Chapter VI: Part 6

The largest contributor by far to the de Basil repertoire was Massine himself. No less than seventeen of the thirty-four works regularly presented, that is, fifty per-cent, were by this prodigious creator. Eight of these were originally staged by Massine for Diaghileff; two were revivals of works he produced for Count Etienne de Beaumont, in Paris, in 1932. Seven were original creations for the de Basil company. The Diaghileff creations, in revival--in the order of their first making--were: _The Midnight Sun_, to music from Rimsky-Korsakoff’s _The Snow Maiden_; _Russian Folk Tales_, music by Liadov; The _Good-Humored Ladies_, to the Scarlatti-Tommasini score; Manuel de Falla’s _The Three-Cornered Hat_; _The Fantastic Toyshop_, to Rossini melodies; George Auric’s _Les Matelots: Cimarosiana_; Vittorio Rieti’s _The Ball_.

The two Beaumont works: _Le Beau Danube_, and the Boccherini _Scuola di Ballo_.

The creations for the de Basil company: the three symphonic ballets--_Les Présages_, (Tchaikowsky’s Fifth); _Choreartium_, (Brahms’s Fourth); _La Symphonie Fantastique_, (Berlioz). Also _Children’s Games_ (Bizet); _Beach_ (Jean Francaix); _Union Pacific_ (Nicholas Nabokoff); and _Jardin Public_ (Dukelsky).

Two other choreographers round out the list. The young David Lichine contributed four; Bronislava Nijinska, two. The Lichine works: Tchaikowsky’s _Francesca da Rimini_ and _La Pavillon_, to Borodin’s music for strings, arranged by Antal Dorati. The others, produced in Europe, were so unsuccessful I could not bring them to America: _Nocturne_, a slight work utilising some of Mendelssohn’s _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ music, and _Les Imaginaires_, to a score by George Auric.

The Nijinska works: _The Hundred Kisses_, to a commissioned score by 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_.

Anton Dolin in _Fair at Sorotchinsk_]

Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo: Alexandra Danilova as the Glove Seller
and Leonide Massine as the Peruvian in _Gaîté Parisienne_

_Valente_]

_Maurice Seymour_

Tamara Toumanova]

_Maurice Seymour_

Alicia Markova]

_Valente_

Scene from Antony Tudor’s _Romeo and Juliet_: Hugh Laing, Antony
Tudor, Dmitri Romanoff, Lucia Chase, Alicia Markova
]

Ballet Theatre: Jerome Robbins and Janet Reed in _Fancy Free_

_Valente_]

_Gordon Anthony_

Ninette de Valois]

David Webster]

_Baron_]

_Magnum_

S. Hurok, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann]

_Star Photo_
]

Sadler’s Wells Ballet: Following the premiere of
_Sylvia_--Frederick Ashton, Margot Fonteyn, S. Hurok
]

_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.

The court action was a fortnight’s news-making wonder in London. Ballet 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.

The close of the season at the Hollywood Theatre found me, once again, in a perplexed mood. The de Basil organization, riddled by intrigue and quite out of focus, was not the answer. Its finances were in a parlous state. I disengaged my emotions and surveyed both the negligible artistic accomplishments and the substantial financial losses. I turned a deaf ear to de Basil’s importunings to have me undertake another American tour, although I did sponsor engagements in Boston and Philadelphia, and undertook to send the company to Mexico and South America.

As matters stood, neither the company nor the repertoire was good enough. I still had one more season tied to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and that, for the moment, was enough of trouble. I argued with myself that the Denham difficulties were sufficient unto one day, without deliberately and gratuitously adding those of the “Colonel.”

Fresh troubles arose in Philadelphia, from which point the company was to depart for Mexico City. Tamara Toumanova’s presence with the company was one of the conditions of the Mexican contract.

It will not be difficult, I think, for the reader to imagine my feelings when, on my arrival in Philadelphia, I was greeted by Toumanova with the news that she was leaving the company, that her contract with de Basil had expired, and that nothing in her life had given her greater happiness than to be able to quit.

De Basil was not to be found. He had gone into hiding. I went into action. I approached “Gerry” Sevastianov and his wife, Irina Baronova, to help out the situation by agreeing to have Baronova go to Mexico in place of the departing Toumanova. She consented, and this cost me an additional considerable sum.

Having succeeded in this, de Basil emerged from his hiding place to hold me up once again by demanding money under duress. He had no money and had to have cash in advance before he would move the company to Mexico. Once there, he raised objections to the Baronova arrangements, did not want her to dance or as a member of the company; and there was a general air of sabotage, egged on, I have no doubt, by a domestic situation, wherein his wife wanted to dance leading roles.

Somehow we managed to get through the Mexico City engagement and to get them to Cuba. There matters came to a head with a vengeance. Because of de Basil’s inability to pay salaries, he started cutting salaries, with a strike that has become a part of ballet history ensuing.

Once more I dispatched my trusty right hand, Mae Frohman, to foreign parts to try to straighten matters out. There was nothing she could do. The mess was too involved, too complicated, and the only possible course was for me to drop the whole thing.

De Basil, looking for new worlds to conquer, started for South America. His adventures in the Southern Hemisphere have no important place in this book, since the company was not then under my management. They would, moreover, fill another book. The de Basil South American venture, however, enters this story chronologically at a later point. Let it be said that the “Colonel’s” adventures there were as fantastic as the man himself. They included, among many other things, defection after defection, sometimes necessitating a recruiting of dancers almost from the streets; the performances of ballets with girls who had never heard of the works, much less seen them, having to rehearse them sketchily while the curtain was waiting to rise; the coincidence of performance with the outbreak of a local revolution; flying his little company in shifts, since only one jalopy plane, in a dubious state of repair, was available. I shall not go into his fantastic financing, this being one of the few times when, as I suggested at the beginning of this book, the curtain might be lowered for a few discreet moments, in order to spare the feelings of others rather than my own.

In the quiet of the small hours of the morning, I would lie awake and compare the personalities of the two “organizers,” de Basil and Denham, reviewing their likenesses and their differences. As I dozed off, I came to the conclusion that most generalizations about personality are wrong. When you have spent hours, days, months, years in close association and have been bored and irritated by a flamboyant individual, you are apt to think that restraint and reticence are the only virtues. Until you meet a quiet fellow, who is quiet either because he has nothing to say or nothing to make a noise about, and then discover his stillness is merely a convenient mask for deceit.

Massine, unable to continue any longer with the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe management, severed his connection with the company he had made, in 1942. Save for a few undistinguished creations, de Basil was skating along as best he could on his Diaghileff heritage; classicism was being neglected in the frantic search for “novelties.” Both companies were making productions, not on any basis of policy, but simply for expediency and as cheaply as possible. Existing productions in both companies were increasingly slipshod. While it is true that a good ballet is a good ballet, it is something less than good when it receives niggardly treatment or when it is given one less iota than the strictest attention to detail.

That is exactly what happened when the companies split, and split again: the works suffered; this, together with the recurring internal crises, boded ill for the future of ballet. There was the ever-present need for money for new productions. Diaghileff had one Maecenas after another. By the beginning of the third decade of the twentieth century, a Maecenas was becoming a rare bird indeed. Today he is as dead as the proverbial Dodo.