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- Design With Strings with Svetlana Berisova and Paul Gnatt (lower right).
David: "John Taras, the first American to work with a British ballet company did a ballet for the Metropolitan Ballet, 1947, that can best be described as a Balanchine influenced work. It was originally called Designs with Strings, but became Design with Strings. John worked very closely with Svetlana Beriosova and myself on this ballet. He took our suggestions without allowing us free reign. It was a combined effort. The ballet was an enormous success for Taras and for Svetlana and myself. The ballet lives to this day."
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- Design With Strings full cast left to right: Delica Blake, David Adams, Sonia Arova, Eric Hyrst and Hammond.
The Metropolitan was a springboard for many significant careers, in part because of the choreography given to the young dancers involved.
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- Design With Strings Trio
David dancing with his back, a skill which he would try to impress upon his students.
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- Design With Strings from the balcony
An exploration of neoclassical line
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- Design With Strings
Full cast
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- Another Design With Strings Trio
With Beriosova and Delicia Blake.
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- Svetlana Berisova
David would encounter Berisova again in 1971 during his time with the Royal Ballet. The Royal remounted Design With Strings at that time, and to Berisova's embarrasment (and David's glee), the critics remembered the Metropolitan's production very favourably.
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- Spectre de la Rose
David as the Rose
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- La Spectre de La Rose
Ursula Hewlett and the young Eric Bruhn perform for the Metropolitan Ballet. It's a role that David would own during his time with the Metropolitan; at first, he waited in the wings.
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- Dances from Galanta
David Adams and Celia Franca, before the National Ballet was formed.
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- Dances from Galanta
Another duet with David Adams and Celia Franca
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- Dances from Galanta
The trio
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- Dances from Galanta
David leaping on left, Eric Bruhn on right.
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- Picnic
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- Caprice Viennoise
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- Caprice Viennoise
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- Steamer bill, Sweden, 1949
"The busy touring schedule ended for me with a tour of Sweden and Norway," recalls David. "In Sweden we had the dubious pleasure of having the impressario run off with the money. The owners of the company came to our rescue, but we had a week of catch as catch can. One must experience these things. "Eating in Sweden, after the rationing of England, was an experience in itself. Sweden had it all. We did receive some ration coupon when we arrived, but the portions allowed were far ahead of what Britain offered. We made ourselves quite ill."
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- The path not taken
The Metropolitan wanted David to continue, but it was not to be. At the time, David had started back with the Winnipeg and his return to London would be interrupted by over ten years, a marriage and a daughter. "When we left Sweden finally, I knew that I was on my way back to Canada," says David. My passage on the Ascania had been booked, from Winnipeg. I would be leaving this group of people that I had become so fond of. I would be leaving behind my beloved Design With Strings. Svetlana and Berisova and I had danced this ballet all over the British Isles and there in Scandinavia. We were known for this ballet, and admired for our performances. We even got a good review for our 1940s performances in the '70s when the Royal ballet adopted this ballet as part of their repertoire."
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- Advance Notice
Winnipeg, 1948: the sadness of David's departure from the Metropolitan is lessened by a hero's welcome home. The New York trip is called off, but David will work with Dolin when he begins with the National Ballet of Canada.
If he had not been subject to the British draft, his career might have been significantly different; as it was, his time with this company was much shorter than it could have been.
Already the young David was working with many of the significant people in ballet. “Marchant and Perrault were dancing with us when I joined,” he says. “Paul Gnatt from Denmark, eventually a very young Eric Bruhn, Sonia Arova, Celia Franca, ballet mistress and dancer, John Taras, the choreographer of Design With Strings, Alexandre Kalioujny and the 15 year old Svetlana Berisova.”
“Our repertoire was a combination of classics and contemporary choreography.” Most significant in David’s memory appears to be Design With Strings, where he partnered Berisova, the daughter of Berisoff, who David had seen in 1941 during the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo’s tour of Canada.
“My first taste of touring in the British Isles in post-war Europe,” David recalls. “Rationing had ended in Canada right after the war — WW2. The British were still living with it. On tour you took your ration book and your clothing book in case you happened to have a few pennies left over.
“We performed for a week in each city, eight performances, matinee on Wednesday and Saturday.
“You stayed in digs, boarding houses, which, if you were lucky, supplied breakfasts and an evening meal in the price. The ration book was given to the landlady when you arrived so she could buy the rations for a week. Just occasionally, said landlady would take more than she needed to from the ration book. You could recoup your loss, but it was a long process and often was not possible. No egg, next week; no meat next week.
“Not being familiar with the British provinces, I had to depend on my fellow dancers to find said digs. I remember very vividly being with a couple of dancers looking for digs, having problems, and walking for hours until something appropriate could be found. That day I learned about bed-bugs. We would knock on a door, one of the dancers would step inside, take a deep breath, then back away. ‘No thank you, we will keep looking.’ ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because we smelled bed-bugs’ came the reply.
“I fortunately never did experience bed-bugs, but there was another enemy that could not be smelled — fleas. Yes, little red creatures that plagued all of us.
“After a long tour when I returned to London, there was that dreaded time when having opened the suitcase, would see the fleas hop out. It took a few days to get rid of them. How did I get rid of them? I got into bed at night and waited. When they bit me I grabbed them and flushed them down the toilet.
“This in 1947.”