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"
Ballet (music) music as something demeaning. From the earliest ballets up to the time of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), the music of ballet was indistinguishable from ballroom dance music. Lully created a style that was separate, wherein the music told a story. The first ballet d'action was staged in 1717. This was a story told without any words. The pioneer was John Weaver (1673–1760). Both Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote opéra-ballets, where the story was partly danced and partly sung, but ballet music became gradually less important. The next big step occurred in the early years of the nineteenth century, when principal dancers