[4] He moved to England in the late 1960s, when "swinging London," the vibrant cultural phenomenon of fashion, popular music, and entertainment, was at its peak.
He performed the leading roles of princes, gallants, and swains in the nineteenth-century classics—partnering with dancers including Margot Fonteyn, Jennifer Penney, and Merle Park—but he was best known for his work in the twentieth-century repertory.
He was especially admired as Balanchine's Apollo, as Woyzeck in MacMillan's Different Drummer, and as the Chosen One in Glen Tetley's The Rite of Spring, the first male dancer to undertake that dramatic role.
During Eagling's tenure as artistic director, he not only maintained the classical and neoclassical repertory of the Dutch National Ballet but actively commissioned new works by contemporary choreographers such as Ashley Page and David Dawson.
In December 2005, Eagling was appointed artistic director of the English National Ballet in London, where he continued to invent new stage works.
At the end of 1984, the BBC recorded the New Year's Eve gala performance of Johann Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus at the Royal Opera House, starring Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Hermann Prey.
In the party scene, it featured Ashton's exuberant pas de deux set to the famous waltz "Frülingsstimmen" ("Voices of Spring") and danced with joyous abandon by Eagling and Merle Park.
Eagling can also be seen performing the "Four Seasons" ballet from Giuseppe Verdi's opera I vespri siciliani, in a production from the Teatro alla Scala, opposite Carla Fracci to choreography by Micha van Hoecke.