The supper was gay and charming and animated. I was filled with enthusiasm and was a long time falling asleep that night.
After that evening, there was no longer any attitude of “to hell with ballet” on my part. Ballet, I realized, with a fresh conviction solidifying the revelation I had had the night before, was here to stay. “To hell with ballet” had given way to “three cheers for ballet!”
After breakfast, the next morning, I telephoned David Webster to invite him to luncheon so that I might discuss details of the proposed American venture with him. During the course of the luncheon we went into all the major points and problems. Webster, I found, shared my enthusiasm for the idea and agreed in principle.
But, in accordance with the traditionally British manner, the thought and care and consideration that is given to every phase and every department, every suggestion, every idea, such matters do not move as swiftly as they do in the States. Before I started out for my usual London “constitutional” backwards and forwards across Waterloo Bridge, from where one looks up the Thames towards the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, mother of all our freedoms, I sent flowers to Margot Fonteyn with a note of appreciation for her magnificent performance of the night before and for the great pleasure she had given me.
There followed extended discussions with Ninette de Valois, the Director of whom, perhaps, the outstanding characteristic is that her outlook is such that her greatest ambition is to see the Sadler’s Wells Ballet become such an institution in its own right that, as she puts it, “no one will know the name of the director.” However, before any decisions could be reached, it became necessary for me to get home. So, with the whole business still very much up in the air, I returned to New York.
No sooner was I back in my office than there came an invitation from Mayor William O’Dwyer and Grover Whalen for me to take over the direction of the dance activities for the Festival for the One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the City of New York. I accepted the honor in the hope that I might be able to organize a completely international and representative Dance Festival, wherein the leading exponents of ballet and other forms of dance would have an opportunity to demonstrate their varied repertoires and techniques. To that end, I sent invitations in the name of the City of New York to all the leading dance organizations in the world, seeking their participation in the Festival. The response was unanimously immediate and enthusiastic; but, unfortunately, many of the organizations, possessing interesting repertoires and styles, were not in a position to undertake the costs of travel from far distant points, together with the heavy expenses for the transportation of scenery, equipment, and costumes. Among these was the newly-organized San Francisco Civic Ballet.
The Sadler’s Wells organization accepted the invitation in principle, as did the Paris Opera Ballet, through its director, Monsieur Georges Hirsch. Ram Gopal, brilliant exponent of the dance of India, accepted through his manager Julian Braunsweg; and, in this case, I was able to assist him in his financial problems, by bringing him at my own expense. Representing our native American dance were Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, together with their company. I happen to feel this group is one of the most representative of all our native practitioners of the “free” dance, in works that often come to grips with the problems and conflicts of life, and which eschew, at least for the time, pure abstraction. Most notable of these works, works in this form, is their trilogy: New Dance—Theatre Piece—With My Red Fires American dance groups were invited but for one reason or another were not able to accept.
As preparations for the Festival moved ahead, David Webster arrived from London to investigate the physical possibilities for the participation of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet as the national ballet of Great Britain.
The logical place for a Dance Festival of such proportions and such significance, and one of such avowedly international and civic nature, would have been the Metropolitan Opera House. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan had commitments with another ballet company. My friend and colleague, Edward Johnson, the then General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera Company, regretted the situation and did everything in his power to remedy the position and free our first lyric theatre for such an important civic event. However, the other dance organization insisted on its contractual rights and refused to give way, or to divide the time in any way.
The only other place left, therefore, was the New York City Center, in West Fifty-fifth Street. Webster made a thorough inspection of this former Masonic Temple from front to back, but found the place entirely inadequate, with a stage and an orchestra pit infinitely too small, and the theatre itself quite unsatisfactory for a company the size of the Covent Garden organization and productions. As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find a less satisfactory theatre for ballet production.