improving slightly, when we reached that fatal Sunday, the seventh of
December. Pearl Harbor night had less than $400 in receipts. The world
was at war. The battle to establish a new ballet company was paltry by
comparison. Nevertheless, our plans had been made; responsibilities had
been undertaken; there were human obligations to the artists, who
depended upon us for their livelihood; there were responsibilities to
local managers, who had booked us. There was a responsibility to the
public; for, in such times, I can conceive no reason why the cultural
entertainment world should stand still. It is a duty, I believe, to see
that it does not. In Russia, during the war, the work of the ballet was
intensified; in Britain, the Sadler’s Wells organization carried on,
giving performances throughout the country, in camps, in factories, in
fit-ups, as an aid to the morale both civilian and military. There could
be no question of our not going forward.
Leaving New York, we played Boston, Philadelphia, a group of Canadian
cities, Chicago. With such a cast and repertoire, it was reasonable to
expect there would be large audiences. The expectation was not
fulfilled. The stumbling-block was the title: Ballet Theatre. The use of
the two terms--“ballet” and “theatre”--as a means of identifying the
combination of the balletic and theatrical elements involved in the
organization, is quite understandable, in theory. As a practical name
for an individual ballet company, it is utterly confusing and
frustrating. I am not usually given to harboring thoughts of
assassination, but I could murder the person who invented that title and
used it as the name for a ballet company. Ballet in America does not
exist exclusively on the support of the initiated ballet enthusiast, the
“balletomane”--to use a term common in ballet circles to describe the
ballet “fan.” The word “balletomane” itself is of Russian origin, a
coined word for which there is no literal translation. Ballet, in order
to exist, must draw its chief support from the mass of theatregoers,
from the general amusement-loving public, those who like to go to a
“show.” The casual theatregoer, when confronted with posters and a
marquee sign reading “Ballet Theatre,” finds himself confused, more
likely than not believing it to be the name of the theatre building
itself. My own experience and a careful survey has demonstrated this
conclusively.
My losses in these days of Ballet Theatre were prodigious. Both Chase
and Sevastianov were aware of them. Other managements, in view of such
losses, might well have dropped the entire venture. In view of the heavy
deficits I was incurring and bearing single-handed, I felt some
assistance should be given.
An understanding was reached whereby I agreed to reduce the number of
new productions to be furnished for the next season, in order that their
expenses might be minimized. In consideration of this a certain amount
was refunded. At that moment it was a help; but not a sufficient help to
reduce my losses to less than $60,000. As a matter of fact, the
agreement was beneficial to both sides. In my case, it temporarily eased
the burden of meeting a heavy weekly payroll at a time when there were
practically no receipts; as for Ballet Theatre, it substantially reduced
their investment in new productions.
The continuing war presented additional problems. Personnel changes were
frequent on the male side of the company owing to the war-time draft.
There was an increasing demand for ballet; but a new uninformed,
uninitiated public was not in the market for ballet companies, but for
ballets--works about which they had somehow heard. I had two companies,
Ballet Theatre and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and I presented
them, one after the other, at the Metropolitan Opera House. In my
opinion, many of the problems could have been solved by a merger of the
two groups, had such a thing been possible, thus preserving, I believe,
the best properties and qualities of each of them.
During the spring of 1942, two new works were presented: Tudor’s _Pillar
of Fire_, on which he had been working for a long time, and Fokine’s
_Russian Soldier_. The latter was done at a time when we were all
thrilled by the tremendous effort the Russians were making in their
battles, their heroic battles, against the Nazi invader. In discussing
the idea with Fokine, himself Russian to the core, we emphasized the
symbolic intent of the tragedy, that of the simple Russian peasant who
sacrifices his life for his homeland. Although we of course did not
realize it at the time, this was to be the last work Fokine was to
complete in his long list of balletic creations. _Russian Soldier_ had
some of the best settings and costumes ever designed by the Russian
painter, Mstislav Doboujinsky. For music, Fokine utilized the orchestral
suite devised by Serge Prokofieff from his score for the satirical film,
_Lieutenant Kije_, which was extremely effective as music, but with
which I was never entirely happy, since Prokofieff, the musical
satirist, had packed it with his own very personal brand of satire for
the satiric film for which the music was originally composed. At the
same time, I doubt that any substantial portion of the audience knew the
source of the music and detected the satire; the great majority found
the work a moving experience.
Aside from being perhaps Tudor’s most important contribution to ballet,
_Pillar of Fire_--with its settings and costumes by Jo Mielziner, his
first contribution as a noted American designer to the ballet
stage--served to raise Nora Kaye from the rank and file of the original
company to an important position as a new type of dramatic _ballerina_.
Leonide Massine, parting with the company he had built, joined Ballet
Theatre as dancer and choreographer before the company’s departure for a
second summer season at the Palacio des Bellas Artes in Mexico City, as
guests of the Mexican Government.
In addition to performances there, the company used the Mexican period
as one of creation and rehearsal. Massine was in the midst of a creative
frenzy, working on two new ballets. One was _Don Domingo_, which had
some stunning scenery and costumes by the Mexican artist, Julio
Castellanos; an intriguing score by Sylvestre Revueltas; a Mexican
subject by Alfonso Reyes; _Don Domingo_ was prompted by the sincere
desire to pay a tribute to the country south of the border which had
played host to the company. That was Massine’s intention. Unfortunately,
the work did not jell, and was soon dropped from the repertoire.
The other work was _Aleko_, which takes rank with some of the best of
Massine’s creations. It was a subject close to his heart and to mine,
the poetic Pushkin tale of the lad from the city and his tragic love for
the daughter of a gypsy chieftain, a love that brings him to two murders
and a banishment. As a musical base, Massine took the Trio for piano,
violin, and violoncello which Tchaikowsky dedicated “to the memory of a
great artist,” Nicholas Rubinstein, in an orchestration by Erno Rapee.
The whole thing was a fine piece of collaboration between Massine and
the surrealist painter, Marc Chagall; and the work was deeply moving,
finely etched, with a strong feeling for character.
I have particularly happy memories of watching Chagall and his late wife
working in happy collaboration on the _Aleko_ production in Mexico City.
While he busied himself with the scenery, she occupied herself with the
costumes. The result of this fine collaboration on the part of all the
artists concerned resulted in a great Russian work.
The Ballet Theatre management was, to put it mildly, not in favour of
_Aleko_. It was a production on which I may be said to have insisted.
Fortunately, I was proved correct. Although it was dropped from the
repertoire not long after Ballet Theatre and I came to a parting of the
ways, it has now, ten years after its production, been crowned with
success in London. Presented at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, by
Ballet Theatre, in the summer of 1953, it has proved to be the
outstanding hit of their London season, both with press and public. I
cannot remember the unemotional and objective _Times_ (London) waxing
more enthusiastic over a balletic work.
During the Mexican hegira the company re-staged the Eugene Loring-Aaron
Copland _Billy the Kid_, still one of the finest American ballets,
although originally created in 1938. Certainly it is one of Copland’s
most successful theatre scores. Simon Semenoff also brought forth a
condensed and truncated version of Delibes’s _Coppélia_, as a vehicle
for Irina Baronova, with settings and costumes by Robert Montenegro. It
was not a success. It was a case of tampering with a classic; and I hold
firmly to the opinion that classics should not be subjected to tampering
or maltreatment. There is a special hades reserved for those
choreographers who have the temerity to draw mustaches on portraits of
lovely ladies.
Yet another Mexican creation that failed to meet the test of the stage
was _Romantic Age_, a ballet by Anton Dolin, to assorted music by
Vincenzo Bellini, in a setting and with costumes by Carlos Merida. An
attempt to capture some of the balletic atmosphere of the “romantic age”
in ballet, it was freely adapted from the idea of _Aglae, or The Pupil
of Love_, a work by Philippe Taglioni, dating back to 1841, originally a
vehicle of Marie Taglioni.
Michel Fokine and his wife Vera were also with the company in Mexico
City, re-staging his masterpiece, _Petroushka_, and commencing a new
work, _Helen of Troy_, based on the Offenbach _opéra bouffe_, _La Belle
Hélene_. Unfortunately, Fokine was stricken with pleurisy and returned
to New York, only to die from pneumonia shortly after.
_Helen of Troy_, however, promised well and a substantial investment had
already been made in it. David Lichine was called in and worked with
Antal Dorati on the book, as Dorati worked on the Offenbach music, with
Lichine staging the work on tour after the Metropolitan Opera House
season in New York. Still later, when Vera Zorina appeared with the
company, George Balanchine restaged it for his wife. The final result
was presumably a long way from Fokine, but a version of it still remains
in the Ballet Theatre repertoire today.
André Eglevsky joined the company during this season. Later on, Irina
Baronova, under doctor’s orders, left. Because there was no sound
artistic direction and no firm discipline in the company, I urged
Sevastianov to engage an experienced and able ballet-master and
_régisseur-general_ in the person of Adolph Bolm, to be responsible for
the general stage direction, deportment, and the exercise of an artistic
discipline over the company’s dancers, particularly the dissident
elements in it, which made working with them exceedingly difficult at
times. Sevastianov discussed the matter with Miss Chase, who agreed.
Before accepting, Bolm telephoned me from California seeking my advice
and I could but urge him to accept because I felt this would go a long
way toward stabilizing the company artistically.
It was at the close of the autumn season of 1942, at the Metropolitan
Opera House, that I bade good-bye to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and
Universal Art. There was a brief ceremony back-stage at the end of the
last performance. Denham and I both made farewell speeches. It is
always a sad moment for me to leave a company for whose success I have
given so much of my time, my energy, and money. I felt this sadness
keenly as I took leave of the nice kids.
The subsequent Ballet Theatre tour developed recurring headaches. They
were cumulative, piling up into one big headache, and it will be less
trying both to the reader and to myself to recount it later in one
place, at one time.
With the spring of 1943, back we came to the Metropolitan for our spring
season. There was a managerial change. German Sevastianov went off to
war as a member of the United States Army, and J. Alden Talbot became
managing director in his stead. This began the period of the wisest
direction Ballet Theatre has known. Janet Reed joined the company as a
soloist, and Vera Zorina appeared as guest artist in _Helen of Troy_,
and in a revival of George Balanchine’s _Errante_. This was a work set
to the music of Schubert-Liszt, originally done for Tilly Losch for _Les
Ballets 1933_, in London, when Balanchine left de Basil, and one which
the American Ballet revived at the Adelphi Theatre, in New York, two
years later, with Tamara Geva. Balanchine also revived Stravinsky’s
_Apollon Musagète_, with André Eglevsky, Zorina, Nora Kaye, and Rosella
Hightower, to one of Stravinsky’s most moving scores.
The other work was history-making. It was Antony Tudor’s _Romeo and
Juliet_. It was a work of great seriousness and fine theatrical
invention. On the opening night Tudor had not finished the ballet,
although he had been at it for months. It was too late to postpone the
_première_, so, after a good deal of persuading, it was agreed to
present it in its unfinished state. The curtain on the first performance
fell some twelve minutes before the end. I have told this tale in detail
in _Impresario_. The matter is historic. There is no point in laboring
it. Tudor is an outstanding creator in the field of modern ballet.
_Romeo and Juliet_ is a monument to his creative gifts. The pity is that
it no longer can be given by Ballet Theatre, no longer seen by the
public, with its sharp characterization, its inviolate sense of period,
the tenseness of its drama sustained in the medium of the dance.
Tudor’s original idea with _Romeo and Juliet_ was to utilize the Serge
Prokofieff score for the successful Soviet ballet of the same title.
However, he found the Prokofieff score was unsuitable for his
choreographic ideas. He eventually decided on various works by the
English composer, Frederick Delius. Because of the war, it was found
impossible to secure this musical material from England. Consequently,
Antal Dorati, the musical director, orchestrated the entire work from
listening to gramophone recordings of the Delius pieces. How good a job
it was is testified by Sir Thomas Beecham, the long-time friend of
Delius and the redoubtable champion of the composer’s music. I engaged
Sir Thomas to conduct a number of performances of _Romeo and Juliet_ at
the Metropolitan Opera House, and he was amazed by the orchestration,
commenting, “Astounding! Perfectly astounding! It is precisely as
written by my late friend.”
The list of Beechamiana is long; but here is one more item which I
believe has the virtue of freshness. I should like to record an incident
of Sir Thomas’s first orchestral rehearsal of _Romeo and Juliet_. As I
recall it, this rehearsal had to be sandwiched in between a broadcast
concert rehearsal Sir Thomas had to make and the actual orchestral
broadcast to which he was committed. There was no time to spare. Our
orchestra was awaiting him at their places in the Metropolitan pit. The
rehearsal was concise, to the point, with few stoppings or corrections
on Sir Thomas’s part. At the conclusion, Sir Thomas looked the men over
with a pontifical eye. Then he addressed them as follows: “Ladies and
gentlemen. I happen to be one of those who believes music speaks its own
language, and that words about it are usually a waste of time and
effort. However, a word or two at this juncture may not be amiss.... I
happened to know the late composer, Mr. Delius, intimately. I am also
intimately acquainted with his music. I have only one suggestion,
gentlemen. Tonight, when we play this music for this alleged ballet, if
you will be so good as to confine yourselves to the notes as written by
my late friend, Mr. Delius, and not _improvise_ as you have done this
afternoon, I assure you the results will be much more satisfactory....
Thank you very much.” And off he went.
That night the orchestra played like angels. The ballet was in its
second season when I invited Sir Thomas to take over the performances.
It was a joy to have him in command of the forces. Too little attention
is accorded the quality of the orchestra and the conductor in ballet.
Quite apart from the musical excellence itself, few people realize of
what tremendous value a good conductor and a good orchestra can be to
ballet as a whole. _Romeo and Juliet_ never had such stage performances
as those when Sir Thomas was in charge. And this is not said in
disparagement of other conductors. Not only was the Beecham orchestral
tone beautifully transparent, but Sir Thomas blended stage action and
music so completely that the results were absolutely unique. The
company responded nobly to the inspiration. It was during this season,
endeavoring to utilize every legitimate means to stimulate interest on
the part of the public that, in addition to Sir Thomas and various guest
dancing stars, I also brought Igor Stravinsky from California to conduct
his own works during the Metropolitan Opera House engagement.
For the sake of the record, let me briefly cite the chronological
tabulation of Ballet Theatre through the period of my management. In the
autumn of 1943, at the Metropolitan Opera House, there were three new
productions, one each by Massine, Tudor, and David Lichine:
_Mademoiselle Angot_, _Dim Lustre_, and _Fair at Sorotchinsk_.
Massine took the famous operetta by Charles Lecocq, _La Fille de Mme.
Angot_, and in a series of striking sets by Mstislav Doboujinsky, turned
it into a ballet, which, for some reason, failed to strike fire. It is
interesting to note that when, some years later, Massine produced the
work for Sadler’s Wells at Covent Garden, it was a considerable success.
Tudor’s _Dim Lustre_, despite the presence of Nora Kaye, Rosella
Hightower, Hugh Laing, and Tudor himself in the cast, was definitely
second-rate Tudor. Called by its creator a “psychological episode,” this
sophisticated Edwardian story made use of Richard Strauss’s _Burleske_,
an early piano concerto of the composer’s, with a set and costumes by
the Motley sisters. Lichine’s _Fair at Sorotchinsk_ was a ballet on a
Ukrainian folk tale straight out of Gogol, with Moussorgsky music,
including a witches’ sabbath to the _Night on a Bald Mountain_, with
settings and costumes by Nicolas Remisoff. It was an addition to the
repertoire, if only for the performance of Dolin as Red Coat, the Devil
of the Ukraine, who danced typically Russian Cossack toe-steps and made
toe-pirouettes. Had the Cossack “Colonel” de Basil seen this, he would,
I am sure, have envied Dolin for once in his life. While _Fair at
Sorotchinsk_ did not have a unanimously favorable reception at the hands
of the press, it was generally liked by the public, as evidenced by the
response at the box-office.
After the 1943-1944 tour, two more works were added during the spring
season at the Metropolitan Opera House, two sharply contrasted works by
American choreographers: Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille. Robbins’s
_Fancy Free_ was a smash hit, a remarkable comedy piece of American
character in a peculiarly native idiom. As a result of this work,
Robbins leapt into fame exactly as Agnes de Mille had done a couple of
years before as the result of her delightful _Rodeo_. _Fancy Free_ was
a collaborative work between Robbins and the brilliant young composer
and conductor, Leonard Bernstein, whose score was as much of a hit as
was the ballet itself. Bernstein’s conducting of the orchestra was also
a telling factor, for his dynamism and buoyancy was transmitted to the
dancers.
Agnes de Mille’s work, _Tally-Ho_, was in a much different mood from her
_Rodeo_. From present-day America, she leapt backwards to the France of
Louis XVI, for a period farce-comedy, set to Gluck melodies,
re-orchestrated by Paul Nordoff. The settings and costumes, in the style
of Watteau, were by the Motleys, who had decorated her earlier _Three
Virgins and a Devil_. Combining old world elegance with bawdy humor,
_Tally-Ho_ had both charm and fun, and although the company worked its
hardest and at its very best for Agnes, and although she put her very
soul into it, it was not the success that had been hoped.
Only one _première_ marked the autumn season at the Metropolitan. It was
one done by Balanchine, called _Waltz Academy_, the first work he had
created for Ballet Theatre, in contrast to numerous revivals I have
mentioned. It was not a very good ballet, static in effect, although
classical in style. Its setting was a reproduction of the ballet room at
the Paris Opera, by Oliver Smith. The music was a dry orchestration of
dance melodies, largely waltzes, by Vittorio Rieti, who composed a pair
of latter-day Diaghileff works. A ballet that could have been
entertaining and lively, just missed being either.
The lack of new works and the necessity to stimulate public interest
made it necessary to add guest stars, particularly since Markova and
Dolin had left the company to appear in Billy Rose’s revue, _The Seven
Lively Arts_. Consequently, Tamara Toumanova, Tatiana Riabouchinska,
David Lichine, and André Eglevsky made guest appearances.
The subsequent tour compounded internal complications until the only
ameliorating feature of my association was the wise and understanding
cooperation of J. Alden Talbot, who was, I knew, on the verge of
resigning his post, for reasons not entirely different from my own in
considering writing a book to be called _To Hell with Ballet!_
On tour, during 1944-1945, Tudor rehearsed the only new work to be
offered during the 1945 spring season at the Metropolitan. It was
_Undertow_, the story of an adolescent’s neurosis, suggested to Tudor by
the well-known playwright, John van Druten. It was packed with symbols,
Freudian and otherwise; and my own reaction to its murky tale dealing
with an Oedipus complex, a bloody bitch, a lecherous old man’s affair
with a whore, a mad wedding, a group of drunken charwomen, a rape of a
nasty little girl by four naughty little boys, and a shocking murder,
was one of revulsion. The score was specially commissioned from the
present head of the Juilliard School, the American William Schuman. The
settings and costumes, as depressing as the work itself, were by the
Chicago painter, Raymond Breinin.
The rigors of war-time ballet travel were considerable, a constant
battle to arrive on time, to be able to leave in time to arrive in time
at the next city. Each day presented a new problem. But it had its comic
side as well. We had played the Pacific Northwest and, after an
engagement in Portland, there followed the most important engagement of
the west thus far, that at the War Memorial Opera House, in San
Francisco.
There was immense difficulty in getting the company and its properties
out of Portland at all. It should be remembered, and there is no harm
pointing out that the entire railway transportation system of our
country from Portland, Oregon, in the far Northwest, to New Orleans, in
the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, is in the hands of a single railway,
thousands of miles of it single-track line, with no competition, and
thus a law unto itself. For a long time, during this particular tour,
this railway insisted, because of military commitments, it could not
handle the company and its baggage cars from Portland to San Francisco
in time for the first performance there.
The reader should know that there are no reduced fares or concessions
for theatrical or ballet companies. First-class fares are paid, and full
rates for Pullmans and food. My representative, with a broad experience
in these matters, continued to battle, and it was eventually arranged
that the company would be attached in “tourist” coaches to a troop train
bound for the south, but with no dining facilities for civilians and no
provision for food or drink. At least, it would get them to San
Francisco in time for the opening performance.
So, the rickety tourist cars were attached to the troop train and the
journey commenced. The artists were carefully warned by my
representative that this was a troop train, that no food would be
available, and that each member of the company should provide himself
enough food and beverage for the journey.
At daybreak of the next morning, cold and dismal, the train stopped at a
junction point in the Cascades to add a locomotive for the long haul
over the “divide.” Opposite the station was a “diner.” Twelve members of
the company, including four principal artists, in nightclothes--pyjamas,
nightgowns, kimonos, bed-slippers, with lightweight coats wrapped round
them--insisted on getting down from the train and crossing to the little
“diner” for “breakfast.”