History
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Lew Christensen rehearsing Nutcracker's party scene with SF Ballet School students. |
For as long as there has been a San Francisco Ballet, there has been a San Francisco Ballet School. They were established in 1933 as a single institution by Gaetano Merola, founding director of San Francisco Opera, who saw the need for a thriving academy that would train dancers to appear in opera productions.
The creation of the San Francisco Ballet School made possible a permanent dance company, one that Merola hoped would "place San Francisco in the same high position in the realm of classical dance that it now occupies in the operatic world." San Francisco became the only city in the country other than New York to claim a ballet school as an auxiliary to an established opera company.
Adolph Bolm was appointed director of the School and ballet master for the Company, which occasionally presented all-dance programs.
But San Francisco Ballet truly began to take shape in 1938, when Willam Christensen became Company ballet master. Two years later he appointed his brother Harold director of the School.
In 1942 Willam and Harold bought the School and the Ballet from San Francisco Opera, which could no longer provide financial support to the Ballet operation. The San Francisco Ballet Guild was formed in order to maintain the Company as an independent performing unit. Willam was named artistic director of San Francisco Ballet, and Harold continued on as director of the School.
Harold, like his brothers Willam and Lew—the three men most responsible for guiding the Company and the School for some 45 years—was American-trained. He was the preeminent educator among the brothers who directed the development of ballet in the western United States for an entire generation.
Under Harold's guidance, the School evolved into one of the country's finest classical academies. Scholarship programs were initiated, and the faculty came to include numerous prominent classical ballet teachers. He directed the School for 35 years, developing many dancers who went on to careers with San Francisco Ballet and other companies.
Today the School boasts a distinguished international staff, headed by Associate Director Lola de Avila, that provides students with a strong foundation in classical technique; instills a commitment to the art form; and strives to elicit a joy of dancing.
More than 60 years after its founding, the San Francisco Ballet School has, indeed, helped achieve Gaetano Merola's goal of elevating San Francisco to a "high position in the realm of classical dance."
"It helps that the School is in the same building as the Company," says Helgi Tomasson, artistic director of San Francisco Ballet and director of the School. "It's very common to see little children in the hallway, peeking in doors and windows of the rehearsal studios. That's very healthy. It's wonderful for them to see professional dancers. It influences them and encourages them, for they want to do the things they see these dancers doing."