Sappa and Bonadio, p. 30
- ^ a b c d e Wearing, J. P. "Phelps, Samuel (1804–1878), actor and theatre manager", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2015 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Allen, pp. 102, 119 and 202
- ^ Allen, p. 107
- ^ Arundell, p. 164
- ^ Arundell, pp. 164–166
- ^ Temple, pp. 153–154
- ^ "New Sadler's Wells", The Era, 21 September 1879, p. 6
- ^ Temple, p. 154
- ^ Temple, pp. 154–155
- ^ Quoted in Temple, p. 155
- ^ Temple, pp. 155–156
- ^ Aston, Elaine. "Baylis, Lilian Mary (1874–1937), theatre manager", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2011 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Temple, pp. 156–157
- ^ "New Sadler's Wells", The Stage, 8 January 1931, p. 14
- ^ Haltrecht, pp. 59–60; and Goodwin, Noël. "Valois, Dame Ninette de (real name Edris Stannus; married name Edris Connell) (1898–2001), ballet dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Royal Ballet", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2011 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Schafer, p. 4
- ^ Gilbert, pp. 44 and 57
- ^ Arundell, p. 209
- ^ a b Rollins and Witts, p. 2, and Supplements pp. 16–18, 25–29 and 37–39
- ^ Parker, pp. 2000 and 2004.
- ^ Haltrecht, p. 71
- ^ Craine, Debra, and Judith Mackrell. "Royal Ballet", The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, Oxford University Press, 2010 (subscription required); Craine Debra, "Go for the burn", The Times, 12 February 1999, p. 35; and "Debra Craine's dance choice: Birmingham Royal Ballet", The Times, 1 September 2001, p. 122
- ^ Gilbert, pp. 592–595
- ^ Arundell, pp. 237 and 312–313
- ^ Arundell, pp. 250 and 312–313
- ^ Gilbert, pp. 176–177
- ^ Gilbert, p. 205
- ^ Gilbert, p. 213
- ^ Gaye, p. 1554
- ^ Arundell, pp. 313–315
- ^ "Cologne Opera for Wells", The Times, 22 March 1969, p. 18; and "Koanga", The Times, 18 May 1972, p. 11
- ^ Davies, Margaret. "Opera", Illustrated London News, 1 January 1983.
- ^ "News", The Stage, 20 January 1983, p. 31
- ^ "For Sale Privately", The Stage, 19 October 1989, p. 11; and "Romantic renaissance in Bitter Sweet", Illustrated London News, 1 April 1988, p. 70
- OCLC 173233099(Countess Maritza)
- ^ "NSWO decision 'robs creditors of cash'", The Stage, 2 March 1989, p. 1
- ^ "Teamwork designs venue", The Stage, 22 October 1998, p. 23; and "Sadler's Wells Theatre" Archived 20 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine, Aedas. Retrieved 11 June 2023
- ^ English Heritage listing details. Retrieved 28 April 2007
- ^ "Opera", The Times, 11 January 1998, p. 18
- ^ "Welsh National Opera", The Times, 12 March 1999, p. 35; and "Dance/Opera", The Times, 6 October 2001, p. 253
- ^ "Opera", The Times, 17 April 2004, p. 339
- ^ "Opera & Ballet", The Times, 7 December 2007, p. 131
- ^ "Opera", The Times, 6 March 2010, p. 289
- ^ a b "Our Story" Archived 1 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Sadler's Wells Theatre. Retrieved 11 June 2023
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- ISBN 978-0-71-537620-1.
- Carey, Hugh (1979). Duet for Two Voices: An Informal Biography of Edward Dent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52-122312-6.
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- Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
- Gilbert, Susie (2009). Opera for Everybody: The Story of English National Opera. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-22493-7.
- Haltrecht, Montague (1975). The Quiet Showman: Sir David Webster and the Royal Opera House. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-211163-8.
- Hembry, Phyllis (1990). The English Spa, 1560–1815: A Social History. London: London University Press. ISBN 978-0-48-511374-7.
- Highfill, Philip; Kalman Burnim; Edward Langhans (1973). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800. Vol. 5. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. OCLC 1000937503.
- ISBN 978-0-14-051385-1.
- Jarman, Richard (1974). A History of Sadler's Wells Opera. London: English National Opera. ISBN 978-0-95-036810-8.
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- Pinks, William John; Edward J. Wood (1881). The History of Clerkenwell (second ed.). London: Herbert. OCLC 1107606811.
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- Rice, Paul (2010). British Music and the French Revolution. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 978-1-44-382110-0.
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- Sappa, Cristiana; Enrico Bonadio (2022). The Subjects of Literary and Artistic Copyright. Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 978-1-80-088176-1.
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