Music: Return Engagement

In their first visit to the U.S. last year, Britain’s Sadler’s Wells Ballet scored a smash hit (TIME, Oct. 17 et seq.). When the company arrived in Manhattan last week for a return visit, Director Ninette de Valois made a politely deprecatory little speech. “We may not be as good as you remember us,” she said. “Perhaps we have come back too soon.” She had impressive evidence to the contrary. When the golden curtain at the Met fell on the ballet’s brilliant opening-night performance of Swan Lake this week, the packed house and the critics seemed unanimous. Sadler’s Wells with its faun-eyed Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn, its crack corps de ballet and its handsome staging, was every bit as good as remembered.

If the company was still in doubt about its second U.S. reception, there were other, more substantial assurances. Impresario Sol Hurok’s office predicted a steady sellout through the company’s three-week stay at the Met. After Manhattan, Sadler’s Wells will set out on a four-month, 31-stop continental tour which has already piled up the biggest advance sale (more than $1,000,000) in American dance history. . -, ,.,. .