The Robbins work came directly from Broadway, or the Avenue of the Americas, to be precise. It was called Interplay, and had originally been done for a variety show at the Ziegfeld Theatre. It was Robbins’s second work. It was merely a piece of athletic fun. It was a genuine hit. For music it had Morton Gould’s Interplay Between Piano and Orchestra, which he had originally written for a commercial radio programme as a brief concert piece for José Iturbi, with orchestra. The “interplay” in the dance was that between classical dance and “jive.” Actually what emerged was a group of kids having a lot of fun. For once, in a long while, I could relax and smile when I saw it, for this was a period when I had little time for relaxation and even less cause to smile.
The production of Stravinsky’s Firebird is something with which I shall deal separately. There was still another season to tour and a spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, in 1946. In outlining the productions and chronology of Ballet Theatre during this period, I have tried to be as objective as possible so that the organization’s public history may be a matter of record. Its private history, in so far as my relations are concerned, is quite another matter.
The troubles, the differences, the discussions, the intrigues of de Basil and his group, of Universal Art were, for the most part, all of a piece. I cannot say I ever got used to them, but I was prepared for them. I knew pretty much the pattern they would follow, pretty much what to expect. Being forewarned, I was forearmed. With Ballet Theatre I had expected something different. Here I was not dealing with the involutions and convolutions of the Cossack and the Slavic mind. Here, I felt, would be an American approach. If, as a long-time American, I felt I knew anything about the American people, one of their most distinctive and noteworthy characteristics was their honesty of approach, their straightforwardness, directness, frankness. Alas, I was filled with disillusionment on this point. Ballet Theatre, in its approach to any problem where I was concerned, had a style very much its own: full of queer tricks, evasions, omissions, and unexpected twists of mind and character, as each day disclosed them.
There were two chief bones of contention. One was the billing. I have pointed out the lack of public interest in Ballet Theatre when I took it over and how the very title worked to its disadvantage. If ballet is to remain a great, universal entertainment in this country, and is, by the purchase of tickets at the box-office, to help pay its own way, at least in part, we must have a great mass audience as well as “devotees.”
The other bone of contention, and the one which eventually caused the rupture of our association, was the matter of guest artists. The opposition to guest artists was maintained on an almost hysterical level. There were, as in every discussion, two sides to the question. Reasonably stated, Lucia Chase’s argument could have been that Ballet Theatre was an organic whole; that it was an instrument with the sensitivity of a symphony orchestra, and “stars” damaged such a conception. As a matter of fact, it was her basic argument. The argument, plausible enough on the surface, does not, however, stand up under examination, for the comparison with a symphony orchestra does not hold.
Lacking the foresight and wisdom to keep the members of her company under contract, each season there were presented to Miss Chase a flock of new faces, new talents, unfamiliar with the repertoire, trained in a variety of schools with a corresponding variety of styles; it took them months to become a fully functioning and completely integrated part of Miss Chase’s “organic whole.” Great symphony orchestras hold their players together jealously year after year. Great symphony orchestras manage to reduce their colossal deficits to some extent by the engagement of distinguished soloists to appear with their “organic wholes.” Such is the present state of musical appreciation in this country that it is an open secret that in many cities the way to sell out, or nearly sell out the house, is to engage soloists with box-office appeal. I do not here refer to such great symphonic bodies as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, but I do refer to those symphonic bodies in those many cities that are something less than metropolitan centers. Nor do I mean to suggest that this situation is one to be commended or applauded, or that it represents the ultimate desired raison d’être for the existence of a symphony orchestra. But I do suggest it is the only system feasible in the perilous situation today in which our symphonic bodies are compelled to operate.
The analogy between ballet and symphony in this view is not apposite. Again there was no attempt on Miss Chase’s part to understand the situation; there was merely stubborn, unrelenting opposition after recrimination. It should be recorded that J. Alden Talbot during his tenure as general manager of Ballet Theatre fully realized and understood the situation and shared my feelings. I remember one day in Montreal when I had a conference with Lucia Chase to go over the entire matter of guest artists. I listened patiently to her mounting hysteria. I pointed out that, as the company became better known throughout the country, as the quality of public ballet appreciation improved, the company of youngsters might be able to stand on their own pointes; but that, since the company and its personnel were as yet unknown, it would require infinite time, patience, and money to build them up in the consciousness of the public; and that, meanwhile, at this point in the company’s existence, the guest stars gave a much needed fillip to the organization, and that, to put it bluntly, they were a great relief to some of the public, at any rate; for the great public has always liked guest stars and some local managements have insisted on them; of that the box-office had the proof. It was my contention that the guest star principle had been responsible for American interest in ballet. I hope the reader will pardon me if I link that system, coupled with my own love, enthusiasm, and faith in ballet, with the popularity that ballet has in this country today. There is such a thing as an unbecoming modesty, and I dislike wearing anything that is unbecoming.
TAMARA TOUMANOVA
It was during the 1945-1946 season, for example, that I engaged Tamara Toumanova as a guest artist. In addition to appearing in Swan Lake, Les Sylphides, and various classical pas de deux, I had Bronislava Nijinska stage a short work she called Harvest Time, to the music of Henri Wieniawski, orchestrated by Antal Dorati, in which Toumanova appeared with John Kriza, supported by a small corps de ballet. The association, I fear, was not too happy for any of us, including the “Black Pearl.” There was a resentment towards her on the part of some of the artists, and Toumanova, over-anxious to please, almost literally danced her head off; but the atmosphere was not conducive to her best work.
Having watched Toumanova from childhood, knowing her as I do, it is not easy, nor is it a simple matter for me to draw an objective portrait of her, as she is today. One thing I shall not do, and that is to go very deeply into biographical background. That she was born in a box-car in Siberia, while her parents were escaping into China from the Russian Revolution, is a tale too often told—as are the stories of her beginnings as a dancer in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska, and an appearance at the Paris Trocadero on a Pavlova programme, at the age of five or so.