15 APRIL 1943, Page 11

BALLET

" The Quest." At the New Theatre.

MR. FREDERICK ASHTON'S new ballet, The Quest, produced by the Sadler's Wells Company, is based upon the story of Una and the Red Cross Knight in Spenser's The Faerie Queene. After sundry adventures with the wily Archimago, three infidel knights and the false Duessa, the allegory is given a sudden topicality, when the Knight departs upon his quest, leaving the sorrowing Una to the care of Faith, Hope and Charity, and we are left thinking of every wife parted from her man by danger in these days. Such a scheme makes exceptional demands upon the artists, especially in the handling of the central figures. For goodness, purity and truth are far more difficult to present in an interesting manner than their opposites ; they so easily become dull and insipid. So, while Mr. Ashton's :nvention never fails in the handling of Archimago and his troupe, or the Saracen Knights, or the masque of the Seven Deadly Sins, which rightly emphasises the unpleasing aspects of those abstractions, he has not been successful in giving a similar degree of character to Una and the Red Cross Knights, who go through the same kind of movements that have served for a hundred heroes and heroines of ballets with less exalted themes.

It cannot be said that William Walton has provided music to sustain the greater moments. He has applied his technical skill and ingenuity to the production of a score that is always theatrically effective, and in such scenes as the masque of the Deadly Sins sufficiently characteristic But he is rather inclined to fall back on somewhat commonplace waltzrtunes, and, when in the finale, there is a call for a great and noble melody, he is content with an ostinato bell-theme which inevitably reminds one of the transformation-scene in L'Oiseau de Feu without matching it in melodic invention.

With Mr. John Piper th- case is different. Allowing for the fact that the Red Cross Knight's costume must be practical for dancihg, and so must avoid too much panoply, both scenery and costumes are of the first order, and present a brave and beautiful spectacle.

This is a ballet to see, if only for the fine and vigorous combats between St. George and the infidels. It is a triumph to have devised