was not helped by it. Ballet belongs on the stage, not in the musty
atmosphere of the court room. De Basil and his lawyers, Massine and his
lawyers, Universal Art and their lawyers. It is a silly business. _X_
brings an action against _Y_ over an alleged breach of a theatrical
employment contract. Let us assume that _X_ represents the employer, _Y_
the artist-employee. Let us assume further that _X_ wins the action. _Y_
must continue in the employment of _X_. What, I ask you, is less
satisfactory than an artist who is compelled by a court judgment to
fulfil a contract? In ballet, the only persons who benefit in ballet
lawsuits are the learned counsel. Differences of opinion, personality
clashes are not healed by legal action; they are accentuated. Legal
actions of this sort are instituted usually in anger and bitterness.
When the legal decision is made, the final settlement adjudicated, the
bitterness remains.
The merger off, my contract with Universal Art came into force. I was
committed to the management of a London season. Since the traditional
home of ballet, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, had been preempted
by the old company, I took Old Drury, the historic Drury Lane Theatre,
whose history is as long, whose beauty is equally famous, whose seating
capacity is enormous.
The two houses are two short blocks apart. The seasons were
simultaneous. Both were remarkably successful; both companies played to
packed houses nightly. Nightly I had my usual table at the Savoy Grill,
that famed London rendezvous of theatrical, musical, balletic, and
literary life. Nightly my table was crowded with the ebb and flow of
departing and arriving guests. The London summer, despite my
forebodings, was halcyon.
De Basil, at this period, was not a part of this cosmopolitanism and
gaiety. Having been forced out of the control of his own company, at
least for the moment, he became a recluse in a tiny house in Shepherd’s
Market, typically biding his time in his true-to-form Caucasian manner,
reflecting on his victory, although it had been more Pyrrhic than
triumphant. We met for dinner in his band-box house, most of which time
I devoted to a final effort to effect a merger of the two companies. It
was a case of love’s labour lost, for the opposing groups were poles
apart.
The summer wore on into the late English midsummer heat, when all London
takes itself hence. The original company’s season at Covent Carden
slowed down, came to a stop; and a fortnight later, we rang down our
final curtain at Drury Lane.
Before leaving for Paris, en route home to New York, there was a bit of
straightening out to be done in London. The merger having failed to
jell, a bit of additional adjustment was necessary. In other words,
because of the changed situation, my contract with Universal Art had to
be renegotiated. As in all matters balletic, it would seem, numerous
conferences were required; but the new contract was eventually
negotiated agreeably.
Back in New York, the day of the new Monte Carlo Ballet Russe opening
approached. There were the usual alarums and excursions, and others not
so usual. Markova, of course, was English. Moreover, she danced the
coveted role, the title part in _Giselle_. She had already made this
part quite personally something of her own. Her success in the role
during the Drury Lane season, where she had alternated the part with
Tamara Toumanova, had been conspicuous. Although the role was shared
between three _ballerinas_, Markova, Toumanova, and Slavenska, Massine
and I agreed that, since the opening performance in New York was so
important and because Markova was new to the country, it would provide
her with a magnificent opportunity for a debut; she should dance Giselle
that night.
Factionism was rampant. Pressures of almost every sort were put upon
Massine to switch the opening night casting.
A threat of possible violence caused me to take the precaution to have
detectives, disguised as stage-hands standing by; I eliminated the
trap-door and understage elevator used in this production as Giselle’s
grave, and gave instructions to have everything loose on the stage
fastened down. So literally were these orders carried out that even the
lilies Giselle has to pluck in the second act and toss to her Albrecht
while dancing as a ghost, were securely nailed to the stage floor. This
nearly caused a minor contretemps and what might have turned out to be a
ludicrous situation, when Markova had to rip them up by main force
before she could toss them to Serge Lifar, who was making his first New
York appearance with the company as Albrecht.
Lifar’s brief association with the new Monte Carlo Ballet Russe was not
a happy one for any of us, least of all for himself. He certainly did
not behave well. In my earlier book, _Impresario_, I dwelt quite fully
on certain aspects of his weird fantasies. There is no point in
repeating them. Always excitable, here in New York at that time Lifar
was unable to understand and realize he was not at the Paris Opera,
where his every word is law.
Lifar’s fantastic behavior in New York before we shipped him back to
Paris was but an example of his lack of tact and his overwhelming
egoism. He proved to be a colossal headache; but I believe much of it
was due to a streak of self-dramatization in his nature, and a positive
delight he takes in being the central character, the focus of an
“incident.”
Under the influence of a genuine creative urge, Massine’s directions of
the new Monte Carlo Ballet Russe for two seasons richly fulfilled the
promise it held at the company’s inception. The public grew larger each
season. At the same time, slowly, but none the less surely, that public
became, I believe, more understanding. The ballet public of America was
cutting its eye-teeth.
It was during the early seasons that Massine added three more symphonic
ballets to the repertoire, with Beethoven’s _Seventh Symphony_; _Rouge
et Noir_, to the brilliant First Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich; and
_Labyrinth_, a surrealist treatment of the Seventh Symphony of Franz
Schubert. Christian Bérard provided scenery and costumes for the first
of them; Henri Matisse, for the second; Salvador Dali, for the last. The
Shostakovich work was the most successful of the three. Regrettably, all
these symphonic ballets are lost to present-day audiences.
The outstanding comedy success was _Gaîté Parisienne_, the Offenbach
romp, originally started in Boston before the company as such existed.
The most sensational work was Massine’s first surrealist ballet,
_Bacchanale_, to the Venusberg music from Wagner’s _Tannhauser_. A quite
fantastic spectacle, from every point of view, it was a Massine-Dali
joke, one that was less successful when the same combination tried to
repeat it in _Labyrinth_.
There were lesser Massine works, produced under frantic pressure;
examples: _Saratoga_, an unhappy attempt to capture the American spirit
of the up-state New York spa, to a commissioned score by Jaromir
Weinberger; _The New Yorker_, which was certainly no American _Gaîté
Parisienne_, being Massine’s attempt to try to bring to balletic life
the characters, the atmosphere, and the perky humors of the popular
weekly magazine, all to a pastiche of George Gershwin’s music. A third
work was one of his last Monte Carlo Ballet Russe creations,
_Vienna--1814_, an evocation of the spirit of the Congress of Vienna, to
music by Carl Maria von Weber, orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett.
_Bogatyri_, a colorful Russian spectacle, designed as a sort of
successor to Fokine’s _Le Coq d’Or_, had spectacular scenery and
costumes by Nathalie Gontcharova, and was a long and detailed work
utilising a movement of a Borodin string quartet and his Second
Symphony. In cooperation with Argentinita, Massine staged a quite
successful Spanish _divertissement_ to Rimsky-Korsakoff’s _Capriccio
Espagnol_, using for it the set and costumes Mariano Andreu had designed
for Fokine’s _Jota Argonesa_.
In summing up Massine’s creations for the new company, I have left his
most important contribution until the last. It was _St. Francis_,
originally done in our first season at London’s Drury Lane, where it was
known as _Noblissima Visione_. A collaboration between the composer,
Paul Hindemith, and Massine, it may be called one of Massine’s greatest
triumphs and one of his very finest works. The ballet, unfortunately,
was not popular with mass audiences; but it was work of deep and moving
beauty, with a ravishing musical score, magnificent scenery and costumes
by Pavel Tchelitcheff, and two great performances by Massine himself in
the title role, and Nini Theilade, as Poverty, the bride of St. Francis.
For the record, let me note the other works that made up the Ballet
Russe de Monte Carlo repertoire under my management: Massine’s
productions of _The Three-Cornered Hat_, _The Fantastic Toy Shop_, and
_Le Beau Danube_. George Balanchine staged a revival of _Le Baiser de La
Fée_ (_The Fairy’s Kiss_) and _Jeu de Cartes_ (_Card Game_), both
Stravinsky works he had done before, and all borrowed from the American
Ballet. There was a new production of Delibes’s _Coppélia_, in a setting
by Pierre Roy; and the Fokine-Blum works I have mentioned before.
I accepted as a new production a revival of Tchaikowsky’s _The
Nutcracker_, staged by Alexandra Fedorova, and a re-working of parts of
Tchaikowsky’s _Swan Lake_, also staged by Fedorova, under the title of
_The Magic Swan_.
Three productions remain to be mentioned. One was _Icare_, staged only
at the Metropolitan Opera House in the first season, a graphic and
moving re-enactment of the Icarus legend, by Serge Lifar, to percussive
rhythms only. The second was Richard Rodgers’s first and only
exclusively ballet score, _Ghost Town_, a _genre_ work dealing with the
California Gold Rush. It was the first choreographic job of a talented
young American character dancer, Marc Platoff, born Marcel Le Plat, in
Seattle. Not a work out of the top drawer, it was nevertheless a good
try for a young choreographer.
The third work in this group is one I felt should have been given a
better chance. It was _Devil’s Holiday_, by Frederick Ashton, the
leading choreographer of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, and his first
all-balletic work to be seen on this side of the Atlantic. Done at the
opening of our 1939-1940 season, at the Metropolitan Opera House, under
the stress and strain of a hectic departure, and a hurried one, from
Europe after the outbreak of the war, it suffered as a consequence. In
settings and costumes by Eugene Berman, its score was a Tommasini
arrangement of Paganini works. Ashton had been able only partially to
rehearse the piece in Paris before the company made its getaway,
eventually to reach New York on the day of the Metropolitan opening,
after a difficult and circuitous crossing to avoid submarines. On
arrival, a number of the company were taken off to Ellis Island until we
could straighten out faulty visas and clarify papers. I am certain
_Devil’s Holiday_ was one of Ashton’s most interesting creations; it
suffered because the creator was unable to complete it and, as a
consequence, America was never able to see it as its creator intended,
or at anything like its best.
With the 1940-1941 season, deterioration had set in at the vitals of the
Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, Massine had exerted tremendous efforts. The
company he had created was a splendid one. But, as both leading dancer
and chief choreographer, he had no time to rest, no time to think. The
same sloughing off that took place with the de Basil company was now
becoming apparent in this one. There was a creaking in the vessel
proper, an obvious straining at the seams. The non-Massine productions
lacked freshness or any distinctive quality. There were defections among
some of the best artists. Massine was coming up against a repetition of
his de Basil association. Friction between Massine and Denham increased,
as the latter became more difficult.
I could not be other than sad, for Massine had given of his best to
create and maintain a fine organization. He had been a shining example
to the others. The company had started on a high plane of
accomplishment; but it was impossible for Massine to continue under the
conditions that daily became less and less bearable. Heaven knows, the
“Colonel” had been difficult. But he had an instinct for the theatre, a
serious love for ballet, a broad experience, was a first-class
organizer, and an untiring, never ceasing, dynamic worker.
Sergei Denham, by comparison, was a mere tyro at ballet direction, and
an amateur at that. But, amateur or not, he was convinced he had
inherited the talent, the knowledge, the taste of the late Serge
Diaghileff.
I had not devoted twenty-eight years of hard, slogging work to the
building of good ballet in America to allow it to deteriorate into a
shambles because of the arbitrariness of another would-be Diaghileff.
It was time for a change.
9. What Price Originality?
The Original Ballet Russe
The condition of the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe in 1941 being as I have
described it, it became imperative for me to try to improve the
situation as best I could. It was a period of perplexity.
The “Colonel,” once more installed in the driver’s seat of his company,
with its name now changed from Educational Ballets, Ltd., to the
Original Ballet Russe, had been enjoying an extended sojourn in
Australia and New Zealand, under the management of E. J. Tait.
Although I knew deterioration had set in with the old de Basil
company--so much so that it had been one of the salient reasons for the
formation of the new Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, quite apart from the
recurring personality clashes--I was now faced with a deterioration in
the latter company, one that had occurred earlier in its history and
that was moving more swiftly: a galloping deterioration. As I watched
the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company performances, I was acutely
conscious not only of this, but I saw disruption actively at work. The
dancers themselves were no longer interested. They day-dreamed of
Broadway musicals; they night-dreamed of the hills of Hollywood and film
contracts. Some were wistfully thinking in terms of their own little
concert groups. The structure was, to say the least, shaky.
From the reports that reached me of the Original company’s success and
re-establishment in Australia, I sensed the possibility (and the hope)
that a rejuvenation had taken place. Apart from that, there had been new
works added to the repertoire, works I was eager to see and which I felt
would give the American ballet-goer a fresh interest, for that important
individual had every right to be a bit jaded with things as they were.
Since I had taken the precaution to have the “exclusivity” clause
removed from my Universal Art contract, I was free to experiment. I
therefore arranged to bring de Basil and his Original Ballet Russe to
America from Australia. They arrived on the Pacific Coast, and we played
an engagement in Los Angeles, another in Chicago, yet another in Canada.
Then I brought them to New York.
This was a season when the Metropolitan Opera House was not available
for ballet performances. Therefore, I took the Hollywood Theatre, on
Broadway, today rechristened the Mark Hellinger.
I opened the season with a four weeks’ engagement of the Ballet Russe de
Monte Carlo, followed immediately by the Original Ballet Russe, making a
consecutive period of about fifteen weeks of ballet at one house,
setting up a record of some sort for continuous ballet performances on
Broadway.
Christmas intervened, and, following my usual custom, I gave a large
party at Sherry’s in honor of Mrs. Hurok’s birthday, which occurs on the
25th December, at which were gathered the entire personnel of the
company, together with Katherine Dunham, Argentinita, and other
distinguished guests.
If I should be asked why I again allied myself with the “Colonel,” I
already have given a partial answer. There was a sentimental reason,
too. It was a case of “first love.” I wanted to go back to that early
love, to try to recapture some of the old feeling, the former rapture. I
should have realized that one does not go back, that one of the near
impossibilities of life is to recapture the old thrill. Those who can
are among the earth’s most fortunate.
This ten-week season was expensive. The pleasure of trying to recapture
cost me $70,000 in losses.
There were, however, compensations: there was the unending circus of
“Mutt and Jeff,” the four-feet-seven “Sasha” Philipoff and the
six-feet-two “Colonel.”
There was a repertoire that interested me. It was a pleasure once again
to luxuriate in the splendors of _Le Coq d’Or_, although the investiture
had become a shade or two tarnished from too much travel and too little
touching-up. It was refreshing to see Baronova and Toumanova in brisk
competition again in the same company, for the latter had already become
one of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo defections.
It is difficult for me to realize that Irina Baronova no longer dances.
She was the youngest of the “baby ballerinas.” Gentle, shy, with
honey-colored hair, Irina was born in Leningrad, and eventually reached
Paris, with her family, by way of the Orient. About her was a simple,
classical beauty, despite the fact that she always found it necessary to
disguise (on the stage) her rather impudent little nose in a variety of
ways by the use of make-up putty. It was so when she started in as a
tiny child to study with the great lady of the Maryinsky, Olga
Preobrajenska, whose nose also has a tilt.
To George Balanchine must go the credit for discovering Baronova in
Preobrajenska’s School in Paris, when he was on the search for new
talents at the time of the formation of the de Basil-Blum Les Ballets
Russes de Monte Carlo. About her work there was always something joyful
and yet, at the same time, something that was at once wistful and
tender.
As a classical dancer there was something so subtle about her art that
its true value and her true value came only slowly upon one. There was
no flash; everything about her, every movement, every gesture, flowed
one into another--as in swimming. But not only was she a great classical
dancer, she was the younger generation’s most accomplished mime.
I like to remember her as the Lady Gay, that red-haired trollop of the
construction camps, in _Union Pacific_, with her persuasive,
characteristic “come-up-and-see-me-sometime” interpretation; to remember
her in the minor role of the First Hand in _Le Beau Danube_, carefree,
innocent, flirting at the side of the stage with a park artist. I like
to remember her in _Jeux d’Enfants_, as she ran through the gamut of
jealousy, petulance, anger, and triumph; in _Les Présages_, as the
passionate woman loving with her whole being, fighting off the evil that
threatens love; in the mazurka in _Les Sylphides_; in _The Hundred
Kisses_, imperious, sulky, stubborn, humorously sly; and as the
Ballerina in _Petroushka_, drawing that line of demarcation between
heartless doll and equally heartless flirting woman.
Performance over, and away from the theatre, another transformation took
place; for Irina was never off-stage the _grande artiste_, the
_ballerina_, but a healthy, normal girl, with a keen sense of humor.
After a turn or two as a “legitimate” actress and a previous marriage,
Baronova now lives in London’s Mayfair, the wife of a London theatrical
manager, with her two children. The triumph of domesticity is ballet’s
loss.
I should like to set down from my memory the additions to the repertoire
of the Original Ballet Russe while they had been absent from our shores.
There were some definitely refreshing works. Chief among these were two
Fokine creations, _Paganini_ and _Cendrillon_.
The former had been worked out by Fokine with Sergei Rachmaninoff,
utilizing for music a slightly re-worked version of the latter’s
_Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini_. Serge Soudeikine had designed a
production that ranked at the top of that Russian designer’s list of
theatre creations. The entire ballet had a fine theatrical
effectiveness. Perhaps the whole may not have been equal to the sum of
its parts, but the second scene, wherein Paganini hypnotized a young
girl by his playing of the guitar and the force of his striking
personality, thereby forcing her into a dance of magnificent frenzy, was
a striking example of the greatness of Fokine. Tatiana Riabouchinska
rose to tremendous heights in the part. I remember Victor Dandré, so
long Pavlova’s life-partner and manager, telling me how, in this part,
Riabouchinska reminded him of Pavlova. Dandré did not often toss about
bouquets of this type.
_Cendrillon_ was Fokine’s retelling of the Cinderella tale. The score,
by Baron “Freddy” d’Erlanger, was certainly no great shakes, but Fokine
illuminated the entire work with the sort of inventiveness that was so
characteristic of him at his best. It would be unjust to compare this
production with the later Frederick Ashton _Cinderella_, to the
Prokofieff score, which he staged for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet; the
approach was quite different. The de Basil-Fokine production
nevertheless had a distinct charm of its own, enhanced by a genuine
fairy-tale setting by Nathalie Gontcharova.
A lesser contribution to the repertoire was a symbolic piece, _The
Eternal Struggle_, staged by Igor Schwezoff, in Australia, to Robert
Schumann piano music, orchestrated by Antal Dorati. It served the
purpose of introducing two Australian designers to America: the Misses
Kathleen and Florence Martin.
There was a duo of works by David Lichine, one serious and unsuccessful,
the other a comedy that had a substantial audience success and which,
since then, has moved from company to company. The former, _Protée_, was
arranged to Debussy’s _Danses Sacré et Profane_, in a Chirico setting
and costumes. The latter, _Graduation Ball_, Lichine had staged during
the long Australian stay. Its music was an admirable selection and
arrangement of Johann Strauss tunes by Antal Dorati. Its setting and
costumes were by Alexandre Benois. Much of its humor was sheer horseplay
and on the obvious side; but it was completely high-spirited, and was
the season’s comedy success.
A third work, credited to Lichine, was _The Prodigal Son_, a ballet that
was the outstanding creation of the last Diaghileff season, in 1929. Set
to a memorable commissioned score by Serge Prokofieff, by George
Balanchine, with Serge Lifar, Leon Woizikovsky, Anton Dolin and Felia
Dubrowska in the central roles, it had striking and evocative settings
and costumes by Georges Rouault. De Basil had secured these properties,
and had had the work re-done in Australia by Lichine. Lichine insisted
he had never seen the Balanchine original and thus approached the
subject with a fresh mind. However, Serge Grigorieff was the general
stage director for both companies. It is not beyond possibility that
Grigorieff, with his sensitive-plate retentive mind for balletic detail,
might have transferred much of the spirit and style of the original to
the de Basil-Lichine presentation. However it may have been, the result
was a moving theatrical experience. My strongest memory of it is the
exciting performance given by Sono Osato as the exotic siren who seduces
the Prodigal during his expensive excursion among the flesh-pots.
During this Hollywood Theatre season we also had _Le Cotillon_, that had
served originally to introduce Riabouchinska to American audiences. We
also, I am happy to remember, had Fokine’s Firebird, in the original
choreography, and the uncut Stravinsky score, together with the
remarkable settings and costumes of Gontcharova. Its opening performance
provided a few breath-taking moments when Baronova’s costume gave way,
and she fought bravely to prevent an embarrassing exposure.
During their tenure of the Hollywood Theatre, we managed one creation.
It was _Balustrade_. Its choreography was by George Balanchine. Its
music was Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, played in the orchestra pit
by Samuel Dushkin, for whom it was written. Stravinsky himself came on
from California to conduct the work. As is so often the case with
Balanchine, it had neither story nor theme nor idea; it was simply an
abstraction in which Balanchine set out to exploit to the fullest the
brittle technical prowess of Tamara Toumanova. The only reason I could
determine for the title was that the setting, by Pavel Tchelitcheff,
consisted of a long balustrade. Unfortunately, despite all the costs,
which I paid, it had, all told, one consecutive performance.