Ballet-premièeres of to-day have often all the glamour which was formerly a prerogative of opera. One has only to see the meteor-like career of the Diaghilev Ballet, the steady evolution of the Sadler's Wells Ballet, or even more recent the splendid progress of Balanchine's New York City Ballet, not to mention Paris, where opera always took second place, to be aware of this vital new development.

Even in Germany, which has little ballet-tradition, these signs are no longer to be neglected. The chief example is the Faust-ballet Abraxas by Werner Egk, which had a record number of sold-out performances at the Berlin Städtische Oper. No wonder that composers especially interested in the progress of the musical theatre, seek to exploit the latest trends for a synthesis of ballet-opera. Opera and ballet completely integrated! Opera itself has always tried to employ ballet for its own purposes. London knows of the Sadler's Wells Dido and the more recent Ashton-production of Gluck's Orpheus at the Garden, Paris had its greatest success of the last seasons when it revived Rameau's ballet-opera Les Indes Galantes and New York remembers the choreographic production of Bartóok's Bluebeard's Castle at the City Center. German directors often cast the three boys and three ladies in Die Zauberflöte with dancers and Tietjen, in his Berlin production of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos banished the singing entourage of Zerbinetta and the three nymphs to the orchestra-pit, while their roles were executed by dancers, too.