Baron Frederic d’Erlanger; the _Danses Slaves et Tsiganes_, from the
Dargomijhky opera _Roussalka_; and a revival of that great
Stravinsky-Nijinska work, _Les Noces_, which, for practical reasons, I
was able to give only at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.
The following painters and designers collaborated on the scenery and
costumes: Oliver Messel, Cecil Beaton, Etienne de Beaumont, Nathalie
Gontcharova, Korovin, Pierre Hugo, Jean Lurçat, Albert Johnson, Irene
Sharaff, Eugene Lourie, Raoul Dufy, André Masson, Joan Miro, Polunin,
Chirico, José Maria Sert, Pruna, André Derain, Picasso, Bakst,
Larionoff, Alexandre Benois, Nicholas Roerich, Mstislav Doboujinsky.
For the sake of the record, as the company recedes into the mists of
time, let me list its chief personnel during this period: Leonide
Massine, ballet-master and chief male dancer; Alexandra Danilova, Irina
Baronova, Tamara Toumanova, Tatiana Riabouchinska, _ballerinas_; Lubov
Tchernicheva, Olga Morosova, Nina Verchinina, Lubov Rostova, Tamara
Grigorieva, Eugenia Delarova, Vera Zorina, Sono Osato, Leon Woizikovsky,
David Lichine, Yurek Shabalevsky, Paul Petroff, André Eglevsky, and
Roman Jasinsky, soloists; Serge Grigorieff, _régisseur_.
In our spreading of the gospel of ballet, emphasis was laid on the
following: Ballet, repertoire, personnel. Since there were no “stars”
whose names at the time carried any box-office weight or had any
recognizable association, the concentration was on the “baby
ballerinas,” Baronova, Toumanova, Riabouchinska, all of whom were young
dancers of fine training and exceptional talents. They grew as artists
before our eyes. They also grew up. They had an unparalleled success.
They also had their imperfections, but it was a satisfaction to watch
their progress.
Ballet was by way of being established in America’s cultural and
entertainment life by the end of the fourth de Basil season. On the
financial side, that fourth season’s gross business passed the million
dollar mark; artistically, deterioration had set in. With the feud
between Massine and de Basil irreconcilable, there was no sound artistic
policy possible, no authoritative direction. The situation was as if two
rival directors would have stood on either side of the proscenium arch,
one countermanding every order given by the other. The personnel of the
company was lining up in support of one or the other; factionism was
rampant. Performances suffered.
Massine, meanwhile realizing the hopelessness of the situation so far as
he was concerned, cast about for possible interested backers in a
balletic venture of his own, where he could exercise his own talents and
authority. He succeeded in interesting a number of highly solvent ballet
lovers, chief among whom was Julius Fleischmann, of Cincinnati.
Just what Fleischmann’s interest in ballet may have been, or what
prompted it, I have not been able to determine. At any rate, it was a
fresh, new interest. A man of culture and sensitivity, he was something
of a dilettante and a cosmopolitan. When he was at home, it was on his
estate in Cincinnati. His business interests, i.e., the sources that
provided him with the means to pursue his artistic occupations, required
no attention on his part.
Together with other persons of means and leisure, a corporation was
formed under the name Universal Art. The corporation turned over the
artistic direction, both in name and fact, to Massine, and he was on his
own to choose the policy, the repertoire, and the personnel for a new
company.
Ballet in America was on the horns of a dilemma. And so was I.
8. Revolution and Counter-revolution:
Leonide Massine and the New
Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo
In order that the reader may have a sense of continuity, I feel he
should be supplied with a bit of the background and a brief fill-in on
what had been happening meanwhile at Monte Carlo.
I have pointed out that de Basil’s preoccupation with London and America
had soon left his collaborator, René Blum, without a ballet company with
which to fulfil his contractual obligations to the Principality of
Monaco. The break between the two came in 1936, when Blum formed a new
company that he called simply Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Blum had the great wisdom and fine taste to engage Michel Fokine as
choreographer. A company, substantial in size, had been engaged, the
leading personnel numbering among its principals some fine dancers known
to American audiences. Nana Gollner, the American _ballerina_, was one
of the leading figures. Others included Vera Nemtchinova, Natalie
Krassovska, Anatole Ouboukhoff, Anatole Vilzak, Jean Yasvinsky, André
Eglevsky, and Michel Panaieff. A repertoire, sparked by Fokine
creations, was in the making.
Back in America, the prime mover in the financial organization of the
new Massine company was Sergei I. Denham. It is hardly necessary to add
that Denham and de Basil had little in common or that they were, in
fact, arch-enemies.
Denham had no more previous knowledge of or association with ballet than
de Basil; actually much less. I have been unable to discover the real
source of Denham’s interest in ballet. Born Sergei Ivanovich
Dokouchaieff, in Russia, the son of a merchant, he had escaped the
Revolution by way of China. His career in the United States, before
ballet in the persons of Leonide Massine and Julius Fleischmann swam
into his ken, had been of a mercantile nature, in one business venture
or another, including a stint as an automobile salesman, and another as
a sort of bank manager, none of them connected with the arts, but all of
them bringing him into fringe relations with the substantially solvent.
No sooner did he find himself in the atmosphere of ballet than he, too,
became infected with Diaghileffitis, a disease that, apparently, attacks
them all, sooner or later.
It is one of the strange phenomena of ballet I have never been able to
understand. Why is it, I ask myself, that a former merchant, an
ex-policeman, or an heir to carpet factory fortunes, for some reason all
gravitate to ballet, to create and perpetuate “hobby” businesses? I have
not yet discovered the answer. As in the case of Denham, so with the
others. Lacking knowledge or trained taste, people like these no sooner
find themselves in ballet than down they come with the Diaghileffitis
attack.
Russian intrigue quickened its tempo, increased its intensity. Denham,
with the smooth, soft suavity of a born organizer, drove about the
country in his battered little car, often accompanied by his niece,
Tatiana Orlova, who was later to become the fourth Mrs. Massine,
ostensibly to try to attract more backers, more money. More often than
not, he followed the exact itinerary of the de Basil tour. Then he would
insinuate himself back-stage, place a chair for himself in the wings
during the performances of the de Basil company, and there negotiate
with dancers in an effort to get them to leave de Basil and join the new
company. At the same time, he would exhibit what can only be described
as a deplorable rudeness to de Basil, whose company it was.
On the other hand, de Basil increased and intensified his machinations
to try to induce me to again sign with him. Not only did he step up his
own personal barrage, but the intrigues of his associates were deepened.
These associates were now three in number. Russian intrigue was having
an extended field day. On the one hand, there was Denham intriguing for
all he was worth against de Basil. On the other, de Basil’s three
henchmen were intriguing against Denham, against me, against each other,
and, I suspect, against de Basil. It was a sorry spectacle.
It was the sort of thing you come upon in tales of Balkan intrigue. The
cast of this one included a smooth and suave Russian ex-merchant, bland
and crafty, easy of smile, oozing “culture,” with an attractive
dancer-niece as part-time assistant, and a former Diaghileff _corps de
ballet_ dancer, a member of de Basil’s company, as his spy and
henchwoman-at-large. Arrayed against this trio was the de Basil quartet:
the “Colonel” himself, and his three henchmen. The first was Ignat Zon,
a slightly obese organizer and theatre promoter from Moscow and
Petrograd, who, after the Revolution, had turned up in Paris, where he
allied himself with Prince Zeretelli, de Basil’s former Caucasian
partner. Zon was not interested in ballet; he was a commission merchant,
nothing more. The other two were a comic conspiratorial pair. One was a
Bulgarian lawyer, who had lived for some time in Paris, Jacques Lidji,
by name. The other was an undersized, tubby little hanger-on, Alexander
Philipoff, a fantastic little man with no experience of theatre or
ballet, who neither spoke nor understood a word of anything save
Russian. Philipoff certainly was not more than five feet tall, chubby,
tubby, rotund, with a beaming face and an eternally suspicious eye. The
contrast between him and the tall, gaunt de Basil was ludicrous.
Privately they were invariably referred to as Mutt and Jeff. Philipoff
constantly sought for motives (bad) behind every word uttered, behind
every facial expression, every gesture.
Both men were overbearing, and rather pathetic, at that. Neither of the
pair could be called theatre people by any stretch of the imagination.
Lidji, the lawyer, was quite as futile in his own way as Philipoff. As a
pair of characters they might have been mildly amusing in _The Spring
Maid_ type of operetta. As collaborators on behalf of ballet, they were
a trial and a bloody bore. Lidji, incidentally, was but one of de
Basil’s lawyers; others came and went in swift procession. But Lidji
lasted longer than some, and, for a time, acted as a sort of
under-director, as did Philipoff. Since Lidji was not, at the time, an
American citizen, he was unable to engage in the practice of law in the
States. When he was not otherwise engaged in exercises of intrigue,
Lidji would busy himself writing voluminous reports and setting down
mountains of notes.
I am convinced that the reason de Basil had so many legal advisers was
that he never paid them. Soon one or another would quit, and yet another
would turn up. I have a theory that, no matter how poor one may be, one
should always pay one’s doctor and one’s lawyer; each can help one out
of trouble.
My personal problem was relatively simple. With the Massine group
raiding de Basil’s company, which of the dancers would remain with the
“Colonel”? This was problem number one. The other was, with de Basil
dropping Massine, who was the creator and the creative force behind the
de Basil company and who would, moreover, be likely to take a number of
important artists from de Basil to his own company, what would de Basil
have in the way of playable repertoire, artists, new creations?
To annoyance and aggravation, now were added perplexity, puzzlement.
It was at about this time, on one of my European visits, I had had
extended discussions with René Blum regarding my bringing him and his
new company to America. I had seen numerous performances given by his
company during their London season, and I had been impressed by their
quality.
During this period of puzzlement on my part, Sergei Denham came to me to
try to interest me in the new Fleischmann venture. Denham assured me he
had ample financial backing for the new company. My chief concern at
this time was the question of the artistic direction of the new
organization. I told Denham that if he would secure by contract the
services of Leonide Massine in that capacity, I would be interested in
taking over the management of the company, and signed a letter to that
effect.
Subsequently, the late Halsey Malone, acting as counsel for Universal
Art, the corporate title of the Fleischmann group, secured Massine’s
signature and a detailed contract was drawn up.
As matters stood, I had one more season to go with my contractual
arrangements with de Basil, and Massine had the better part of another
season with the former’s company.
Massine’s contract with de Basil expired while the company was playing
in San Francisco, and the two parted company, with Massine, Danilova,
and others leaving for Monte Carlo.
That repertoire consisted of five Fokine-Diaghileff revivals:
_Carnaval_, _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Les Sylphides_, _Prince Igor_, and
_Schéhérazade_.
[Illustration: _Valente_
Anton Dolin in _Fair at Sorotchinsk_]
[Illustration:
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo: Alexandra Danilova as the Glove Seller
and Leonide Massine as the Peruvian in _Gaîté Parisienne_
_Valente_]
[Illustration:
_Maurice Seymour_
Tamara Toumanova]
[Illustration:
_Maurice Seymour_
Alicia Markova]
[Illustration:
_Valente_
Scene from Antony Tudor’s _Romeo and Juliet_: Hugh Laing, Antony
Tudor, Dmitri Romanoff, Lucia Chase, Alicia Markova
]
[Illustration:
Ballet Theatre: Jerome Robbins and Janet Reed in _Fancy Free_
_Valente_]
[Illustration:
_Gordon Anthony_
Ninette de Valois]
[Illustration: _Angus McBean_
David Webster]
[Illustration: Constant Lambert
_Baron_]
[Illustration:
_Magnum_
S. Hurok, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann]
[Illustration: Irina Baronova and Children
_Star Photo_
]
[Illustration: _Felix Fonteyn_
Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Following the premiere of
_Sylvia_--Frederick Ashton, Margot Fonteyn, S. Hurok
]
[Illustration: S. Hurok and Margot Fonteyn
_Felix Fonteyn_]
There was a production of Delibes’s _Coppélia_, staged by Nicholas
Zvereff; the _Swan Lake_ second act; a version of _The Nutcracker_, by
Boris Romanoff; and _Aubade_, to the music of Francis Poulenc, staged by
George Balanchine.
Importantly, there were several new Fokine creations: _L’Epreuve
d’Amour_, a charming “_chinoiserie_,” to the music of Mozart; _Don
Juan_, a balletic retelling of the romantic tale to a discovered score
by Gluck; _Les Eléments_, to the music of Bach; _Jota Argonesa_, a work
first done by Fokine in Petrograd, in 1916; _Igroushki_, originally
staged by Fokine for the Ziegfeld Roof in New York, in 1921; _Les
Elfes_, the Mendelssohn work originally done in New York, in 1924. The
two other Fokine works were yet another version of _The Nutcracker_, and
de Falla’s _Love, the Sorcerer_, both of which were later re-done by
Boris Romanoff.
Painters and designers included André Derain, Mariano Andreu, Nathalie
Gontcharova, Dmitri Bouchene, Mstislav Doboujinsky, and Cassandre.
Massine’s preparations went ahead apace. In Boston there were intensive
researches and concentrated work on the score for what was destined to
be one of the most popular works in modern ballet, _Gaîté Parisienne_.
In a large room in the Copley Plaza Hotel were assembled all the extant
scores of Offenbach operettas, procured from the Boston Public Library
and the Harvard Library. There were two pianists, Massine, Efrem Kurtz,
the conductor, copyists. The basic musical material for the ballet was
selected there, under Massine’s supervision. Later, in Paris, it was put
together and re-orchestrated by Manuel Rosenthal.
The de Basil company finished its American season and sailed for Europe.
Meanwhile the deal was consummated between Fleischmann, Massine, Denham
and Blum, and Universal Art became the proprietor of the Ballet Russe de
Monte Carlo. Before the deal was finally settled, however, Fokine had
left Blum and had sold his services to de Basil, whose company was
playing a European tour. Massine was the new artistic director of the
new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, while Fokine had switched to de Basil.
Massine was now busily engaged in building up the dancing personnel of
his new organization. On the distaff side, he had Alexandra Danilova,
Eugenia Delarova, Tamara Toumanova, Lubov Rostova, from the de Basil
company. From the Blum company he took Natalie Krassovska, Jeanette
Lauret, Milada Mladova, Mia Slavenska, Michel Panieff, Roland Guerard,
Marc Platoff, Simon Semenoff, Jean Yasvinsky, George Zoritch, and Igor
Youskevitch, as principals. Of the group, it is of interest to note that
three--Mladova, Guerard, and Platoff--were American. In addition,
Massine engaged the English _ballerina_, Alicia Markova, then quite
unknown to American audiences, although a first lady of British Ballet;
Nini Theilade of plastic grace; and the English Frederick Franklin, yet
another Massine discovery. Serge Lifar, the last Diaghileff dancing
discovery and the leading dancer and spirit of the ballet at the Paris
Opera, was added.
The new company was potentially a strong one. I was pleased. But I was
anything but pleased at the prospect of the two companies becoming
engaged in what must be the inevitable: a cut-throat competition between
them. The split, to be sure, had weakened the de Basil organization; the
new Monte Carlo company had an infinitely better balance in personnel.
In some respects, the Massine company was superior; but de Basil had a
repertoire that required only careful rehearsing, correcting, and some
refurbishing of settings and costumes. With Massine’s departure, David
Lichine had stepped into the first dancer roles. Irina Baronova had
elected to remain with de Basil, in direct competition with Toumanova;
others choosing to remain with the old company included Riabouchinska,
Grigorieva, Morosova, Verchinina, Tchernicheva, Osato, Shabalevsky,
Petroff, Lazovsky, and Jasinsky.
I envisaged, for the good of ballet and its future, one big ballet
company, embracing the talents and the repertoires of both. I genuinely
feared the co-existence of the two companies, being certain that the
United States and Canada were not yet ready to support two companies
simultaneously. I pleaded with both to merge their interests, bury their
differences. I devoted all my time and energy in a concentrated effort
to bring about this desired end. The problems were complicated; but I
was certain that if there was a genuine desire on both sides, and good
will, a deal would be worked out. It blew hot. It blew cold. As time
went on, with no tangible results visible, my hopes diminished. It was
not only the financial arrangements between the two companies that
presented grave obstacles; there were formidable personality
differences. The negotiations continued and were long drawn-out. Then,
one day, the clouds suddenly thinned and, to my complete surprise, we
appeared to be making progress. Almost miraculously, so it seemed, the
attorneys for Universal Art and de Basil sat down to draw up the
preliminary papers for the agreement to agree to merge. Through all this
trying period there was helpful assistance from Prince Serge Obolensky
and Baron “Nikki” Guinsberg.
At last the day arrived when the agreement was ready for joint approval,
clause by clause, by both parties to the merger, with myself holding a
watching brief as the prospective manager of the eagerly awaited Big
Ballet. This meeting went on for hours and hours. It opened in the
offices of Washburn, Malone and Perkins, the Universal Art attorneys, in
West Forty-fourth Street, early in the afternoon. By nine o’clock at
night endless haggling, ravelled tempers, recurring deadlocks had, I
thought reached their limit.
Food saved that situation. Prince Obolensky and my attorney, Elias
Lieberman, fetched hamburgers. But, before they could be consumed, we
were evicted from the offices of the attorneys by the last departing
elevator man, who announced the building was being closed for the night,
and the conference, hamburgers and all, was transferred to the St. Regis
Hotel. At four o’clock the next morning, a verbal agreement was reached.
The deed was done. I felt sure that now we had, with this combination of
all the finest balletic forces extant in the Western World, the best as
well as the biggest.
The “Colonel” departed for Berlin to join his company which was playing
an engagement there. He was to have signed the agreement before sailing,
but, procrastinator that he was, he slipped away without affixing his
signature. Nor had he authorized his attorney to sign for him, and it
took a flock of wireless messages and cables to extract from him the
authority the attorney required. At last it came.
I had never been happier. Mrs. Hurok and I got ourselves aboard the
_Normandie_ for our annual summer solstice in Europe. On board we found
the Julius Fleischmanns. At dinner the first night out, our joint toast
was in thanks for the merger and to the Biggest and Best of all Ballets.
Although Fleischmann showed me one mildly disturbing wireless message, I
had five days of peace. It was not destined to continue. When I stepped
down from the boat train at London’s Waterloo Station, I was greeted by
the news that the merger was off.
The “Colonel” had changed his mind. Massine also had become resentful at
a division of authority. Confusion reigned. As an immediate result,
almost overnight de Basil lost control and the authoritative voice in
his own company. Altogether, it was a complicated business.
A new holding company, calling itself Educational Ballets, Ltd., headed
by Baron “Freddy” d’Erlanger, banker and composer, whose bank had a
large interest in the de Basil company, had taken over the operation of
the company, and had placed a new pair of managing directors in charge:
Victor Dandré, Anna Pavlova’s husband and manager, jointly with “Gerry”
Sevastianov, the husband of Irina Baronova. The Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden, which was to have been the scene of the debut of the Big
Merged Company, had been taken for the original organization.
It was all a bad dream, I felt. This impression was intensified a
hundred fold when I sat in the High Court in London’s Temple Bar, as
be-wigged counsel and robed judge performed an autopsy on my dream
ballet. Here, with all the trappings of legality, but no genuine
understanding, a little tragicomedy was being played out. Educational
Ballets, Ltd., announced the performance of all the Massine ballets in
the de Basil repertoire. This spurred Massine into immediate legal
action.
Massine went into court, not for damages, not for money, but for a
declaratory judgment to determine, once for all, his own rights in his
own creations. The court’s decision, after days of forensic argument,
conducted with that understatement and soft but biting insult that is
the prerogative of British learned counsel, was a piece of legalistic
hair-splitting. Under British law, unlike the American, choreographic
rights are protected. Would that the choreographic artist had a like
protection under our system! By virtue of having presented the works in
public performance, the court decided that de Basil had the right to
continue such presentation: any works Massine had created as an employee
of de Basil, while receiving a salary from him, Massine could not
reproduce for a period of five years. Only the three works he had
originally created for Diaghileff: _The Three-Cornered Hat_, _The
Fantastic Toy-Shop_, and _Le Beau Danube_, could be reproduced by him
for himself or for any other company.