It is necessary for me to make another digression at this point. The opening chapter of the New Testament is, as the reader will remember, a geneological one, with a formidable list of “begats.” It seems to me the course of wisdom to try to clear up, if I can, the “begats” of Russian Ballet since the day on which I first allied myself with it. I shall try to disentangle them for the sake of the reader’s better understanding. There were so many similar names, artists moving from one company to another, ballets appearing in the repertoires of more than one organization.
In this saga, I have called this chapter “W. de Basil and his Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.” It is a convenient handle. The confusion that was so characteristic of the man de Basil, was intensified by the fact that the “Colonel” changed the name of the company at least a half-dozen times during our association. To attempt to go into all the involved reasons for these chameleon-like changes would simply add to the confusion, and would, I feel, be boring. Let me, for the sake of conciseness and, I hope, the reader’s illumination, list the six changes:
In 1932, it was Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
From 1933 to 1936, it was Monte Carlo Ballet Russe.
In 1937, it was Colonel W. de Basil’s Ballet Russe.
In 1938, it was Covent Garden Ballet Russe.
In 1939, it was Educational Ballets, Ltd.
From 1940 until its demise, it was Original Ballet Russe.
I have said earlier that the alliance between René Blum and de Basil was foredoomed to failure. The split between them came in 1936, both as a result of incompatibility and of de Basil’s preoccupation with the United States to the exclusion of any Monte Carlo interest. Blum had a greater interest in Monte Carlo, with which, to be sure, he had a contract. So it was not surprising that René Blum organized a new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, with Michel Fokine as choreographer.
De Basil and his methods became increasingly aggravating. His chicanery, his eternal battling, above all, his overweening obsession about the size of his name in the display advertising, were sometimes almost unbearable. He carried a pocket-rule with him and would go about cities measuring the words “Col. W. de Basil.” Now electric light letters vary in size in the various cities, and there is no way of changing them without having new letters made or purchased at considerable expense and trouble. I remember a scene in Detroit, where de Basil became so obnoxious that the company manager and I climbed to the roof of the theatre and took down the sign with our own hands, in order to save us from further annoyance that day.