The first thread is already up to nearly 30 contributions and there will be much more yet so welcome to thread 2 - all further comment and responses to earlier thoughts here please.

Thread 1 has the press release, transcripts of interviews with Sir Colin Southgate and Ismene Brown and much comment on the position. Thread 1 is at:
http://www.danze.co.uk/dcforum/happening/3035.html

This thread is now full and a new thread has been opened at:
Thread 3
and now
Thread 4
Further contributions, thoughts and responses there please. many thanks

we also have a subsidiary thread:
Some questions arising from Ross Stretton's departure

Some early releases from our TodaysLinks page at:
www.ballet.co.uk/todayslinks

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Royal Ballet director is driven out by mutiny
By Sam Lister
    "Mr Stretton, 49, stepped down yesterday after growing disaffection within his troupe. Although his departure was announced as a resignation, sources within the company confirmed that he was driven out amid concerns about his professional conduct...
    "The dancers’ representatives discussed claims that Mr Stretton had shown undue favouritism towards some ballerinas while leaving others in the dark over their roles and the productions in which they would appear. His position was further undermined by unsubstantiated rumours of liaisons between him and some of his leading ladies."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-427446,00.html

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Royal Ballet director exits after 18 months
on Ananova
    "The news comes amid rumours that Mr Stretton, 49, had allegedly had a number of liaisons with his ballerinas.
    "But a Royal Ballet spokesman said: "At no point have there been any formal complaints made to the management about dancers' relationships with Mr Stretton."
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_678080.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

Ross Stretton's Resignation
A weight has been lifted but the burden of finding successor remains
by debra craine,
    "Plans for the new season are in place, but expect changes as a result of yesterday’s announcement. It’s likely the new leadership has ideas of their own as to what they want to bring in. One of the most persistent criticisms dogging Stretton’s brief directorship was that he seemed disinterested in the company’s unique heritage.
    "There were protests over his prosaic programming for this year’s big Kenneth MacMillan celebration, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the choreographer’s death. Start by looking for changes there."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-427316,00.html

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Ballet chief quits after dancers revolt
By Nicole Martin
    "With only three years' experience in Melbourne, he was considered a minor candidate compared with contenders such as Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of American Ballet Theatre, and Derek Deane of the English National Ballet.
    "Mr Stretton was said to be so unpopular with his staff in Australia that not a single dancer stood up to thank him at his farewell gala.
    "But at the time of his appointment, Sir Colin Southgate, the chairman of the board of the Royal Opera House, hailed him as the man who would bring fresh ideas to a company that was criticised for being old-fashioned."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/26/ndance26.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/09/26/ixhome.html

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Ballet chief's unhappy exit
by Fiachra Gibbons
    "Although no individual dancers at Covent Garden made formal complaints against the Australian, the management of the Opera House and the union Equity agreed two weeks ago to a "programme of actions to address the dancers concerns about his management style". Equity refused to say what that programme entailed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,799046,00.html

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Royal Ballet chief quits after threat of revolt by dancers
By David Lister
    "Though he forged good relationships with some dancers, the protest meeting and Equity involvement was a huge embarrassment to the Royal Opera House chief executive, Tony Hall, who had reduced many prices, increased access and improved the Royal Opera House's public profile in his first 15 months in the job...
    "The opera house board is reported to be in no hurry to appoint a new director. For the time being, Monica Mason, the assistant director, will run the company, with Anthony Russell-Roberts continuing as administrative director.
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/news/story.jsp?story=336692

Ross Stretton's Resignation
Ballet Chief Steps Down in London
By ALAN RIDING
    "In August the dancers' union demanded a meeting with Mr. Hall to express the unhappiness of several leading dancers, including Darcey Bussell and Tamara Rojo, with Mr. Stretton's casting policy. The dancers complained about last-minute casting changes and favoritism in the choice of lead performers.
    "Rumors that Mr. Stretton would step down have been circulating in dance circles for several weeks. He offered his resignation at a meeting Tuesday evening. People who work at the opera house said he was "not discouraged" from leaving.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/26/arts/26ROYA.html?ex=1033617600&en=241589cf9f4adba9&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

1 para in teh FT
Royal Ballet director resigns
By Tony Thorncroft
    "In commercial terms Mr Stretton's tenure has been a success. But he never established a rapport with the company"
http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=020926000673&query=Stretton&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

To put the story in more context here are more Ballet.co links - newest first:

Ross Stretton after One Year - a Verdict
by Tim Powell
September 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/sep02/tp_stretton_verdict.htm

Ross Stretton after One Year - some thoughts
by Richard Jones
September 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/sep02/rj_stretton_thoughts.htm

Ross Stretton's first season at the Royal Ballet
After one year in post Lynette Halewood runs the tape measure over the new Royal Ballet Artistic Director, the job and the Royal Opera House...
July 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/jul02/lh_strettons_first_season.htm

Royal Ballet plans for 2002/ 03
A cause for concern
by Gerald Dowler
April 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/apr02/gd_rb_season_0203.htm

Thoughts on the Royal Ballet 2002/03 season
by Bruce Marriott
April 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/apr02/bm_rb_season_0203.htm

Ross Stretton on ABC Radio
Ross Stretton was interviewed by Michael Gurr on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 'Night Club'
March 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/apr02/bmc_stretton_aus.htm

Ross Stretton reveals plans to Ballet Association
Ballet Association report by Gerald Dowler
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/feb02/interview_stretton.htm

Ross Stretton on Radio4
Ross Stretton was interviewed by Mark Lawson on the arts programme 'Front Row'
25 February 2002 as transcribed by Bruce Marriott
February 2002
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_02/mar02/bm_stretton_radio4.htm

Ross Stretton Interview
by Bruce Marriott
April 2000
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_00/apr00/interview_ross_stretton.htm

A 70th birthday lunch with Clement Crisp
by Ismene Brown
December 2001
http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_01/dec01/ismene_b_int_clement_c.htm

It's a deliciously long interview but here is the part on Ross Stretton....

IB: Stretton has brought in repertory that he thinks is going to do the company good in some fashion.

CC: Oh ho! Well. Interesting to see what good Mats Ek can do anyone. And Nacho Duato, this terrible, wambling, woolly soft-at-the-edges Jirí Kylián style which is so unmusical, and so repetitious, and so lacking in any kind of rigour.

I think the answer for the future of the Royal Ballet, if it is not to be destroyed by perfectly well-intentioned but entirely ignorant people, is that it has got to look to its own creatures. And I suspect the creature it has got to look at is probably Bruce Sansom. He seems to me the most likely choice for the future. The problem is, however, the exigencies of the Board and its planning. I love the way they plan opera three, four, five years in advance, whereas with the ballet season they don’t even know what they are going to do next year, and they don’t know what the casting is in a month’s time. All this waiting for ‘Onegin’ casting is a scandal.

But you’ve got to think frightfully hard about where the Royal Ballet came from and how to encourage choreography. Given two studio theatres now in the Opera House, you’ve damn well got to have an extremely serious, probably expensive, certainly rigorous selecting of young choreographers, and someone there to talk to them, like several Dutch uncles. It’s what Sir Fred did for Kenneth. Someone who has a very wide experience of choreography - like Donald MacLeary, perhaps - someone who can help these choreographers, tell them, No, you can’t use this score. Or, why are you doing this ballet about the life of a barn owl when you know you should be thinking about steps?

And there is no music director. Barry Wordsworth, who is the rightful tenant of that post, is not there. When Madam started she had not only Markova as ballerina, who could dance anything beautifully, and the baby Fonteyn, but she also had the most vital figure of all, Constant Lambert. Lambert was a genius. Lambert was a brilliant musician, and he was extremely cosmopolitan and he had the most dazzling intelligence. Lambert could say Yes and No. He was not provincial or parochial, and so when the company began, it was not provincial or parochial. The Board today, I think, is largely comprised of people who don’t know what they’re talking about in ballet.

IM: Has that not often been the case?

CC: No. When Lord Drogheda was chairman of the Board, he was a brilliant and great man, and he decided you had to have the best, all the time. And David Webster knew what was good musically and what was good visually, and he insisted on getting the best. You look at the list of artists that Madam had in, her insistence on the visual picture.

Now I’m sure Ross Stretton is a very able and distinguished man, but I do not think he is right for the position he holds. The idea that you somehow suddenly attract a New Audience by putting on New Work is a pathetic fallacy. The ballet audience is by and large people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and so on. It is not the kids who want to go out dancing and drinking and going to clubs. And the idea of offering them little teases - okay, they’ll come and see a programme where there’s something shocking going on, but will they come back for ‘Coppélia’? Uh-uh.

While Monica Mason may be an interim director of the Royal Ballet, she is likely to influence the company's fortunes for some considerable time. It will probably fall to her to make the decisions about the repertory for the year 2003-2004.

She is rooted in the Royal Ballet's traditions and has an acute sense of its heritage. Last year an audience of ROH Friends heard her describe how she had been taught The Firebird by Fonteyn, who had in turn been taught it by Tamara Karsavina, for whom Fokine created the role. Mason is part of what Lincoln Kirstein would have described as ballet's 'apostolic succession'. She has immense personal authority and commands huge respect.

Crucially she has the affection of many dancers. Having herself been injured at a crucial point of her career, she has made a speciality of helping other injured dancers to return to performance. Her first "patient" was Michael Corder. Many others have beaten a path to her door.

She takes over the Royal Ballet's direction during the commemorative year for Kenneth MacMillan. She was The Chosen One in his Rite of Spring. Later he asked her to be his special assistant. Her knowledge of his ballets is consummate and she remains one of his strongest advocates.

Although the Royal Ballet has said that it will honour its contractual obligations to those choreographers from whom it has commissioned work in the coming months, it is likely that Mason will be studying the available options for an enhanced tribute to MacMillan. Ross Stretton's declared view was that Kenneth MacMillan's one-act works were not really suitable for the Royal Opera House's main stage. Monica Mason's opinion is likely to be very different.

See Jane Simpson's portrait of Monica Mason in our Ballet Legends pages

Monica Mason should be assured of our whole-hearted support (she has mine: 100%). Her job will be extremely difficult but she has experience and a deep love of the company and all that, until RS' arrival, it stood for. I for one am confident that she will do the job well.
Her first task must be to look at the later part of the season and change programming, if necessary - we all have a wish list of MacMillan works which we wanted to see during this season - maybe there's room for one or two.
Her second is to monitor very closely Makarova's plans for Beauty (her track record with the classics is shaky and she was never a noted Aurora). The Ashton and other English 'additions' must stay as part of our unique performing heritage.
Her third is radically to appraise the existing plans for the 2003/4 Ashton Centenary Season, because what Stretton's idea of celebrating our founder choreographer and her own (and indeed ours)are will be radically different.

The Board must not be too hasty in appointing a new Director. Miss Mason could well 'caretake' for two or even three seasons, with the new Director co-directing for her last year of tenure, much as Dowell did before he took over the reins. Sansom and Bull are obvious contenders (provided they want the job!)but will need guidance at first. Their pedigree is impeccable and their love and knowledge of the heritage rep. is second to none. I wouldn't like to choose between them. Bintley must stay in Birmingham - look at the state of their repertoire compared with their time under Wright.

Great news that RS has gone. Even greater news that we have Miss Mason to step into the breach. Good luck Monica!

You've spured me into action up on the MacMillan forum Gerald where I've put up a post asking for suggestions for a MacMillan mixed bill:
http://www.danze.co.uk/dcforum/DCForumID3/18.html

I'd like to second Alexandra's two interventions above.

Nextly, so to speak, one thing strikes me as terribly positive in all this caffuffle:

THE DANCERS HAVE BITTEN BACK !

They have put up with it for one year. They have given the man his chance. And they have come to the conclusion, which they have now decided to ACT ON, that they don't like the casting policy, they don't like the repertoire, they don't like stumbling about on crutches, and they don't like certain other things, which, if the allegations be true, are redolent of the old Foyer de la Danse at the opera here.

As an aside, ladies and gentlemen of the Paris Opera, is the time not ripe for you to rise up against the onrushing "Casanova" by Prejlocaj ? The girls in mono-kinis with little pink plastic P....s attached to their undies, the étoile reciting poetry about venereal disease... Where was the stage-hands' strike when we needed it ?

Conductors, musicians, medical doctors - everyone complains bitterly about how obedient dancers are, to the detriment of their mental and physical health. Here, for once, we have a crowd of dancers doing their Rite of Spring thing, and tossing out a person whom they consider to be their tormentor.

That in itself, is a breakthrough.

Oh really? Well it clearly was not apparent to the board of the ROH

If the
>allegations in the Standard of
>impropriety have a grain of
>truth to them, then it
>just adds a sordid twist
>to this sorry tale.

So what? I've yet to discover any dance company where "impropriety" - what a quaint phrase - was not the order of the day.

>Excuse the schadenfreude, but good riddance
>to bad rubbish

What a totally loathsome sentiment

>Monica Mason should ..... monitor very
>closely Makarova's plans for Beauty
>(her track record with the
>classics is shaky and she
>was never a noted Aurora).

Peter Wright and Frederick Ashton weren't noted Auroras either but still managed to produce the finest Sleeping Beauty I've ever seen.

>The Board must not be too
>hasty in appointing a new
>Director. Miss Mason could
>well 'caretake' for two or
>even three seasons

So she should carry out the arduous job of director for two to three years with neither the prestige of the title, nor presumably the salary that goes with it?

'Wonderful' news?

Actually, shocking and a disgraceful waste of resources. Whatever the 'facts,' it reflects badly on the board who have shown themselves to be inept, or lacking the courage of their convictions, or both; it also reflects badly on the harpies (sorry 'critics')who have hounded this AD with more than a whiff of zenophobia.

As for modernising/keeping the heritage debate: it's time to put the museum pieces where they belong and open up the place to an audience that encompasses more than bourgeois home county Stepford Wives.

I am surpised that unsubstantiated gossip about sexual harrassment is being aired for titillation in this way. What next: Stretton discovered to have cloven hoof?

Because, as you say below, he's coming up for retirement, and in recent years management's attitude to the retirement age appears to have been set in stone, most unfortunately in a number of cases. I doubt that they'd suddenly decide to be flexible about it just so the Royal could have a new AD.

What a can of worms has been opened here and I am afraid that the seamier side of it will be paraded before all, not doing the RB any favours.

But I second Katherine's view that the dancers are to be congratulated for fighting for their Royal Ballet, and also to say aren't we lucky to have have Monica Mason? I, too, remember her thoughts on The Firebird at the free BBC Masterclass in the Linbury and it sent a shiver down my spine to think of the wisdom and knowledge of the creators of a landmark work of almost a century ago being passed directly down to today's young stars such as Mara Galeazzi.

Sansom and Bull are sounding to me like the ideal option in that Bruce Sansom was such a great exponent of the English style, while Deborah Bull was/is a great exponent of the best in modern dance. Also, she has considerable experience now of the wider arts community and is a great spokewoman for dance. This week's event is a PR disaster and while there's no such thing as bad publicity, the Royal doesn't need these sort of stories.

For me, one of the most important issues to be tackled is the development of young dancers. Who was the last male principal who studied at the school then rose through the ranks? William Trevitt? The was an issue Dowell failed to deal with, and with Carlos Acosta now guesting only rarely, the situation seems perilous. They can plan to put on 365 ballets a year - half of them new - but if there's no-one to dance them, it means nothing.