As a dancer, he still dances, as no one else, the Miller in The Three-Cornered Hat and the Can Can Dancer in La Boutique Fantasque. Personally, I prefer only Massine in the roles he has created for himself. No other dancer can approach him in these.
I have mentioned his long sojourn at the Roxy Theatre, in New York. Under the conditions imposed—a new work to be staged weekly, to dance four times a day—masterpieces were obviously impossible; but the work he did was of vast importance in building a dance public in New York.
There are those today who chide Massine for his all too frequent re-creations of his old pieces, and lay it to Massine’s obsession with money. It is true, Massine does have a concern for money. But, after all, he has a wife, two growing children, and other responsibilities. However, I do not believe finance is the sole reason, and I, for one, wish he would not be eternally reproducing his old works. Le Beau Danube will live forever as one of the finest genre works of all time. But it must be properly done. I remember, to my sorrow, seeing a recent production of the Danube Massine staged in Paris, with Roland Petit—with a company of only fourteen dancers. Further comment is not required.
I have a deep and abiding affection for Leonide Massine as a person—an affection that is very deep and real. As an artist, I believe he is still the greatest individual personality in ballet today—a choreographer of deep knowledge, imagination, and ability.
The composer of some sixty-odd ballets, it is the most imposing record in modern ballet’s history, perfectly amazing productivity. No one but himself is capable of restoring them. When produced or restaged without his fine hand, they are a shambles.
I should like to offer my friend, Leonide Massine, a hope that springs from my heart. I can only urge him, for his own good and for the good of ballet which needs him, to rest for a time on his beautiful island in the Mediterranean and to spend the time there in study and reflection, crystallizing his ideas. Then he will bring to us new and striking creations that will come like a refreshing breeze clearing the murky atmosphere of much of our contemporary ballet scene. If Massine would only relax his constant drive and follow my suggestion, the real Massine would emerge.
After a summer on his island, he gave us one of his most recent creations (1952), an Umbrian Passion Play, Laudes Evangelli, to religious music of the Middle Ages. An interesting side-light on it is that the very first ballet he had in mind at the beginning of the Diaghileff association was based on the same idea.
At the height of his maturity, there is no indication of age in Massine. Age, after all, is merely a question of how old one feels. I remember, in the later days of his ballet, shortly before his death, Diaghileff was planning a special gala performance. At a conference of his staff, he suggested inviting Pavlova to appear. Some of his advisers countered the proposal with the suggestion that Pavlova was too old. My reply was brief and to the point.
“Pavlova will never age,” I said. “Some people are old at twenty. But Pavlova, never; for genius never looks at the calendar.”
What was true of Pavlova, is equally true of Leonide Massine.