In addition to performances there, the company used the Mexican period as one of creation and rehearsal. Massine was in the midst of a creative frenzy, working on two new ballets. One was Don Domingo, which had some stunning scenery and costumes by the Mexican artist, Julio Castellanos; an intriguing score by Sylvestre Revueltas; a Mexican subject by Alfonso Reyes; Don Domingo was prompted by the sincere desire to pay a tribute to the country south of the border which had played host to the company. That was Massine’s intention. Unfortunately, the work did not jell, and was soon dropped from the repertoire.
The other work was Aleko, which takes rank with some of the best of Massine’s creations. It was a subject close to his heart and to mine, the poetic Pushkin tale of the lad from the city and his tragic love for the daughter of a gypsy chieftain, a love that brings him to two murders and a banishment. As a musical base, Massine took the Trio for piano, violin, and violoncello which Tchaikowsky dedicated “to the memory of a great artist,” Nicholas Rubinstein, in an orchestration by Erno Rapee. The whole thing was a fine piece of collaboration between Massine and the surrealist painter, Marc Chagall; and the work was deeply moving, finely etched, with a strong feeling for character.
I have particularly happy memories of watching Chagall and his late wife working in happy collaboration on the Aleko production in Mexico City. While he busied himself with the scenery, she occupied herself with the costumes. The result of this fine collaboration on the part of all the artists concerned resulted in a great Russian work.
The Ballet Theatre management was, to put it mildly, not in favour of Aleko. It was a production on which I may be said to have insisted. Fortunately, I was proved correct. Although it was dropped from the repertoire not long after Ballet Theatre and I came to a parting of the ways, it has now, ten years after its production, been crowned with success in London. Presented at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, by Ballet Theatre, in the summer of 1953, it has proved to be the outstanding hit of their London season, both with press and public. I cannot remember the unemotional and objective Times (London) waxing more enthusiastic over a balletic work.
During the Mexican hegira the company re-staged the Eugene Loring-Aaron Copland Billy the Kid, still one of the finest American ballets, although originally created in 1938. Certainly it is one of Copland’s most successful theatre scores. Simon Semenoff also brought forth a condensed and truncated version of Delibes’s Coppélia, as a vehicle for Irina Baronova, with settings and costumes by Robert Montenegro. It was not a success. It was a case of tampering with a classic; and I hold firmly to the opinion that classics should not be subjected to tampering or maltreatment. There is a special hades reserved for those choreographers who have the temerity to draw mustaches on portraits of lovely ladies.
Yet another Mexican creation that failed to meet the test of the stage was Romantic Age, a ballet by Anton Dolin, to assorted music by Vincenzo Bellini, in a setting and with costumes by Carlos Merida. An attempt to capture some of the balletic atmosphere of the “romantic age” in ballet, it was freely adapted from the idea of Aglae, or The Pupil of Love, a work by Philippe Taglioni, dating back to 1841, originally a vehicle of Marie Taglioni.
Michel Fokine and his wife Vera were also with the company in Mexico City, re-staging his masterpiece, Petroushka, and commencing a new work, Helen of Troy, based on the Offenbach opéra bouffe, La Belle Hélene. Unfortunately, Fokine was stricken with pleurisy and returned to New York, only to die from pneumonia shortly after.
Helen of Troy, however, promised well and a substantial investment had already been made in it. David Lichine was called in and worked with Antal Dorati on the book, as Dorati worked on the Offenbach music, with Lichine staging the work on tour after the Metropolitan Opera House season in New York. Still later, when Vera Zorina appeared with the company, George Balanchine restaged it for his wife. The final result was presumably a long way from Fokine, but a version of it still remains in the Ballet Theatre repertoire today.
André Eglevsky joined the company during this season. Later on, Irina Baronova, under doctor’s orders, left. Because there was no sound artistic direction and no firm discipline in the company, I urged Sevastianov to engage an experienced and able ballet-master and régisseur-general in the person of Adolph Bolm, to be responsible for the general stage direction, deportment, and the exercise of an artistic discipline over the company’s dancers, particularly the dissident elements in it, which made working with them exceedingly difficult at times. Sevastianov discussed the matter with Miss Chase, who agreed. Before accepting, Bolm telephoned me from California seeking my advice and I could but urge him to accept because I felt this would go a long way toward stabilizing the company artistically.
It was at the close of the autumn season of 1942, at the Metropolitan Opera House, that I bade good-bye to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Universal Art. There was a brief ceremony back-stage at the end of the last performance. Denham and I both made farewell speeches. It is always a sad moment for me to leave a company for whose success I have given so much of my time, my energy, and money. I felt this sadness keenly as I took leave of the nice kids.