Description
Geoffrey Toye (1889-1942) was an English conductor, composer and opera producer. He is perhaps best known for his association with the D’Oyly-Carte Opera Company, where he revived Gilbert & Sullivan’s mock horror operetta Ruddigore, for which he composed a new overture.
The Haunted Ballroom is a one-act ballet for which Toye wrote both the music and the libretto. It was choreographed by Ninette de Valois and first staged in 1934 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, starring Robert Helpmann and Margot Fonteyn in her first principal role.
The ballet is based on a Gothic melodrama by Edgar Allan Poe in which the heads of the family of Treginnis are under an ancient curse which dooms them to dance themselves to death in their family ballroom. Sadly, much of Toye’s output is now lost but The Haunted Ballroom’s ethereal but nostalgic waltz is Toye’s most famous work.
