there would be no warning, no signal, since this was not a passenger
train but a troop train, and that they risked missing the train
altogether. He begged, pleaded, ordered--to no avail. Off they went in
the cold of the dawn, in the scantiest of nightclothes.
Silently and without warning, as the manager had foretold, the train
pulled out, leaving a dozen, including four leading artists, behind in
an Oregon tank town without clothes or tickets.
By dint of a dozen telephone calls and as many telegrams, the
nightgown-clad D.P.’s were picked up by a later train. After fourteen
hours in day coaches, crowded with regular passengers, they arrived at
the San Francisco Ferry, still in their nightclothes, thirty minutes
before curtain time; they were whisked in taxis to the War Memorial
Opera House. The curtain rose on time. The evening was saved.
It had its amusing side. It was one of the many hardships of wartime
touring, merely one of the continuous headaches, although a shade on the
unusual side. It was also yet another example of the utter lack of
discipline and consideration in the company, and of the stubborn refusal
of some of its members to cooperate in the cause of a fine art.
Another of the many incidents having to do with the difficulties of
war-time touring was one in Augusta, Georgia, where no hotel or other
housing accommodations could be found, due to the war-time overcrowding.
Most of the company slept, as best they could, in the railway station or
in the public park. It is recorded that Alicia Markova spent the night
sleeping on the sidewalk in the entrance-way to a grocer’s shop, wrapped
in newspapers and a cloak by the company manager, while that guardian
angel spent the night sitting on the edge of an adjoining
vegetable-stand, watching over her, smoking an endless chain of
cigarettes.
This attitude was but an indication of the good sportsmanship the
youngsters evidenced on more than one occasion, proving that, _au fond_,
they were, on the whole, good “troupers.”
While I had been prepared for the departure from the company of J. Alden
Talbot, I was saddened, nevertheless, when he left. Lucia Chase and the
scene designer, Oliver Smith, became joint managing directors, with the
result that there was precious little management and even less
direction. We played a summer season in California, at the War Memorial
Opera House in San Francisco, in conjunction with the City’s Art
Commission, and at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. In Hollywood we
rehearsed some of the new works to be given in New York in the autumn.
They were five in number, and unequal both in quality and appeal. Only
one was a real success. The five works were by an equal number of
choreographers: Simon Semenoff, Michael Kidd, John Taras, Jerome
Robbins, and Adolph Bolm.
Semenoff’s work, _Gift of the Magi_, was an attempt to make a ballet out
of O. Henry’s little short story of the same title, a touching tale of
the pathos of a young married couple with taste and no money. For the
ballet, young Lukas Foss wrote a workmanlike score, and Raoul Péne du
Bois supplied a great deal of scenery, difficult to manipulate. Nora
Kaye and John Kriza, as the young lovers, gave it a sweetness of
characterization. But, despite scenery, costumes, properties, and sweet
characterization, there was no real choreography, and the work soon left
the repertoire.
Michael Kidd’s first choreographic attempt for Ballet Theatre, and his
first full-scale work as a matter of fact, was a theatre piece. A
musical comedy type of work, it never seemed really to belong in a
ballet repertoire. Kidd called it _On Stage!_ For it Norman dello Joio
provided a workable and efficient score, and Oliver Smith designed a
back-stage scene that looked like back-stage. The costumes were designed
by Alvin Colt.
Another first choreographic effort was young John Taras’s _Graziana_,
for which I paid the costs. Here was no attempt to ape the Broadway
musical comedy theatre. It was a straightforward, fresh, classical
piece. Taras had set the work to a Violin Concerto by Mozart. He used a
concise group of dancers, seventeen all told, four of whom were
soloists. There was no story, simply dancing with no excuses, no
apologies, no straining for “novelty,” tricks, stunts, or gags. It was,
in effect, ballet, and the public liked it. Just what the title meant I
never knew. My guess is that Taras had to call it something, and
_Graziana_ was better than Number One.
The Robbins work came directly from Broadway, or the Avenue of the
Americas, to be precise. It was called _Interplay_, and had originally
been done for a variety show at the Ziegfeld Theatre. It was Robbins’s
second work. It was merely a piece of athletic fun. It was a genuine
hit. For music it had Morton Gould’s _Interplay Between Piano and
Orchestra_, which he had originally written for a commercial radio
programme as a brief concert piece for José Iturbi, with orchestra. The
“interplay” in the dance was that between classical dance and “jive.”
Actually what emerged was a group of kids having a lot of fun. For once,
in a long while, I could relax and smile when I saw it, for this was a
period when I had little time for relaxation and even less cause to
smile.
The production of Stravinsky’s _Firebird_ is something with which I
shall deal separately. There was still another season to tour and a
spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, in 1946. In outlining the
productions and chronology of Ballet Theatre during this period, I have
tried to be as objective as possible so that the organization’s public
history may be a matter of record. Its private history, in so far as my
relations are concerned, is quite another matter.
The troubles, the differences, the discussions, the intrigues of de
Basil and his group, of Universal Art were, for the most part, all of a
piece. I cannot say I ever got used to them, but I was prepared for
them. I knew pretty much the pattern they would follow, pretty much what
to expect. Being forewarned, I was forearmed. With Ballet Theatre I had
expected something different. Here I was not dealing with the
involutions and convolutions of the Cossack and the Slavic mind. Here, I
felt, would be an American approach. If, as a long-time American, I felt
I knew anything about the American people, one of their most distinctive
and noteworthy characteristics was their honesty of approach, their
straightforwardness, directness, frankness. Alas, I was filled with
disillusionment on this point. Ballet Theatre, in its approach to any
problem where I was concerned, had a style very much its own: full of
queer tricks, evasions, omissions, and unexpected twists of mind and
character, as each day disclosed them.
There were two chief bones of contention. One was the billing. I have
pointed out the lack of public interest in Ballet Theatre when I took it
over and how the very title worked to its disadvantage. If ballet is to
remain a great, universal entertainment in this country, and is, by the
purchase of tickets at the box-office, to help pay its own way, at
least in part, we must have a great mass audience as well as “devotees.”
The other bone of contention, and the one which eventually caused the
rupture of our association, was the matter of guest artists. The
opposition to guest artists was maintained on an almost hysterical
level. There were, as in every discussion, two sides to the question.
Reasonably stated, Lucia Chase’s argument could have been that Ballet
Theatre was an organic whole; that it was an instrument with the
sensitivity of a symphony orchestra, and “stars” damaged such a
conception. As a matter of fact, it was her basic argument. The
argument, plausible enough on the surface, does not, however, stand up
under examination, for the comparison with a symphony orchestra does not
hold.
Lacking the foresight and wisdom to keep the members of her company
under contract, each season there were presented to Miss Chase a flock
of new faces, new talents, unfamiliar with the repertoire, trained in a
variety of schools with a corresponding variety of styles; it took them
months to become a fully functioning and completely integrated part of
Miss Chase’s “organic whole.” Great symphony orchestras hold their
players together jealously year after year. Great symphony orchestras
manage to reduce their colossal deficits to some extent by the
engagement of distinguished soloists to appear with their “organic
wholes.” Such is the present state of musical appreciation in this
country that it is an open secret that in many cities the way to sell
out, or nearly sell out the house, is to engage soloists with box-office
appeal. I do not here refer to such great symphonic bodies as the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York
Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, but I do refer to those symphonic
bodies in those many cities that are something less than metropolitan
centers. Nor do I mean to suggest that this situation is one to be
commended or applauded, or that it represents the ultimate desired
_raison d’être_ for the existence of a symphony orchestra. But I do
suggest it is the only system feasible in the perilous situation today
in which our symphonic bodies are compelled to operate.
The analogy between ballet and symphony in this view is not apposite.
Again there was no attempt on Miss Chase’s part to understand the
situation; there was merely stubborn, unrelenting opposition after
recrimination. It should be recorded that J. Alden Talbot during his
tenure as general manager of Ballet Theatre fully realized and
understood the situation and shared my feelings. I remember one day in
Montreal when I had a conference with Lucia Chase to go over the entire
matter of guest artists. I listened patiently to her mounting hysteria.
I pointed out that, as the company became better known throughout the
country, as the quality of public ballet appreciation improved, the
company of youngsters might be able to stand on their own _pointes_; but
that, since the company and its personnel were as yet unknown, it would
require infinite time, patience, and money to build them up in the
consciousness of the public; and that, meanwhile, at this point in the
company’s existence, the guest stars gave a much needed fillip to the
organization, and that, to put it bluntly, they were a great relief to
some of the public, at any rate; for the great public has always liked
guest stars and some local managements have insisted on them; of that
the box-office had the proof. It was my contention that the guest star
principle had been responsible for American interest in ballet. I hope
the reader will pardon me if I link that system, coupled with my own
love, enthusiasm, and faith in ballet, with the popularity that ballet
has in this country today. There is such a thing as an unbecoming
modesty, and I dislike wearing anything that is unbecoming.
_TAMARA TOUMANOVA_
It was during the 1945-1946 season, for example, that I engaged Tamara
Toumanova as a guest artist. In addition to appearing in _Swan Lake_,
_Les Sylphides_, and various classical _pas de deux_, I had Bronislava
Nijinska stage a short work she called _Harvest Time_, to the music of
Henri Wieniawski, orchestrated by Antal Dorati, in which Toumanova
appeared with John Kriza, supported by a small _corps de ballet_. The
association, I fear, was not too happy for any of us, including the
“Black Pearl.” There was a resentment towards her on the part of some of
the artists, and Toumanova, over-anxious to please, almost literally
danced her head off; but the atmosphere was not conducive to her best
work.
Having watched Toumanova from childhood, knowing her as I do, it is not
easy, nor is it a simple matter for me to draw an objective portrait of
her, as she is today. One thing I shall _not_ do, and that is to go very
deeply into biographical background. That she was born in a box-car in
Siberia, while her parents were escaping into China from the Russian
Revolution, is a tale too often told--as are the stories of her
beginnings as a dancer in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska, and an
appearance at the Paris Trocadero on a Pavlova programme, at the age of
five or so.
It was her father, Vadim Boretszky-Kasadevich, who called a temporary
halt to the child prodigy business, by insisting that dance be suspended
for a year until she could do some school work.
Discovered at Preobrajenska’s school by George Balanchine, he placed her
with the de Basil company, and for a half-dozen years she remained
there, save for a brief interlude with Balanchine’s short-lived _Les
Ballets 1933_.
It was that same year that I brought the de Basil company to America the
first time, where she joined the trinity of “baby ballerinas”--Baronova
and Riabouchinska, of course, being the other two. It is a matter of
history how Toumanova became the American rotogravure editors’ delight;
how America became Toumanova-conscious.
Strong, remarkably strong though her technique was even in those days,
her performances were frequently uneven. Toumanova was a temperamental
dancer then, as now, and to those who know only her svelte, slender,
mature beauty of today, there may be some wonder that in those days she
had to fight a recurring tendency towards _embonpoint_, and excessive
_embonpoint_. But there were always startling brilliancies. In _Jeux
d’Enfants_ and _Cotillon_, I remember the dazzling _fouetées_. It is one
of Toumanova’s boasts that she was the first dancer to do thirty-two
double _fouetées_ and sixteen triples in actual performance. I am not an
authority on these technical matters and can, therefore, merely record
the statement.
Her unsuccessful Broadway appearance (a musical called _Stars in Your
Eyes_) was followed by a reunion with the de Basil Company in Australia
and a short season with him at the Hollywood Theatre, in New York; and
there was a later sojourn with the Massine Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Then Hollywood beckoned. There was one film in which she played an
acting part, _Days of Glory_. The picture was certainly not much to talk
about, but she married the producer-writer, Casey Robinson.
Since then, she has turned up as guest-artist with one organization
after another: the Paris Opera Ballet, the Marquis de Cuevas company,
Anton Dolin’s Festival Ballet in London, the San Francisco Civic Ballet;
a nomadic balletic existence, interrupted by another Hollywood film
appearance, this time in the role of Pavlova in _Tonight We Sing_, based
on my earlier book, _Impresario_.
As a person there is something about her that is at once naive and
ingenuous and, at the same time, deep and grave and tragic. She cries
still when she is happy, and is also able to cry when she is sad. She
adores to be praised; but, unlike some other dancers I know, she is also
anxious for criticism. She solicits it. And when she feels the
criticism is sound, she does her best to correct--at least for the
moment--the faults that have prompted it. Her devotion to her
mother--“Mamochka”--herself an attractive, voluble, and highly emotional
woman, is touching and sometimes a shade pathetic. Toumanova’s whole
life, career, and story have been, for the most part, the
thrice-familiar tale of the White Russian _émigré_. Like all _émigré_
stories, hers is extremely sentimental. Sentiment and sentimentality
play a big part in Tamara’s life.
She is, I feel, unbreakable, unquenchable. She is, in her maturity, even
more beautiful than she was as a “baby ballerina.” She is, I suppose,
precisely the popular conception of what a glamorous _ballerina_ is, or
at least should be. Her personality is that of a complete theatrical
extrovert. The last row of the gallery is her theatre target. Hers is
not a subtle personality. It is a sort of motion picture idea of a
_ballerina assoluta_, a sort of reincarnation of the fascinating
creatures from whose carriages adoring balletomanes unhitched the horses
and hauled them to Maxim’s for supper, dining the course of which the
creatures were toasted in vintage champagne drunk from slippers. It
doesn’t really matter that her conception is a bit dated. With Toumanova
it is effective.
Tamara’s conception of the ballerina in these terms is deliberate. She
admits her desire is to smash the audience as hard as she can. With her
a straight line is veritably the shortest distance between two points,
and no _ballerina_ makes the distance between herself and her audience
so brief. This conception has been known to lead to overacting and to
the ignoring of the colleagues with whom she is dancing at the time.
There is with her, as ever, great charm, an eager enthusiasm, and I am
happy to say, a fine sense of loyalty. This is a quality I particularly
appreciate. It has been shown to me on more than one occasion. When I
brought the Paris Opera Ballet for the New York City Festival, Tamara
was not nor had she been at that time a member of the Paris Opera
Company. She barely knew Lifar, yet it was she who became his champion
in New York. It was a calculated risk to her career which she took,
because she respected Lifar as an artist, did not believe the stories
about him, and was interested in fair play.
As I watch Toumanova today, I see but an extension in time, space and
years of the “baby ballerina” in her adult personality; there is still
an extravagant and dazzling glamor; there is still steely technique;
there is still a childlike naivete about her, even when she tries to be
ever so sophisticated; everything about her is still dramatic and
dramatized. And there is still “Mamochka,” in constant attendance,
helping, criticizing, urging; and although Tamara has been happily
married for a decade or so, “Mamochka” is still the watchdog. Many
ballet “mamas” are not only difficult, but some of them are overtly
disliked. Toumanova’s mother is another category. She has been at all
times a fine and constructive help to Tamara, both with practical
assistance and theoretical advice.
Tamara’s approach to the dance is beautiful to observe. Her devotion to
ballet amounts almost to a religion. Nothing under the sun is more
important to her than her work, her attendance at lessons. Nothing ever
is permitted to interfere with these.
I firmly believe that such is her concentration and devotion to her work
that, if a fire were to break out back-stage during a performance while
Tamara was in the midst of her fabulous _fouetées_, she would continue
with them, completely unperturbed, more intent on _fouetées_ than on
fire.
The Montreal discussions with the Ballet Theatre direction on the
subject of guest stars produced no understanding of the situation; only
the tiresomely reiterated, “It’s a sacrilege! It’s a crime!”
What was a “crime” then, was a sheer necessity. Let us look, for a
moment, at the Ballet Theatre situation today, after it is no longer
under my management, but entirely on its own, responsible for its own
destiny. During the last year of our association, following the
resignation of J. Alden Talbot as managing director, as I have pointed
out, Lucia Chase, who pays the bills, and Oliver Smith became joint
managing directors. They were running the company when we came to a
parting of the ways. It was they who protested most bitterly over the
guest-star system. Now, with the company, after thirteen years of
existence, presumably established, Miss Chase is firmly perpetrating the
same “crime” herself. I certainly do not object to it. But surely what
was a “sacrilege,” what was a “crime” at the time I was responsible for
their perpetration, must, now that the Ballet Theatre is on its own, no
longer be either sacrilegious or criminal.
Another recurring trouble source and the cause of many a contentious
discussion was the question of new productions. The arguments and
conferences over them were seemingly endless. Now the question of new
productions is one of the most vital and important in ballet management,
and one of the most pressing. All ballet management contracts call for a
ballet company to supply a certain number of new works each year. The
reason for this is that there must be a constant flow of new ballets in
a repertoire in order to attract the attention of both the critics and
the public. Standard works form the core of any repertoire and at least
one is necessary on every programme. But ballet itself, in order to keep
from becoming stagnant, must refresh itself by constantly expanding its
repertoire. Frequently, in contrast to the undying classics, nothing can
be deader than last years “novelty.” My contractual arrangement provides
that the management shall have the right either to accept or reject new
work as being acceptable or otherwise.
As time went on, many of the new works produced, some of which were
accepted by me against my sounder judgment, proved, as I feared, to be
unacceptable to the general public throughout the country. It should be
clearly understood that ballet cannot live on New York alone. America is
a large continent, and the hinterland audiences, while lacking, perhaps,
some of the quality of sophistication of metropolitan audiences, are
highly selective and quite as critical today as are their New York
counterparts. A New York success is by no means an assurance of a like
reception in Kalamazoo or Santa Barbara. Ballet needs both Santa Barbara
and Kalamazoo, as it needs New York. The building of repertoire should
be the joint task of the company direction and the management--since
their desired ends are the same, viz., the successful continuation of
the organization. Repertoire is a responsible and exceedingly demanding
task.
It certainly required no clairvoyance on my part to discern a very
definite antagonism toward any repertoire suggestions I offered. Certain
types of ballets were badly needed and were not forthcoming. Perhaps I
can most clearly illustrate my point by recapitulating the Ballet
Theatre repertoire at the time we parted company.
There were: Fokine’s heritage--_Les Sylphides_, _Carnaval_, (no longer
in repertoire), _Petroushka_ (no longer in repertoire), _Spectre de la
Rose_ (no longer in repertoire), plus two creations, _Bluebeard_, and
_Russian Soldier_ (no longer in repertoire). Andrée Howard had staged
_Death and the Maiden_ and _Lady Into Fox_ (both dropped before I took
over the company). Bronislava Nijinska had revived _La Fille Mal
Gardée_ and _The Beloved One_ (no longer in the repertoire). Anton Dolin
had revived _Swan Lake_, _Giselle_ (now performed in a Balanchine
version), _Princess Aurora_ (now touched up by Balanchine), and had
created _Quintet_ (dropped after the first season), _Capriccioso_
(dropped in the second season), _Pas de Quatre_ (now done in a version
by Keith Lester), and _Romantic Age_ (no longer in the repertoire).
Leonide Massine had revived _The Fantastic Toy Shop_, _Capriccio
Espagnol_, and _The Three-Cornered Hat_ (all out of repertoire). He had
produced three new works, _Don Domingo_, _Aleko_, and _Mlle. Angot_,
none of which was retained in the repertoire. Antony Tudor had revived
_The Lilac Garden_, _Judgment of Paris_, _Dark Elegies_, _Gala
Performance_, and had produced _Pillar of Fire_, _Romeo and Juliet_,
_Dim Lustre_, and _Undertow_, none of which remain. Agnes de Mille had
produced _Black Ritual_, _Three Virgins and a Devil_, and _Tally-Ho_,
none of which is actively in the repertoire. José Fernandez had produced
a Spanish work, _Goyescas_, which lasted only the first season. David
Lichine had revived _Graduation Ball_, and had produced _Helen of Troy_
and _Fair at Sorotchinsk_ (the latter no longer in repertoire). Adolph
Bolm had revived his _Ballet Mecanique_ (first season life only),
produced _Peter and the Wolf_, a perennial stand-by, and the short-lived
version of _Firebird_. John Taras had contributed _Graziana_, and Simon
Semenoff a version of _Coppélia_ and _Gift of the Magi_, neither of the
three existing today. Jerome Robbins’s _Fancy Free_ and _Interplay_
remain while his _Facsimile_ has been forgotten. Balanchine had revived
_Apollo_, _Errante_, and had produced _Waltz Academy_, all of which have
disappeared.