Corps, what a scorcher!

Simon O'Hagan looks at the feuds and allegations surrounding the departure of Ross Stretton, artistic director of the Royal Ballet

Ballet companies are hothouses at the best of times. Just imagine: you have reached the top of a ferociously competitive profession, and then you have to compete some more. Your fellow-dancers may be your friends but they are also your rivals. Career spans are short, and liable to end at a moment's notice – by injury, disfavour, or some crisis within the institution beyond your control. The world you inhabit is small, enclosed and highly charged. The strain on the nervous system is hard to imagine for those of us whose livelihoods don't depend on putting in a top-notch performance night after night. The pressure is on even at rehearsals. Bodies – literally stretched to the limit – break down. Exhaustion is common.

It does not take much to upset this sensitive eco-system. A wrong word here, a rejection there, a relationship gone wrong somewhere else. But what the Royal Ballet has been through in the past year has been of a different order entirely: a saga of enmity, intrigue and allegation that, one insider says, has "put the company through the wringer".

At the centre of the dispute first revealed by The Independent on Sunday two weeks ago was a 50-year-old Australian, Ross Stretton, who just over a year ago became the company's artistic director. He was brought in to take the company in new directions. Instead it is Mr Stretton who is already going on his way.

The Royal Ballet did its best to play down his resignation last week. Mr Stretton said he was leaving to pursue his interest in "developing the future of ballet". The company expressed its appreciation of the work he had carried out while in charge.

None of this got near tackling the real issue of Mr Stretton's stewardship of the company – a management style so controversial that the dancers called in Equity, the performers' union, to protest about him. He had, they said, alienated senior members of the company by promoting juniors to leading roles. His cast changes were often made late in the day and without apparent logic. He was destabilising the company from top to bottom. Worse – though this was not brought up in the meeting with Equity – have been allegations over relationships that Mr Stretton, who is married with three children, was forming with younger members of the company, and over casting decisions felt to be a consequence of them.

Even the Royal Ballet's chairman, Sir Colin Southgate, confirmed that he had heard the rumours – not that he would comment on them. Conversations within ballet have centred on little else.

Everyone points to Mr Stretton's record in his previous post in charge of Australian Ballet. One dancer there – a male lead – is said to have resigned because he was so unhappy about Mr Stretton. He came to dance with the Royal Ballet – and resigned again as soon as he heard that Mr Stretton was to take charge of the company.

Further casualties followed, notably the leading ballerina Sarah Wildor, who resigned within weeks of Mr Stretton's arrival. She said that her love of the Royal Ballet was in danger of "being turned into regret, perhaps even bitterness". As her freelance career got under way, she asked: "Why would I want to join another company?"

Ms Wildor, in common with other members of the Royal Ballet past and present, and indeed members of the Australian Ballet, were closing ranks last week and refusing to share their thoughts about Mr Stretton. And, not so surprisingly, he was refusing to speak himself. But as one insider explained: "Ballet is such a small world that none of the dancers can be sure that they won't end up having to work with Mr Stretton again one day. They're terrified of burning their boats." There is a further aspect of the ballet world that sets it apart from almost every other walk of life: close physical contact between participants and those directing them is all in a day's work. Such are the sensitivities on this issue that parents of children who enrol at the Royal Ballet school have the extent of the touching that is involved in the training, clearly explained so that they can object if they want to.

The success of any group artistic enterprise depends on the quality of the atmosphere that surrounds it. No good work comes out of a bad vibe. The one Mr Stretton created was evidently plumbing the depths. Now the Royal Ballet is hoping that the company's delicate equilibrium can be restored.