Persephone

Ashton's Persephone was at one point on the long list for the Royal Ballet 2007-'08 season. Fig Newton told me that the ballet was at the limits of revivability. "It's difficult to say", he replied, when I asked him about the feasibility of a restoration. "It would be a real labour of love".

However, there is a 1961 rehearsal film by Edmée Wood (no sound), of which a section is used in Stephanie Jordan and Geraldine Morris’s video Ashton to Stravinsky. Geraldine's paper (she was one of the nymphs in the 1967 production), Persephone: Ashton’s Rite of Spring, is now online.

"Svetlana Beriosova danced the title role and the designs were by the Greek painter Nico Ghika. The score was commissioned by Ida Rubinstein from Igor Stravinsky, using a text by André Gide. Choreographed by Kurt Jooss, the ballet was premiered in Paris in 1934 by Rubinstein’s company. Because of the large cast and set, this production had only three performances but, since then, there have been other versions, and choreographers are still attracted to the score. Ashton loved the score too, but was more interested in the challenge posed by the complex work. "In a way, I do not mind what anyone thinks … for this is something I have long wanted to work out. I firmly believe in the occasional marriage of the elements of movement, music and the spoken word. This kind of hybrid, mixing genres, was not unusual for Ashton; throughout his career he had tackled composite works, beginning in 1928 with Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (re-choreographed for a new production in 1946) and ending in 1981 with Stravinsky’s opera Le Rossignol, for which he provided the dance."

Link.