The seasons of 1909-10 and 1910-11 found a small but admirable Russian ballet in the Metropolitan Opera of New York. Pavlowa, Lopoukowa, Mordkin, Volinine and Geltzer were of the number. They presented many divertissements in opera performances as well as a number of ballet pantomimes. As to their impression on the public, it is most briefly to be expressed by calling attention to the fact that the dancing enthusiasm now strongly rooted in America dates directly back to these Russian ballet seasons in the Metropolitan Opera. Naturally, the public’s lack of knowledge of the language of pantomime and choreography stood in the way of such an immediate “hit” as the same company had made in Paris. But in spite of incomplete understanding, New York was charmed from the first, and appreciation grew rapidly through the two seasons.
The contract was not renewed, nor has the Metropolitan Opera undertaken anything great in choreography since that time, in which it is probably right. Notwithstanding the popularity of the Russians, they did not increase box-office receipts commensurately with the heavy cost of salaries, transportation and incidental expenses.
It is natural, when service is needed, to turn to those whose fitness for such service has been proven. But the opera company, by its service to music, has earned exemption from added responsibilities to art. Since its organisation, the stockholders’ dividends have had the form of deficit statements every year until two years ago. Every year the stockholders wrote their checks to aggregate a quarter of a million dollars or more that opera cost in excess of its receipts. The past two years have turned the balance into the other column. If they chose to, the same set of gentlemen could, in a few years, put the ballet-drama on the same footing; but the sacrifice of money and effort is more than the public has a right to ask. Against appalling odds, the Metropolitan took up the cause of popularising opera. That the task proves other than a labour of love is due neither to skimping nor to lowering of standards, but to quite the contrary policy. The undertaking has succeeded; those connected with it are entitled to a period of enjoyment of their rewards. The American Academy of Dancing, when it is organised, is not morally their responsibility. For its own good, moreover, it had best be an independent organisation, with music definitely relegated to the secondary importance. As an auxiliary to music, the dance has not progressed as it should; only as the sole occupant of one of the pedestals to which the great arts are entitled will it receive the attentive care that it deserves and needs. But this is anticipation of the matter of another chapter.
Since the Metropolitan engagement, Russian ballets have seldom been seen in America except under misrepresentative conditions. Not through intentions to misrepresent, but through tactical errors easily understood in the light of subsequent knowledge, they have been too often advertised in such terms as to prepare their audiences for sensationalism rather than art.
A company including some of the best dancers that Russia has produced was headed by a vaudeville performer whose prominence proceeded from genius in imitations, and whose choreographic aspirations were based on two years (the programme confessed the period) of ballet study. It was believed that her name would be of service to the box-office; it was demonstrated that, by the standards of the supporting company, she was not a dancer. So she did not dance. Obviously, the function of subordinates is to be subordinate; so, perforce, they did not dance, either. People who came expecting to see great things inevitably felt that the Russian ballet was, to say the least, an overrated institution. A consequence even more unfortunate is that many managers draw, from this hapless alliance and its consequences, the deduction that Americans do not like high-class dancing.
