John Cranko’s ballet The Taming of the Shrew, inspired by Shakespeare’s play, premiered in Stuttgart on 16 March 1969. It was seen in Britain during the company’s first season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the summer of 1974.

It was typical of Cranko that he should commission designs for a large-scale ballet from the relatively little-known designer, Elisabeth Dalton (1940–2004). Dalton had trained at the Wimbledon School of Art and the Slade and began working in design for dance as an assistant to Nicholas Georgiadis. This experience meant that she was already aware that the setting had to allow plenty of space for the dancers and that the costumes should not restrict their movements.

For The Taming of the Shrew Dalton created a fixed, adaptable architectural setting and, unusually, Cranko came to an agreement with his designer whereby Dalton was allowed to create costume designs ahead of the choreography. Dalton recalled in an interview that Cranko said ‘I’ll choreograph round what you design, but you must work in chronological order.’ Together they built up the characters but, in spite of the liberty Cranko gave her, Dalton claimed ‘I don’t think I put a single design on paper before consulting John and his agreeing it despite our race to get to the characters first.’

Dalton found inspiration for the costumes from artists of the Northern Renaissance, most notably for the bodices of the women’s dresses which were influenced by Lucas Cranach. The peachy-pink dress shown in this design was the basic shape for most of the women’s costumes. It was worn in Act II scene i, when the still-rebellious Kate and her new husband journey to Petruchio’s home. Dalton has stuck a piece of paper over the dancer’s hair on the design, clearly having had second thoughts about Kate’s hairstyle for this scene, and has annotated it with the names of the two dancers who alternated the leading part. Marica Haydée first danced the role but, from the start, the Rhodesian dancer Judith Reyn was learning it as well.