A friend asked me to answer this question: What are the specific names of the two companies that were collectively known as the "Vic-Wells"?, using the article: At first, Baylis presented both drama and opera at each of her theatres.  The companies were known as the "Vic-Wells".  However, for both aesthetic and financial reasons, by 1934, the Old Vic had become the home of the spoken drama, while Sadler's Wells housed both the opera and a ballet company, the latter co-founded by Baylis and Ninette de Valois in 1930.Lawrance Collingwood joined the company as resident conductor alongside Corri.  With the increased number of productions, guest conductors were recruited, including Geoffrey Toye and Anthony Collins. The increasing success of the new ballet company helped to subsidise the high cost of opera productions, enabling a further increase in the size of the orchestra, to 48 players. Among the singers in the opera company were Joan Cross and Edith Coates. In the 1930s, the company presented standard repertoire operas by Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Puccini, lighter works by Balfe, Donizetti, Offenbach and Johann Strauss, some novelties, among which were operas by Holst, Ethel Smyth and Charles Villiers Stanford, and an unusual attempt at staging an oratorio, Mendelssohn's Elijah.In November 1937, Baylis died of a heart attack. Her three companies continued under the direction of her appointed successors: Tyrone Guthrie at the Old Vic, in overall charge of both theatres, with de Valois running the ballet, and Carey and two colleagues running the opera. In the Second World War, the government requisitioned Sadler's Wells as a refuge for those made homeless by air-raids. Guthrie decided to keep the opera going as a small touring ensemble of 20 performers. Between 1942 and the war's end in 1945, the company toured continuously, visiting 87 venues. Joan Cross led and managed the company, and also sang leading soprano roles in its productions when needed. The size of the company was increased to 50, and then to 80. By 1945, its members included singers from a new generation such as Peter Pears and Owen Brannigan, and the conductor Reginald Goodall., what would be the answer ?



Old Vic