John Cranko resident choreographer for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet's 1950–51 season. For the company's Festival of Britain season in 1951 Cranko choreographed the comic ballet "Pineapple Poll", to the music of Arthur Sullivan (newly out of copyright) arranged by the conductor Charles Mackerras. Another collaboration with Mackerras followed in 1954 with "The Lady and the Fool", to music by Verdi. In January 1954 Sadler's Wells Ballet announced that Cranko was collaborating with Benjamin Britten to create a ballet. Cranko devised a draft scenario for a work he originally called "The Green Serpent", fusing elements drawn from "King Lear", "Beauty and the Beast"
The Enchanted Forest (ballet) by the music publisher Zimmerman. "La Forêt enchantée" was chosen by the director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky for performances attended by the Imperial Russian court at Peterhof in 1889. For this performance the Imperial Theatre's "Premier maître de ballet" Marius Petipa re-choreographed the ballet and commissioned the composer Riccardo Drigo to expand his original score with music for new dances. Among these additions was a new "Grand Pas des dryads" arranged for a corps de ballet of dryads led by a new character called the Dryad Queen that Petipa created for his daughter Marie. Also included