The subsequent Ballet Theatre tour developed recurring headaches. They were cumulative, piling up into one big headache, and it will be less trying both to the reader and to myself to recount it later in one place, at one time.
With the spring of 1943, back we came to the Metropolitan for our spring season. There was a managerial change. German Sevastianov went off to war as a member of the United States Army, and J. Alden Talbot became managing director in his stead. This began the period of the wisest direction Ballet Theatre has known. Janet Reed joined the company as a soloist, and Vera Zorina appeared as guest artist in Helen of Troy, and in a revival of George Balanchine’s Errante. This was a work set to the music of Schubert-Liszt, originally done for Tilly Losch for Les Ballets 1933, in London, when Balanchine left de Basil, and one which the American Ballet revived at the Adelphi Theatre, in New York, two years later, with Tamara Geva. Balanchine also revived Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagète, with André Eglevsky, Zorina, Nora Kaye, and Rosella Hightower, to one of Stravinsky’s most moving scores.
The other work was history-making. It was Antony Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet. It was a work of great seriousness and fine theatrical invention. On the opening night Tudor had not finished the ballet, although he had been at it for months. It was too late to postpone the première, so, after a good deal of persuading, it was agreed to present it in its unfinished state. The curtain on the first performance fell some twelve minutes before the end. I have told this tale in detail in Impresario. The matter is historic. There is no point in laboring it. Tudor is an outstanding creator in the field of modern ballet. Romeo and Juliet is a monument to his creative gifts. The pity is that it no longer can be given by Ballet Theatre, no longer seen by the public, with its sharp characterization, its inviolate sense of period, the tenseness of its drama sustained in the medium of the dance.
Tudor’s original idea with Romeo and Juliet was to utilize the Serge Prokofieff score for the successful Soviet ballet of the same title. However, he found the Prokofieff score was unsuitable for his choreographic ideas. He eventually decided on various works by the English composer, Frederick Delius. Because of the war, it was found impossible to secure this musical material from England. Consequently, Antal Dorati, the musical director, orchestrated the entire work from listening to gramophone recordings of the Delius pieces. How good a job it was is testified by Sir Thomas Beecham, the long-time friend of Delius and the redoubtable champion of the composer’s music. I engaged Sir Thomas to conduct a number of performances of Romeo and Juliet at the Metropolitan Opera House, and he was amazed by the orchestration, commenting, “Astounding! Perfectly astounding! It is precisely as written by my late friend.”
The list of Beechamiana is long; but here is one more item which I believe has the virtue of freshness. I should like to record an incident of Sir Thomas’s first orchestral rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet. As I recall it, this rehearsal had to be sandwiched in between a broadcast concert rehearsal Sir Thomas had to make and the actual orchestral broadcast to which he was committed. There was no time to spare. Our orchestra was awaiting him at their places in the Metropolitan pit. The rehearsal was concise, to the point, with few stoppings or corrections on Sir Thomas’s part. At the conclusion, Sir Thomas looked the men over with a pontifical eye. Then he addressed them as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen. I happen to be one of those who believes music speaks its own language, and that words about it are usually a waste of time and effort. However, a word or two at this juncture may not be amiss.... I happened to know the late composer, Mr. Delius, intimately. I am also intimately acquainted with his music. I have only one suggestion, gentlemen. Tonight, when we play this music for this alleged ballet, if you will be so good as to confine yourselves to the notes as written by my late friend, Mr. Delius, and not improvise as you have done this afternoon, I assure you the results will be much more satisfactory.... Thank you very much.” And off he went.
That night the orchestra played like angels. The ballet was in its second season when I invited Sir Thomas to take over the performances. It was a joy to have him in command of the forces. Too little attention is accorded the quality of the orchestra and the conductor in ballet. Quite apart from the musical excellence itself, few people realize of what tremendous value a good conductor and a good orchestra can be to ballet as a whole. Romeo and Juliet never had such stage performances as those when Sir Thomas was in charge. And this is not said in disparagement of other conductors. Not only was the Beecham orchestral tone beautifully transparent, but Sir Thomas blended stage action and music so completely that the results were absolutely unique. The company responded nobly to the inspiration. It was during this season, endeavoring to utilize every legitimate means to stimulate interest on the part of the public that, in addition to Sir Thomas and various guest dancing stars, I also brought Igor Stravinsky from California to conduct his own works during the Metropolitan Opera House engagement.
For the sake of the record, let me briefly cite the chronological tabulation of Ballet Theatre through the period of my management. In the autumn of 1943, at the Metropolitan Opera House, there were three new productions, one each by Massine, Tudor, and David Lichine: Mademoiselle Angot, Dim Lustre, and Fair at Sorotchinsk.
Massine took the famous operetta by Charles Lecocq, La Fille de Mme. Angot, and in a series of striking sets by Mstislav Doboujinsky, turned it into a ballet, which, for some reason, failed to strike fire. It is interesting to note that when, some years later, Massine produced the work for Sadler’s Wells at Covent Garden, it was a considerable success. Tudor’s Dim Lustre, despite the presence of Nora Kaye, Rosella Hightower, Hugh Laing, and Tudor himself in the cast, was definitely second-rate Tudor. Called by its creator a “psychological episode,” this sophisticated Edwardian story made use of Richard Strauss’s Burleske, an early piano concerto of the composer’s, with a set and costumes by the Motley sisters. Lichine’s Fair at Sorotchinsk was a ballet on a Ukrainian folk tale straight out of Gogol, with Moussorgsky music, including a witches’ sabbath to the Night on a Bald Mountain, with settings and costumes by Nicolas Remisoff. It was an addition to the repertoire, if only for the performance of Dolin as Red Coat, the Devil of the Ukraine, who danced typically Russian Cossack toe-steps and made toe-pirouettes. Had the Cossack “Colonel” de Basil seen this, he would, I am sure, have envied Dolin for once in his life. While Fair at Sorotchinsk did not have a unanimously favorable reception at the hands of the press, it was generally liked by the public, as evidenced by the response at the box-office.
After the 1943-1944 tour, two more works were added during the spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, two sharply contrasted works by American choreographers: Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille. Robbins’s Fancy Free was a smash hit, a remarkable comedy piece of American character in a peculiarly native idiom. As a result of this work, Robbins leapt into fame exactly as Agnes de Mille had done a couple of years before as the result of her delightful Rodeo. Fancy Free was a collaborative work between Robbins and the brilliant young composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein, whose score was as much of a hit as was the ballet itself. Bernstein’s conducting of the orchestra was also a telling factor, for his dynamism and buoyancy was transmitted to the dancers.
Agnes de Mille’s work, Tally-Ho, was in a much different mood from her Rodeo. From present-day America, she leapt backwards to the France of Louis XVI, for a period farce-comedy, set to Gluck melodies, re-orchestrated by Paul Nordoff. The settings and costumes, in the style of Watteau, were by the Motleys, who had decorated her earlier Three Virgins and a Devil. Combining old world elegance with bawdy humor, Tally-Ho had both charm and fun, and although the company worked its hardest and at its very best for Agnes, and although she put her very soul into it, it was not the success that had been hoped.