As Webster and I went over the premises together, I sensed his feeling about the building, which I shared. Nevertheless, I tried to hide my disappointment when, at last, he turned to me and said: “It’s no go. We can’t play here. Let us postpone the visit till we can come to be seen on your only appropriate stage, the Metropolitan.”
We had had preliminary meetings with the British Consul General and his staff; plans and promotion were rapidly crystallizing, and my disappointment was none the less keen simply because I knew the reasons for the postponement were sound, and that it could not be otherwise.
The Dance Festival itself, without Sadler’s Wells, had its successes and left a mark on the local dance scene. The City Center was no more satisfactory, I am afraid, for the Ballet of the Opera of Paris, presented by the French National Lyric Theatre, under the auspices of the Cultural Relations Department of the French Foreign Ministry, than it would have been for the Covent Garden company. It was necessary to trim the scenery, omit much of it, and use only part of the personnel of the company at a time. But, on the other hand, it was a genuine pleasure to welcome them on their first visit to the United States and Canada. In addition to the Dance Festival Season in New York, we played highly successful engagements in Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago.
The company was headed by a distinguished French ballerina in the true French style, Yvette Chauviré. Other principal members of the company, all from the higher echelons of the Paris Opera, included Roger Ritz, Christiane Vaussard, Michel Renault, Alexandre Kalioujny, Micheline Bardin, and Max Bozzini, with Robert Blot and Richard Blareau as conductors. The repertoire included Ports of Call, Serge Lifar’s ballet to Jacques Ibert’s Escales; Salad, a Lifar work to a Darius Milhaud creation; Lifar’s setting of Ravel’s Pavane; The Wise Animals, based on the Jean de la Fontaine fables, by Lifar, to music by Francis Poulenc; Suite in White, from Eduardo Lalo’s Naouma; Punch and the Policeman, staged by Lifar to a score by Jolivet; Divertissement, cuttings from Tchaikowsky’s The Sleeping Beauty; The Peri, Lifar’s staging of the well-known ballet score by Paul Dukas; The Crystal Palace, Balanchine’s ballet to Bizet’s symphony, known here as Symphony in C; Vincent d’Indy’s Istar, in the Lifar choreography; Gala Evening, taken from Delibes’ La Source, by Leo Staats; Albert Aveline’s Elvira, to Scarlatti melodies orchestrated by Roland Manuel; André Messager’s The Two Pigeons, choreographed by Albert Aveline; the Rameau Castor and Pollux, staged by Nicola Guerra; The Knight and the Maiden, a two-act romantic ballet, staged by Lifar to a score by Philippe Gaubert; and Les Mirages, a classical work by Lifar, to music by Henri Sauguet.
Serge Lifar returned to America, not to dance, but as the choreographer of the company of which he is the head.
I happen to know certain facts about Lifar’s behavior during the Occupation of France, facts I did not know at the time of the publication of my earlier book, Impresario. Certain statements I made in that book concerning Serge Lifar were made on the basis of such information as I had at the time, which I believed was reliable. I have subsequently learned that it was not correct, and I have also subsequently had additional, quite different, and reliably documented information which makes me wish to acknowledge that an error of judgment was expressed on the basis of inconclusive evidence. Lifar may not have been a hero; very possibly, and quite probably, he may have been indiscreet; but it is now obvious to any fair-minded person that there has been a good deal of malicious gossip spread about him.
Lifar was restored to his post at the head of the Paris Opera Ballet by M. Georges Hirsch, Administrator, Director of the French National Lyric Theatres, himself a war-hero with a distinguished record. The dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet threatened to strike unless Lifar was so restored; the stage-hands, with definite indications of Communist inspiration, to strike if he was. Hirsch had the courage of his convictions. I have found that Lifar did not take the Paris Opera Ballet to Berlin during the Occupation, as has been alleged in this country, although the Germans wanted it badly; and I happen to know numerous other French companies did go. I also have learned that it was Serge Lifar who prevented the Paris Opera Ballet from going. I happen to know that Lifar did fly in a German plane to Kieff, his birthplace; as I happen to know that he did not show Hitler through the Paris Opera itself, as one widely-spread rumor has had it. As a matter of fact, stories to the effect that he did both these things have been widely circulated. I happen to have learned that Lifar made a tremendous effort to save that splendid gentleman, René Blum, but was unable to prevail against Blum’s patriotic but unfortunately stupid determination to remain in Paris. I also happen to know that Lifar was personally active in saving many Jews and also other liberals from deportation. Moreover, I know that, as has always been characteristic of Lifar, because he was one who had, he helped from his own pocket those who had not.
The performances of the Ballet of the Paris Opera at the City Center were not the slightest proof of the quality of its productions or its performance. The shocking limitations of the playhouse made necessary a vast reduction of its personnel, its scenery, its essential quality. The Paris Opera Ballet is, of course, a State Ballet in the fullest sense of the term. It is an aristocratic organization, conscious of the great tradition that hangs over it. The air is thick with it. Its dancers are civil servants of the Republic of France and their promotion in rank follows upon a strict examination pattern. It would be interesting one day to see the company at the Metropolitan Opera House, where its original setting could be approximated, although I fear the Metropolitan has nothing comparable with the foyer de la dance of the Paris Opera.
Here is ballet on a big scale and in the grand manner, with all the scenic and costume panoply of the art at its most grandiose. It is the sort of fine ballet that succeeds in giving the art an immense popularity with the masses.
As a matter of fact, I am negotiating with the very able Maurice Lehmann, the successor to Georges Hirsch as Director-General of the Opera, and I can think of no happier result than to be able to bring this rich example of the balletic art of France to America under the proper circumstances and conditions, if for no other reason than to compensate the organization for their previous visit.