Zoe Anderson's "The Royal Ballet - 75 years"

I've been trying to pin down my problems with Zoe's book. It is very useful for references - I am glad to have it and I will use it again and again. But it is essentially a critic's view from front of house.

My big beef with it is that it is not really a history of the institution (I notice that Faber's flyleaf avoids the word 'history') and that it is not written with historical rigour and method. (She might - and with justification - argue that it is a performance history, and in that it has its merits)

There is an imbalance between secondary and primary sources (in the earlier chapters understandable - but less so in the near-contemporary sections). Her notes on sources are puzzling. She lists a small number of interviews which she herself conducted - yet there is internal evidence from the text that she must have conducted more interviews than she lists in her sources.

Writing an institutional history, sponsored by the institution in question with celebratory intent, is a difficult assignment for a skilled historian. Doing so under a great duress of time is even more demanding. This may have been the best possible outcome in the circs, but I feel that there is a more three-dimensional history still to be written, and hopefully while some of the witnesses are still alive (a future historian also needs to talk to 'minor' figures and not rely on the evidence of those in the foreground).

On this, and Tony Hall is in a position to do something about it, I hope that the Opera House might do as the BBC does. When a senior BBC executive retires, he is interviewed at great length for the archives. The tenor of the interview is confessional - mistakes made, spectacular misjudgements, frank assessments of colleagues. The understanding is that the material will not be released until the subjects are long dead and that even then access will be limited to serious historians. I imagine that the late Ross Stretton must have done something like this with Michelle Potter for Australia's National Archive. Among its holdings is a 125 minute interview conducted with Stretton in 2003 about his time with the Royal Ballet.

According to the Archive's records Stretton "discusses in depth his role as artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He talks in particular about his vision for the company, the difficulties he encountered during his period as director, and his resignation after slightly more than one year at the helm of the company. Some other topics covered include the Royal Ballet's tour to Australia in 2002, the ownership of ballets, his interest in encouraging new choreography, and the nature of the changes he introduced into the Royal Ballet."

Historians don't have long to wait to hear it. While Stretton was alive, the tape had (I seem to remember) a 40 year embargo. In the event it will now be open to scholars from 17 June 2008.

What brought all this on is that I've been asked to review another dance history book, where the notion of 'history' is very problematic. For my money, history is about evidence, witnesses, primary rather than secondary sources, the careful contexting of all sources, and, in particular, of the secondary sources.

End of rant.