This was not a thing to be regarded lightly. The situation in ballet in general, and with the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe in particular, being as I have described it, I was interested in and attracted by the potential value of the company, if the proper sort of reorganization could be effected. Their Chicago season had been a complete fiasco at the box-office. There is a legend to the effect that, in an effort to attract a few people into the Chicago Opera House, members of the company stood outside the building as the office-workers from the surrounding buildings wended their way homeward to the suburban trains, passing out free tickets. The legend also has it that they managed to get some of these free tickets into the hands of a local critic who was one of the crowd.
I do not wish to bore the reader with the details of all the debates that highlighted those days. Sufficient is it to say that they were crowded and that the nights were often sleepless.
Anton Dolin was responsible for having German (“Gerry”) Sevastianov, no longer associated with de Basil, appointed as managing director, in succession to the resigned Pleasant.
The negotiations commenced and were both long and involved between all parties concerned which included discussion with Lucia Chase and her attorney, Harry M. Zuckert. Matters were reaching a point where I felt a glimmer of light could be detected, when a honeymoon intervened, due to the marriage of Zuckert. Ballet waited for romance. Throughout the long drawn-out discussions and negotiations, Zuckert was always pleasant, cooperative, diplomatic, and evidenced a sincere desire to avoid any friction.
Among the first acts of Sevastianov, after taking over the directorship, was to engage his wife, Irina Baronova, as a leading ballerina, together with Antal Dorati, former musical director of the de Basil company, and today the musical director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, to direct and supervise the music of Ballet Theatre. Later, through the good offices of Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova, whose contract with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo had terminated, became one of the two ballerine of the company.
The negotiations dragged on during the summer. Meanwhile, with the company and its artists inactive, Markova and Dolin, on their own, leased Jacob’s Pillow, the Ted Shawn farm and summer theatre in the Berkshires, and gave a number of performances under the collective title of International Dance Festival. This was a quite independent venture, but Markova and Dolin peopled their season and school with the personnel of Ballet Theatre.
This summer in the Berkshires had a two-fold effect on the company: first, the members were thus able to work together as a unit; second, with three choreographers in residence, it was possible for them to lay out and develop the early groundwork of three works, subsequently to be added to the Ballet Theatre repertoire: Slavonika, by Vania Psota; Princess Aurora, by Anton Dolin; and Pillar of Fire, by Antony Tudor.
Two of these were major contributions; one was pretty hopeless. Dolin’s Princess Aurora was a reworking of the last act of Tchaikowsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, a sort of Aurora’s Wedding, with the addition of the Rose Adagio, giving the company another classic work that remains in the company’s repertoire today, with some “innovations.” Pillar of Fire, set to Arnold Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht, revealed a new type of dramatic ballet which, in many respects, may be said to be Tudor’s masterpiece. Slavonika was set by the Czech Psota to a number of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, and was an almost total loss, from every point of view. The original version, as first produced, ran fifty-five minutes. I thought it would never end. But, as the tour proceeded, it was cut, and cut again. The last time I saw it was when I visited the company in Toronto. Then it was blessedly cut down to six minutes. After that, no further reduction seemed possible, and it was sent to the limbo of the storehouse, never to be seen again.
The deal between Ballet Theatre and myself was closed during the time the company was working at Jacob’s Pillow, and I took over the company in November, 1941. It might be of interest to note some of the chief personnel of the company at that time. Among the women were: Alicia Markova, Irina Baronova, Lucia Chase, Karen Conrad, Rosella Hightower, Nora Kaye, Maria Karnilova, Jeanette Lauret, Annabelle Lyon, Sono Osato, Nina Popova, and Roszika Sabo; among the men were: Anton Dolin, Ian Gibson, Frank Hobi, John Kriza, Hugh Laing, Yurek Lasovsky, Nicolas Orloff, Richard Reed, Jerome Robbins, Dmitri Romanoff, Borislav Runanin, Donald Saddler, Simon Semenoff, George Skibine, and Antony Tudor, to list them alphabetically, for the most part. Later, Alicia Alonso returned to the organization. A considerable number had been brought as a strengthening measure by Sevastianov.
One of the company’s weaknesses was in its classical and romantic departments. While there were Fokine’s Les Sylphides and Carnaval, I felt more Fokine ballets were necessary to a balanced repertoire. Sevastianov engaged Fokine to re-stage Le Spectre de la Rose and Petroushka, and to create a new work for Anton Dolin and Irina Baronova. Fokine started work on Bluebeard, to an Offenbach score, arranged and orchestrated by Antal Dorati, with scenery and costumes by Marcel Vertes.