Charles Mackerras authority on Mozart's operas and those of Sir Arthur Sullivan. His ballet with John Cranko, "Pineapple Poll", is an arrangement of Sullivan music with a story based on one of W. S. Gilbert's "Bab Ballads". The piece premiered in 1951, soon after the expiration of copyright on Sullivan's music, and continues to be a popular light music favourite in English speaking countries. Mackerras later arranged music by Giuseppe Verdi for the ballet "The Lady and the Fool". He also arranged a suite from John Ireland's score for the 1946 film "The Overlanders", after Ireland's death in 1962. He became principal
Chicago Ballet was invited by the opera to stage an original ballet. Based on a story by Oscar Wilde, Bolm's "The Birthday of the Infanta" had music by Chicago composer John Alden Carpenter and decor by the American designer Robert Edmond Jones. Midwest dancer Ruth Page starred as the infanta. When Pavley and Oukrainsky left the opera in 1922 to form their company, Bolm became the opera's ballet master. Subsequently he helped establish Chicago's Allied Arts, considered the first ballet theater in the United States, which he directed from 1924 to 1927. Allied Arts ceased for lack of funds, but the Adolph