A Conversation with Francis Mason

Summer 2011 Ballet Review

From the Summer 2011 issue of Ballet Review

A Conversation with Francis Mason

On the cover: NYCB’s Teresa Reichlen in Balanchine’s Rubies. 4 Auckland – Marianne Schultz 5 Paris – Peter Sparling 7 Stuttgart –Gary Smith 8 New York – Sandra Genter 10 Chicago – Joseph Houseal 11 Toronto – Gary Smith 12 Paris – Peter Sparling 14 Toronto –Gary Smith 15 Saratoga Springs – Jay Rogoff 17 London –Leigh Witchel 21 Paris – Peter Sparling 80 22 Chicago – Joseph Houseal 25 Tanglewood – Jay Rogoff

Joseph Houseal 28 A Conversation with Wendy Whelan

Ian Spencer Bell 36 Basic Black

Victoria Phillips Geduld 40 This American Manifestation 50 Ballet Review 39.2 Francis Mason Summer 2011 50 Helen McGehee on Martha Graham

Editor and Designer: Carla DeFord Marvin Hoshino 54 A Conversation with James Whiteside Managing Editor: Roberta Hellman Joel Lobenthal Senior Editor: 58 Sallie and Joe Don Daniels Associate Editor: Rebecca Hadley Joel Lobenthal 67 Nature Shows 28 Associate Editor: Jay Rogoff Larry Kaplan 72 Renaissance Fare Copy Editor: Barbara Palfy Elizabeth McPherson Photographers: 80 Labanotation as Teacher Tom Brazil Costas 88 London Reporter – Clement Crisp Associates: 92 Robert de Warren – Joseph Houseal Peter Anastos 94 Apollo’s Angels – Elizabeth Zimmer Robert Gres kovic 95 Music on Disc – George Dorris George Jackson Elizabeth Kendall 54 Paul Parish Nancy Reynolds James Sutton David Vaughan Edward Willinger Sarah C. Woodcock Cover Photo by Paul Kolnik, NYCB: Teresa Reichlen in “Rubies.” Francis Mason in Yugoslavia.

40 ballet review This American turing.Nonsense,butwithbeautifulcostumes and scenery by Christian Bérard, no less. I Manifestation thought it was pompous. Hated it. I swore I’d never go to the ballet again. Fast forward eleven years. I’m working in Victoria Phillips Geduld New York and I was seeing old friends of mine from St. John’s College, one of my teachers, Francis Mason: I was in the U.S. Navy during William Gorman, an Aristotelian and a Thom- the Second World War. I participated in the ist, and his wife Natalie Bodanya, who was a D-Day Invasion of Normandy in France and soprano with the Met. came back and got a job teaching in Annapo- After Lincoln Kirstein got back from the lis, Maryland, at St. John’s College, where I war, he and Balanchine started a thing called had gone to school. The best college in Amer- Ballet Society in 1946. They did TheFourTs [The ica for me, and, I think, still the best college in Four Temperaments] at the Central High School America. ofNeedleTradesdowntown.Ididn’tknowany- At St. John’s, I fortunately knew a number thingaboutthat.ButBillandNataliedid.They of people who were later very important in were members of Ballet Society. my life, in the dance world. Nicolas Nabokov, One day in the spring of 1948 I said to them, the old Russian composer, was a friend of Bal- let’s get together again next week. And they anchine’s, who used to visit him in Annapo- said, “Why don’t you come to the ballet with lis. I didn’t know Balanchine in those days, I us?” I said, “That’s a stupid thing to do. Why just knew about him from Nicolas. are you doing that?” And they said, “Francis, I hadn’t been to the ballet. Oh, I’d been to you can’t talk like that, that’s an uncivilized theballetonce,in1937,whenIwasahighschool remark from a person like you.” I said, “But kidinPhiladelphia.IusedtogotothePhiladel- I’ve seen the ballet and I thought it was non- phia Orchestra every Saturday night. I would sense!” They asked, “What did you see?” I told standinlinetwo,three,four,fivehours,some- them the Massine story and they said, “You’re times in the bitter cold, to get a fifty-cent tick- right! Massine is crap, but this is Balanchine.” et for what was then the greatest orchestra in I said, “Oh, Balanchine, I know all about him.” America. It was Leopold Stokowski’s last sea- They said, “But you just said you don’t know son there. anything about the ballet.” I told them, “I saw I was in line when my friend said, “Fran- The Goldwyn Follies.” cis, you know it’s not the orchestra tonight. When Balanchine and his company The It’s the ballet.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, American Ballet were at the Met, or just af- “It’s dancing. Stay,you may like it.” Well, I had terwards, Sam Goldwyn, the movie producer, been in line for hours so I stayed. The curtain went out on a limb and asked Balanchine to went up. David Lichine was in Afternoon of a Hollywood. Goldwyn was making a movie and Faun. I didn’t, mind you, know anything about he didn’t know what he was going to do in it. this. I loved it. For a seventeen-year-old, Faun Balanchine didn’t like Goldwyn, but he saw was a cinch, you understand. I did that in thatinHollywoodhecoulddoanything,things my bed every night in a way.But then they did that he couldn’t do in the theater. a big ballet to the Beethoven Seventh Sym- GoldwynFollieshadVeraZorina,whobecame phony. My Seventh Symphony? I knew the Balanchine’s wife around that time, and she Beethoven, from the Philadelphia Orchestra. did something called the Waternymph ballet, I was outraged. Massine! All of this silly pos- in which she rises out of a pool – soaking wet. Francis Mason was the editor of Ballet Review from Then the pool becomes a mirror, she’s dry, 1980 until his death in 2009. This article is based on and she dances off with the American Ballet alengthyinterviewfromApril2006. full force, men and women, and a huge de

©2011EstateofFrancisMason,VictoriaPhillipsGeduld 41 Chirico-esque white horse in the background. sals. I began to watch him make pieces. I saw Well, I adored it. I thought Zorina was ex- him do Bourrée Fantasque. I saw him revive Pro- traordinary, so I said, “That’s Balanchine!” digal Son with Jerry Robbins and Maria and They said, “But, Francis, this is a Balanchine other things. I was there all the time watch- ballet live on the stage. You have to see.” I said, ing. “Okay, maybe I’ll be there.” I began to write about it in the Hudson Re- I turned up, the next week – late, the last view in 1950. Frederick Morgan, the editor of second. They were furious with me and the magazine, was terrific. I took him and his dragged me to my seat and said, “Sit down and wife, Connie, to the City Ballet one night and shutup.ThisiscalledOrpheus,youknowabout said, “Look, I want to write about this.” They Orpheus.” I indeed did know all about him. said, “Please do.” So, I began to do that. I did not know it, but Stravinsky was in the Then a couple of years into that, one of pit that night. I saw this performance, with the students I’d had at St. John’s when I was Noguchi’s great setting, the great silk curtain teaching there, Lawrence Sherman, a New that Balanchine had paid so much for. I was Yorker, had a job at Doubleday. He called me: overwhelmed,reallystunned.Fromthatpoint “Look we’ve just signed a contract with Bal- on, I was interested in the subject. anchine to do a book of stories of the ballet.” The company started as the New York City Doubleday had done a book that sold like hot- Ballet in, I think, November [it was October cakes called Milton Cross’s Complete Stories of the 1948]. I went to lots of performances. I was Great Operas. Milton Cross was the radio an- captivated. nouncer for many years for the Met Saturday NicolasNabokovhadstoppedworkingatSt. broadcast. People around the country knew John’s and moved to New York, working for all about opera because of Cross, so that book the State Department, at the Voice of Ameri- took off. ca, the International Broadcasting Division. Doubleday wanted to do a book about the He was living around the corner from me and ballet with Jacques Fray, who was a French was then married to Patricia Blake. I said to pianist and a music commentator on WQXR them one day, “Look, would you ask Balan- radio. He was a friend of George’s and sug- chine and Maria Tallchief to dinner, so I can gested to Doubleday that he do this book. At meetthem?”Mariawasmyheroineinthisbal- first it was going to be called “Balanchine’s let matter. They said, “Sure.” Complete Stories of the Great Ballets by NabokovtoldBalanchinethatIwasawriter Jacques Fray – with Jacques Fray,” but Jacques and writing reviews for the Hudson Review, a couldn’t write. new literary magazine. I said that indeed I My friend Sherman said, “Somebody’s got was and interested in the ballet, chiefly in towritethisbook.Francis,whydon’tyouwrite his work, and would like to know more. Bal- it?” I said, “Well, that’s not for me to say,that’s anchine said, “Well, come to the School. Can for Balanchine to say.” He said, “I’ll tell you you dance?” I said, “I’m hopeless, I’m twenty- what. Why don’t you write up a history of the eight.” I don’t think I could move at all. I tried ballet as you would do it, and then I’ll get a but I couldn’t. couple of other people to do it also. We’ll show I began to go to the School of American Bal- it to Balanchine and see which one he wants.” let, every Saturday – I was working. I went to I did that and he called up in a couple of weeks all of Muriel Stuart’s classes. She was one of and said, “Balanchine wants you.” “Fine,” I the great teachers there. She’d studied with said. and had been in Pavlova’s company. Muriel I told Balanchine, “I’m particularly inter- became a great friend and a great help to me. ested in your work and what you have to say. So I went to all of her classes. But I’m also interested in anything you have Also I started to go to Balanchine’s rehear- tosayaboutotherballets,anybody,anything.”

42 ballet review He said, “No, no, no, no, I don’t want to talk It was a wonderful open-book situation. The about everyone. You do that. I trust you.” I station manager, Bernard Buck, was very began to go to the ballet in a different way. I helpful to me. I’d already done all of the City went with paper. I took a lot of notes and be- Ballet people, all the big ones. I began to in- gan to write. I was still working, so I had to terviewtheABTpeople,theSadler’sWellspeo- do all this at night and on weekends. ple, anybody who was performing ballet in I met with Balanchine all the time to talk town. As a result I got to know Tudor, Nora about his ballets. Then I’d write them up and Kaye, Hugh Laing, Lucy [Lucia] Chase – the big go to him. He would say, “Now read to me.” So shots at American Ballet Theatre. I would read to him and he would say, ”Too In those days, you see, when City Ballet long. You’re saying much too much. Don’t started out, Tudor was king. He, and his bal- tell everything. You’ve got to leave something lets for Ballet Theatre at the old Met were the to the imagination of the public or otherwise big draw. Nora Kaye, in that repertory, was they will get to the theater and not be sur- the star, magnificent. There is nothing like prised. You’ve got to cut it down – cut all this an interview, a long interview. It was won- stuff out.” derful for me to get to know these people in After I did it over, I’d get together with him that way. I didn’t prepare them. We went on againandreadtohim.He’dsay,“Better.Short- the air cold, more or less. er still.” He was a wonderful editor. He in- IsawthatMarthaGrahamwasgoingtohave stinctively knew. The book took almost three a season. I’d been to one Graham performance. years because . . . I forget how many stories A friend of mine in New York, Eugene Thaw, were in the first edition, but it is hundreds.I whonowisthegreatestartdealerintheworld went to all the ballets. I went to see every- but was just starting out with a gallery in New thing. Those were great days. The Sadler’s York, told me that Graham had done a dance WellsBallet[RoyalBallet]comingtoNewYork. to King Lear, which he knew I was passionate There was Ballet Theatre. I got to know all the about it, and that I should see it. So I went. I Antony Tudor work. hated every minute of it. At the same time I began to do radio. Again, ShehadmadeitforErickHawkins,towhom it was my friend Natalie Bodanya. She said, “I she was then married. I swore I’d never go know the head of WNYC, the city’s station. again. But I was very impressed by Graham Why don’t you go down there? Maybe you can herself. I knew that nobody else could do do a series of shows on the City Ballet to help that. I remembered that Kirstein said that them out.” I met with Seymour M. Siegel, who Isadora was wonderful, but she was inim- was then the head of the station. He said fine. itable. Nobody could do that again. So I dis- “Why don’t we do a series called ‘Meet Your missed Graham because nobody could do that New York City Ballet’?” I began to interview again. Balanchine and other people. I went to visit Later, in 1952, the year I got married, I saw Kirstein and said, “You’ve got to be on the that Graham, who was teaching at Juilliard, show.”Hesaid,“Radio!?Ineverthoughtofthat. then up near Columbia University, was hav- It could be useful.” ing a season and doing a new work, not for WNYC already had a dance critic, but after herself but for her dancers. Since I was do- those interview shows that series was over. ing broadcasts and reviews, I thought why Siegel told me one day, “We’ve let her go. We don’tI see it. My wife and I went. It was a piece want you to be our new critic.” I said, “What called Canticle for Innocent Comedians. It was do you want me to do?” He answered, “You can about the elements: earth, air, fire, and water have forty-five minutes every Saturday af- – the sun, the moon. It began with Bertram ternoonat5:00o’clock.Youcaninterviewpeo- Ross and Yuriko. Ethel Winter I’m sure was ple, play music, do whatever you want.” in it, Linda Hodes was in it and Mary Hink- summer 2011 43 son. I was overwhelmed. I thought it was per- sharing an apartment with Charles W. Thay- fect. er of the State Department, who headed the I wrote Graham a letter, introduced myself Voice of America – the International Broad- and said I was doing this show on WNYC every casting Division. Thayer had been a foreign Saturday afternoon and would she come and service officer who was one of the first Amer- let me interview her. She captivated me by icans to serve in our embassy in Russia, in the calling me up on the telephone: “Mr. Mason?” 1930s, when we got going over there. “Yes?” “This is Martha Graham.” “How nice of IwasattheirapartmentonenightandChar- you to call. Would you be on my show?” She lie said to me, “Nicolas tells me you’re looking said, “Of course. What do you want me to do?” for a job, you want one?” I said, “Yes! What I said, “Come to the Municipal Building at have you got?” He said, “We’re starting a re- quarter of five next Saturday, the thirty-fifth search unit at the Voiceof America. Go see this floor. And we’ll talk.” man.” So I went, again through a St. John’s She said, “No rehearsal?” I said, “No re- connection, and I got this job. hearsal.” So, she came! I’d never met her be- AttheVoiceofAmericavariouspeoplewere fore. We sat, and talked. I began to ask her a doing broadcasts in seventeen or eighteen lot of questions, many of them impertinent. languages. Many of them were native speak- At one point I said to her, “You’ve been danc- ers from Yugoslavia, Albania, parts of the ing a long time, Miss Graham. How often do Soviet Union, China, Japan, everywhere. They you succeed?” She said, “That’s for you to say.” knewabouttheirowncountry,butmanywere She was extraordinary. I was bewitched. recent arrivals in America and didn’t know The engineer expected me to talk to her for much about America. twelve minutes and then play a recording of I would get a call: “Francis, Labor Day,what Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland’s score, is it?” So I would research it and write some- which he initially titled “Ballet for Martha.” thing. Then I began to write a daily calendar, As we talked on the engineer kept waving his an almanac, for all of the language desks, hands in the control room saying, “What are tellingthemitwasGeorgeWashington’sbirth- you doing?” And I just kept signaling, “Shut day, for example, and who he was. up!”ItalkedwithGrahamforforty-threemin- I found my wife, Patricia Michaels, there. utes, and the engineer said to me later, “I’ve She was an international person, too. Her seen lots of drama in this studio, but this took father was English and she’d gone to the Lon- the cake. You came on like a lion, Francis, but don School of Economics and traveled a lot in you left like a lamb.” Europe. Then the State Department decided As a result of that, I began to go see Martha. that Voice of America was going to move to I went to her studio, I went to her classes, her Washington. This was at the beginning of the rehearsals, and I talked to her.We used to have Eisenhower administration. I didn’t want to tea. Tea for Martha Graham in those days was go. Pat had a new job at Fortune magazine as a bourbon on the rocks, in a big Old-Fashioned researcher, and I could get another job. glass. Since bourbon was my tipple too, we The guy who was going to head up the unit would get pleasantly plastered for a couple of in Washington came to New York and said, hours, once every couple of months. “What’s this? You’re not coming to Washing- — ton?” I said, “No, I don’t want to go there.” Victoria Phillips Geduld: How did you first go Washington in 1954? What shall I say? I knew to work for the Voice of America? Washington, I had known it since 1933, when Mason: Nicolas Nabokov, my teacher from my family had taken me there. I said, “There’s St. John’s, lived around the corner from me, the museums, and that’s all there is! I’m not up on East 95th Street. I’d see him all the time. interested in going to Washington under any This is before he got married again. He was circumstances.”

44 ballet review But this man, whose name was Louis Olom, But we got the rights to do Tennessee Wil- said to me one of the great things that we all liams and other things. We got Elia Kazan, the dream about. He said, “Mason, you’ve got to great director of the Williams plays to come. stay with us. You’ve been so great here. You I’d seen Streetcar and another early play here. don’t have to come to Washington to work for Kazan and his wife came to Yugoslavia and the State Department. Isn’t there some other spent perhaps three weeks. We went every- place you’d like to go?” How often in life do where. Traveled all over. He met all the the- you get a question like that? ater people, saw their productions, gave them I thought for a second and said, “Well, what lots of advice. about Belgrade?” He said, “Belgrade? Why?” I IreadinthenewspaperthatIsaacSternwas replied, “Tito’s broken with Stalin. He’s the in Venice. I called him up and said, “I’m Fran- only communist who’s done that. He under- cis Mason, the cultural attaché at the embassy stands what the Soviet situation is. The Hun- inBelgrade.Whydon’tyoucomeoverhereand garians, the Czechs, the Bulgarians are all in do a couple of recitals?” Stern said, “What?! Stalin’s pocket, but Tito has got a different When do you want me?” I said, “I can put you view. If you’re going to have any understand- on day after tomorrow.“ He said, “You’re kid- ing at all of what the Soviet Union is all about, ding.” I said, “No, fly over.” He said, “I have a you will get it, I think, in Belgrade.” He said, rehearsal with Leonard Bernstein in Florence “How incredible. You really want to go?” I at the end of the week.” I said, “Don’t worry, said, “Well, you just asked me,” and I thought, we’ll get our air attaché to fly you back.” He why not? said, “Mason, you’re crazy.” I said, “Not at all, In three months I was there. They gave me get on a plane and come.” a crash course in Serbo-Croatian at the For- He arrived two days later, in the morning. eign Service Institute in Washington. I com- Six o’clock in the morning. He said, “What are muted. I went to Washington every week to we doing?” I said, “Well, you’re going to play.” do that and came back home to Pat, who was The Yugoslavs were just overwhelmed. Then still at Fortune, and then we up and went. he played in Zagreb, and they loved it. Stern Belgradein1954wasafascinatingcity,won- was a formidable musician and one of the derfullysituatedwithtworivers,theSavaand most intelligent men in the world. the Danube, meeting at the city. The country They loved his music. They thought he was was a controlled dictatorship. There were no – how did they put it – the most beautiful American newspapers, although the New York music in the world played by the ugliest man. Times had a correspondent there. There were He was short and fat. He could really talk to no books, no magazines. What could one do? the Yugoslavs very straightforwardly. He was We began with the books, American authors our friend from then on. We used to see the translated into Serbo-Croatian. Sterns whenever we came to New York and Then, I had an idea about American plays. did until the end of his days. We all know he The Yugoslavs had theaters, repertory the- saved Carnegie Hall. He and his wife, Vera,did aters, in all the capitals of the republic, in magnificent things. A great man. Skopje, Macedonia, Sarajevo, Bosnia, Zagreb, When Louis Armstrong came to Belgrade, and other places. They wanted badly to do of course it was an absolute sensation. Well, Eugene O’Neill, but they couldn’t get permis- we knew that: Armstrong is a sensation. He sion. I came back on home leave and laid siege traveled around and everybody was just over- to his widow, Carlotta, at her New York hotel. whelmed. Eleanor Steber, the opera singer, She would never see me, but I kept writing her came and sang. notes, letters, asking her. She said she would- American orchestras were another matter. n’t give any communist outfit, any place like The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra came that,permissiontodoherlatehusband’splays. and had a big success, but what did they play? summer 2011 45 Beethoven! Mozart! They played a European with or tied in with the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s repertory, same as the Belgrade Philharmon- school of Paris. That’s all very well, but we ic played. I was stubborn and awful and said were doing something new in America and I to the State Department, “Please don’t send wanted them to see it. us any more orchestras. The Yugoslavs have The Museum of Modern Art at that time, symphonyorchestrasandtheyplayBeethoven, headed by René d’Harnoncourt, had a huge Schubert, and Schumann.” They said, “But exhibition touring Europe called Modern Art Mason . . .” in the United States. It had been at the Tate in George Szell, then the greatest conductor in London, it had been in Paris. I went up to Vi- North America, and his Cleveland orchestra enna when it was being shown there. A huge were scheduled to visit. I called him up and show,something like 120 paintings and, I don’t said, “I hear you’re coming to Belgrade.” He know, some 50 or 60 sculptures – big sculp- said, “Yes, we look forward to that very tures, like Lachaise’s Floating Woman from much.” I said, “Andwhat are you going to play, MoMA’ssculpture garden, Elie Nadelman, lots Mr. Szell? A five-minute American piece?” He of drawings, and a lot of photographs. said, “How did you know? It’s four minutes, I asked d’Harnoncourt, “Would you send actually.” I said, “You think that if you play a this show to Belgrade? I think it’s important token piece of American music and then the that the Yugoslavs see the new art scene in standard repertory you’ll make a big hit. I America. They don’t know anything about it.” don’twant that, I’m not interested in that.” He He replied, “Well, that’s very difficult, after said, “What are you saying?” I said, “I don’t Vienna we’re scheduled to go to Rome.” Then think the Cleveland Orchestra should come to I said, “Rome? The Romans have had every- Belgrade if that’s all you’ve got.” He was furi- thing.” ous and they didn’t come. D’Harnoncourt answered, “You know, you I told the State Department to send conduc- are right.” I said, “Send it to us instead.” He tors instead. Send us American conductors said, “How preposterous.” I said, “No, not at who can work with the Yugoslavs on the clas- all.” He asked, “Can you put on all this stuff?” sical repertory and on new music. They were I said, “Sure!” although I didn’t really know great and cabled, “What about Leopold Sto- what I was talking about. But I knew the kowski?” Well, he was my hero as a teenager heads of galleries in lots of places in Belgrade in Philadelphia. He came to Belgrade – alone! where I thought we could put the work. He I thought it’d be a good idea not to do the cancelled Rome and sent Modern Art in the usual thing and put him with the Belgrade United States to Belgrade. Philharmonic. I arranged for him to conduct My ambassador, James W. Riddleberger, a the Yugoslav Army Symphony Orchestra, wonderful man with a wife who was very in- which was then an up-and-coming young in- terested in the arts, had gone to see the exhi- stitution. bition and said, “Mason, this will be ghastly. Stokowski, bless him, worked with them Whathaveyoudone?It’sgoingtobeappalling. like a dog for weeks, at the end of which they The Yugoslavs will be angry. They’ll hate it.” had a concert under his direction that shook Isaid,“Mr.Ambassador,can’twewaitandsee? Belgrade. I mean, the Belgrade Philharmonic I want to have a big opening. There’s going being upstaged by the Army orchestra? It was to be a reception.” He said, “I don’t want a big wonderful. He was wonderful. He got to know opening and reception. Just open the show all the local young composers. quietly.” I said okay. He said, “I think you’ve I thought the Yugoslavs should see Ameri- made a big mistake.” can painting, which was very important to Belgrade was then a town of 500,000 peo- me.Locallytherewerealotofpainters,anum- ple, if I remember correctly. At any rate, we ber of whom I knew. They were all associated opened the show quietly. All the young people

46 ballet review came. Twenty-five thousand people came to Find somebody who’ll pay for it, and we’ll try see it. Did you hear what I just said? Twenty- to pick her up as she goes again to the Conti- five thousand people! They stormed the place. nent.” I arranged that with the State Depart- They couldn’t believe what this was, this ment and they said, “Sure, but you’ve got to American manifestation, in galleries all over find somebody who’ll pay for her.” town: photographs here, drawings over there, One day,a man named Robin Howard called sculptures everywhere. me. He was an Englishman who ran a hotel Geduld: What year was this? and a restaurant. He had seen Graham when Mason: 1955 or 1956. I was very pleased. It she first came to England, when she’d been had a great deal to do with changing the youth such a disaster, only a couple of dozen people of Yugoslavia to an American point of view. It in the theater, night after night. Wretched had nothing to do with politics. Jackson Pol- reviews. Only Andrew Porter and Dicky lock doesn’t have anything to do with politics, [Richard] Buckle, the best people, had come DeKooning.Rothko,too,andwehadtheirmost and covered her. But then Dicky found Robin, important work. who asked how much it would cost to bring The State Department was important for Graham. I named a figure and he said, “That their openness in using the arts in America in doesn’t frighten me.” It was forty thousand response to Soviet artistic exports. They saw, dollars, twenty thousand dollars a week. andtheyknewfromourembassiesabroad,the The London season was an incredible tri- power of the Soviets to try to rule the world. umph for Graham. She really shook London. Later, Martha came to Yugoslavia – I had ar- Two weeks at the Prince of Wales Theatre, sold ranged for her to come – just as I was leaving. out. You see, I had had lunch with Robin and She had a wonderful triumph in Belgrade and Clive, and Clive had a brilliant idea: “Look, in Zagreb. Robin, get her to the Edinburgh Festival in I was transferred to London, kicking and August, before she comes to London. We’ll all screaming. I’d been in London during the war. gotoEdinburghandreviewher,andthenyou’ll What was a cultural officer going to do in Lon- sell out.” don? At the time the Labor Party was giv- Clive and Dicky and others went to the ing America a hard time politically. It was the festival to see the Graham season for a week. Eisenhower administration. He was a great Edinburgh’s a Presbyterian town and some war hero to the British, but they didn’t like of Martha’s work is not very palatable to that our position with the Soviets. It was not an situation. But the festival had an internation- easy time. The British press was much more al audience. They went mad for Graham and anti-American than the Yugoslav press had it was a bloody triumph. Barnes and Buckle been. reviewed it in the Daily Express and the Observ- In London, I got to know Clive Barnes, who er,respectively,inLondon,andbythetimethe was the up-and-coming critic on the Daily Ex- company came to town we were selling out! It press and an editor with Peter Williams of the was for Martha a big thing, to turn London magazine called Dance and Dancers. Clive was around. very keen on Graham and kept saying, “You After the first night, my wife and I had a gotta bring Graham to London.” I told him, bigpartyforMartha,adinner.Everyonecame. “We can’tdo that.” He said, “But she’s just been Ninette de Valois, Marie Rambert, John Giel- to Germany. She’s been in Helsinki.” gud, Laurence Olivier, everyone. Rambert, I said, “Yes, but Germany and Helsinki are who was a big fan of Martha’s, called me up a contiguous to the Soviet Union. That’s why couple of days after we opened – she had gone she’s there.” He said, “But why can’t she come back to see Graham again – and said, “Fran- here?” I said, “The American government will cis, I went down to my seat, looked around, not pay to send her to the United Kingdom. and said, ‘Who are all these people?’” And I summer 2011 47 said, “We’re in now, aren’t we?” She said, “You I have an article about the State Department’s said it boy, you’re in.” programs. It’s a review. . . . There was a book, When Robin decided to start a school to Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy in the Cold teach Graham technique and to get a modern War. repertory into the United Kingdom, he asked Geduld: Yes, by Naima Prevots. Rambert to be on his board, and she said yes. Mason: The review is only three or four Don’t fight ’em, join ’em. That was Madame’s pages. You may have it if you’d like.* intelligence. She was really,really something. Geduld: Thank you, Francis. You were ob- Rambert was the joy of my life in London. She viouslyaveryspecialculturalattaché.Youhad was a corker. a long experience and a great understanding Geduld: Graham went to Asia. Why that of the arts. Was everyone like you? particular location? Mason: Sure! There were a lot of people. I Mason: It was the government’s idea. She can’t speak about all my colleagues, but most wanted to go to Europe, but the Eisenhower of the ones I knew were very cultivated men administration said, “No, we want you to go and women. It was the most exciting job in to Asia.” the world! To be able to show aspects of the Geduld: Do you know why? United States of America that we personally Mason: Sure: because all those countries loved and knew would have an impact if it were anti-American. The British – good God were let loose. – should have been in our pockets, but even London got excited about the new work they weren’t! No one was in our pockets, of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. really. Rauschenberg had just won the Venice Bien- The Asians were stubborn and didn’t like nale. I wired Leo Castelli, whom I knew here the United States of America. The State De- in New York, and Leo arranged for Bob to stop partment quite rightly had sense enough to in London on the way back. Then we arranged say to Martha that she must go there. Martha for him to have a big exhibition in London, at had been with Denishawn and knew Ruth St. the Whitechapel Gallery, which hundreds of Denis’ devotion to that part of the world. thousands of people saw. We got Bob on Brit- Martha was a fantastic woman. She knew ish television. everything! There was never a more cultivat- Jerry Robbins, when he broke away from ed person than Martha Graham. She really City Ballet, formed his small company Ballets: couldstandupwiththebestofthem.Shewould USA, with Kay Mazzo and others. They had have press conferences and talk to people. She been this big hit at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. handled all that so well, but it was the power I arranged for them to come to London, where of her presence and the drama that she put they had an earthshaking success. onstage that won everybody’s heart. Geduld: The whole Dulles thing is so inter- Geduld: Did you have any interaction with esting. He understood this? Eisenhower? Or was it through intermedi- Mason: Yes! aries? Geduld: Do you think Secretary Dulles un- Mason: Always through intermediaries. I derstood modern art? met the President when he came to London, Mason: At first nobody had the sense to see on a state visit, in the first couple years I was that if the Soviets were exporting their art, there. People always thought that Secretary of * In Mason’s review of Dance for Export, he wrote, State John Foster Dulles was just a reactionary “I wish [Prevots] had given as much detail from Republican. On the contrary, he and his State overseas reports . . .” With this sentence, he gave Department sponsored all of this stuff. me the gift of inspiration for my doctoral disser- I’m looking right now for an old issue of tation, nearing completion at Columbia Universi- Dance Chronicle [vol. 23, no. 1, 2000], in which ty. I remain forever grateful. – V. P. G.

48 ballet review why didn’t we do the same? Dulles saw that it Pat and I planned a big party for the compa- worked. President Eisenhower was a conser- ny at our house. I invited the ambassador and vative Sunday painter, but he saw the impact his wife. “Come to the performance, and to the the work made, and the impact that the artists party.” Well, they went to the performance. personally made because they all would have DavidBruceandMerceCunningham,comeon! pressconferences.Theycouldtalkandifthere Bruce couldn’t see the point of any of it. He was anything wrong with the United States asked, “Francis, is this really good?” from their point of view, they wouldn’t hesi- “Yes, Mister Ambassador, take it from me, tate to say so. Foreigners were overwhelmed it is good and the reviews tomorrow will say by that. so.” His wife was an angel and wanted to know I heard Isaac Stern say, at dinner after one anything that she should see or go to. I’d take of his first concerts in Belgrade, “Has [David] her, or she and the ambassador would go, or Oistrakhbeenhere?”“Oh,ofcourse,”theysaid. I’d arrange for them to go. She knew the cul- Isaac said, “Aha!The Soviets send you their vi- tural scene; he knew how important it was. olinist from Odessa. I’m from Odessa too, and They had a lot of respect for the work that America sends you its violinist from Odessa. we did in the cultural section of the embassy. It’s one world, ladies and gentlemen!” The ambassador was kind enough to say when Geduld: You worked under the Kennedy I left London in 1965 that I was the best-known administration, too. Was there a transition or and best-liked American official in London. was it seamless, something that already had Well, I said, “That’s wonderful.” And he said, been set in motion? “Nonsense, you’ve done it. Every person in the Mason: It was seamless. We had great am- arts you speak to knows who Francis Mason bassadors in London when I was there. First is.” We worked with British organizations to John Hay Whitney under the Republican ad- get all these people involved. It was not just ministration. And then under Kennedy,David the universities, the academic world, we took Bruce, a career ambassador who was astute interest in. and fantastic, with a wonderful wife who Today, our cultural officers around the knew and cared about every manifestation of world we hope are helping to facilitate people American culture. in other countries to understand what we’re I answered the phone one morning: “Fran- doing. The budgets have been cut. I dare say cis, this is Evangeline Bruce. I see Marlene there are half as many cultural officers as we Dietrich’s in town. Why don’t you get her for used to have. But there’s no better represen- lunch on Thursday?” I’d arranged for Bob tation for the United States of America than Rauschenberg, I think, for the Bruces to have the arts. And the individuals whose work can lunch with that day . . . or maybe it was Jasper speak to millions of people, like nobody else. Johns. And she said, “Well, why not have them Trust the arts. Get our people out there. It’ll both.” work. You don’t have to say anything, just Merce Cunningham came to London, and show it.

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