One has to recall but a few examples from the Russian _répertoire_ to note with what serious artistic purpose the art of Ballet is studied by the representatives of the best school. Glazounov’s “Cleopatra,” a “mimodrame” in one act; “Les Sylphides,” a _rêverie romantique_, the music by Chopin; Schumann’s exquisitely whimsical “Le Carnaval,” made into a pantomime-ballet in one act; “Le Dieu Bleu,” by that curiously interesting and _rêveur_ composer Reynaldo Hahn. These are among the productions which, ranging over classic, poetic and romantic subjects, would veritably have appealed to such artists of the Ballet as Rameau, Noverre, Gardel and Blasis, not to mention other _maîtres_ of more recent times. And what dancers to interpret them! M. Nijinsky, perhaps the best male dancer of our time, so good that one’s usual objection to the male dancer melted into admiration: Mme. Karsavina, Mlles. Sophie Fedorova and Ludmilla Schollar were among the _danseuses_ who had been seen in London previously, and were each in their degree remarkable not only as dancers but as brilliant mimes. There was not one among the extensive and interesting cast who was not of Russia’s best, the best that is that can come from the school where the traditional art of Ballet is understood not to be the result of a mere few lessons in “dancing,” but the result of a study also of all that is best in the traditions of art and music and literature, from all of which the art of Ballet draws its inspiration. Yet again, one must pay tribute to the Russian artists on their masterly sense of stage effect, and for that supreme sense of what the ballet should be, namely, a harmony of the arts. One has but to contrast three such productions as “Les Sylphides,” “Cleopatra,” and Schumann’s “Carnaval,” to see a revelation of stage artistry which put to shame the conventionality which, save in rare instances--and in English ballet--had characterised the London stage so long. In “Les Sylphides” we had the very essence of that spirit of romanticism in which cultured Europe was revelling during the ’twenties and the ’thirties of last century, a spirit which found expression in depicting the wildness and grandeur of mountain scenery, in the cloud-like fantasies of Shelley, in the poignant intensity of Byronic passion, and the romantic glamour of Spanish and German legend. In “Cleopatra” we had a glimpse of the pride and passion of an imperious Queen, ruling over a nation whose own passions were but subdued by tyranny, in a land where earth itself seemed satiated with the fructifying influence of water and a burning sun. From the first moment to the last the stage was in a glow, and a red thread of tragedy deepened to a climax of despair.