Garden setting design by William Holmes for The Last Curtain performed by The Ballet Guild 1944. The symmetrical set showed a semi-circular colonnade split in the centre to reveal a rectangular ornamental pond with water lilies and with statue of Eros at the far end. The bushes are covered with pink flowers and it appears that wisteria climbs up the columns. In the distance are a series of cypress trees
The Last Curtain was a short-lived ballet choreographed by Molly Lake for the Ballet Guild and first performed at the People’s Palace, Mile End Road, London on 30 March 1944. The music was by Weber arranged by Neville Marriner with costumes by Eva Melova . The production had a slight narrative concerning the last performance of a ballerina (Emilienne Lagrange played by Molly Lake) and the rehearsal in the same work by her successor. The Sitter Out in the Dancing Times, May 1944, found the work could have been cut to its advantage and it suffered from too many steps however ‘the choreography has witty moments as one so often finds in Miss Lake’s ballets of this genre. She has quite a penchant for vaguely vulgar Victorian and Romantic over-emphasis. But apart from an interesting Pas de Trois danced with great zest by two coryphées (June Troll and Margaret Sear) and a “Danseuse Travestie” (Kathleen Brierly) the actual dances lack invention.’