Marian Smith 37 Washington, D

Spring-Summer 2019 Ballet Review From the Sp/Su 2019 issue of Ballet Review Balanchine at the Metropolitan Opera Cover photo by Paul Kolnik, NYCB: Joseph Gordon in Dances at a Gathering. © 2019 Dance Research Foundation, Inc. Ballet Review 47.1-2 Spring-Summer 2019 Editor and Designer: Marvin Hoshino Managing Editor: Roberta Hellman Senior Editor: Don Daniels Associate Editors: Joel Lobenthal Larry Kaplan Ballet Review is a nonprofit Alice Helpern journal pub lished by the Dance 168 Webmaster: Research Foundation, Inc. It David S. Weiss is supported in part by funds from the National Endowment Copy Editor: Naomi Mindlin for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Fan Photographers: Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Tom Brazil Foundation, and individuals. Costas Contributions to the Dance Associates: Research Foundation, Inc., Peter Anastos 100 Hudson St. – Apt. 6B, Robert Greskovic New York, NY 10013, are 76 George Jackson tax-deduc tible. Elizabeth Kendall Board of Directors: Paul Parish Hubert Goldschmidt, Roberta Nancy Reynolds Hellman, Marv in Hoshino, James Sutton Nancy Lassalle, Dawn Lille, Edward Willinger Michael Popkin, Theodore C. Sarah C. Woodcock Rogers, Barbara E. Schlain, David Weiss. * For the latest information on subscriptions, see our website: balletreview.com. Current 95 double issue: $35. Editorial correspondence, books for review, subscriptions, and changes of address to Ballet Review, 100 Hudson St. – Apt. 6B, New York, NY 10013. Manuscripts must be accom- panied by a self-addressed, stamped return envelope. E-mail: [email protected]. * 207 ©2019 Dance Research Foun- dation, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in China. issn: 0522- 0653. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. 4 Philadelphia – Eva Shan Chou 5 New York – Karen Greenspan 7 Los Angeles – Eva Shan Chou 9 New York – Susanna Sloat 11 Williamstown – Christine Temin 12 New York – Karen Greenspan Susanna Sloat 16 Tokyo – Vincent Le Baron 95 Rennie Harris and Ronald K. Brown 18 Jacob’s Pillow – Christine Temin Celebrate Alvin Ailey 20 Toronto – Gary Smith Robert Greskovic 22 Boston – Jeffrey Gantz 100 Chopiniana 25 London – Joseph Houseal 25 Vienna – Vincent Le Baron 109 Judson Dance Theater 27 New York – Susanna Sloat Michael Langlois 28 Miami – Michael Langlois 114 Awakenings 29 Toronto – Gary Smith 31 Venice – Joel Lobenthal Karen Greenspan 32 London – Gerald Dowler 119 In the Court of Yogyakarta 35 Havana – Gary Smith Marian Smith 37 Washington, D. C. – Lisa Traiger 125 The Metropolitan Balanchine 39 London – John Morrone 40 Chicago – Joseph Houseal Gerald Dowler 42 Milan – Vincent Le Baron 141 An Autumn in Europe Alexei Ratmansky Sophie Mintz 44 Staging Petipa’s Harlequinade 146 White Light at ABT Lynn Garafola George Washington Cable 151 Raymonda , 1946 56 The Dance in Place Congo Karen Greenspan Michael Langlois 161 Drive East 2018 63 A Conversation with Karen Greenspan Clement Crisp 168 A Conversation with Maya Joseph Houseal Kulkarni and Mesma Belsaré 76 A Quiet Evening, in Two Acts Francis Mason Ian Spencer Bell 171 Ben Belitt on Graham 82 Women Onstage Gary Smith Michael Langlois 175 A Conversation with Grettel Morejón 86 A Conversation with Hubert Goldschmidt Stella Abrera 177 Rodin and the Dance 207 London Reporter – Louise Levene 218 Dance in America – Jay Rogoff 220 Music on Disc – George Dorris Cover photo by Paul Kolnik, NYCB: Joseph Gordon in Dances at a Gathering . The Metropolitan most no comment, something I want to do here by focusing on the Met’s 1935 Aida and Balanchine its rela tionship to Ziegfeld Follies and Babes in Arms, as well as to other popular entertain- ment in Manhattan in the late 1930s. Marian Smith Before getting to Aida, we need to consider that in accepting the job at the Met, Balan- There are plans afoot for him to do “serious” dances chine was taking on two formidable endeav- for two musical shows this fall; if anybody asks him ors, far greater than the task – daunting how he reconciles this hotcha stuff with the Met enough – of creating multiple opera ballets work, he says cagily, “Each is for different pooblic.” in short order (something he had already done in Monte Carlo for Diaghilev). Edward — The New Yorker, October 26, 19351 Johnson, the Metropolitan Opera’s new gen- From 1935 to 1938, George Balanchine served eral manager, wanted him to help revive the as the choreographer at the Metropolitan flailing Metropolitan Opera. At the same time, Opera in New York, where he devised dances Lincoln Kirstein, Balanchine’s patron and for at least twenty operas and eight ballets.2 self-appointed front man, wanted him to During the same time, he choreographed his help establish a particularly American kind first four shows on Broadway – Ziegfeld Follies, of ballet. That is, Balanchine was given the On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, I Married an Angel. twin tasks of breathing new life into an old Thus Balanchine’s works appeared onstage institution, the Met, and creating a newly in New York City more than nine-hundred imagined one, an American ballet. times during a three-year span – a remark- Johnson, who hired Balanchine, was a well- able record for a young immigrant artist not liked Canadian tenor (aka Eduardo di Giovan - yet thirty-five years old. ni) who had sung at the Met for many years.4 This highly productive part of Balanchine’s In May of 1935, he replaced Giulio Gatti- career has been ove rshadowed by his time Casazza, who had just sailed for Italy after a with Diaghilev and then later at New York City now-storied twenty-seven-year reign during Ballet. The Broadway musicals have received which, according to a farewell assessment in some attention, in the Popular Balanchine the New York Times, he had “worked as hard as Project for example. So have the independent he could” to “transform the Metropolitan . ballets Balanchine staged at the Met, includ- into [a] semblance” of La Scala, and managed ing Orpheus and Euridice (with the singers in to make the Met “in large measure worthy of the pit), The Card Game, and, of course, his Apol- the chief city of the New World.”5 lon Musagète in its first American appearance, With the assistance of Toscanini, Puccini, with Lew Christensen in the title role. But the and Caruso, Gatti-Casazza had achieved much opera ballets have been virtually ignored, and of his success before the First World War. By his tenure at the Met, downplayed as a re- the time of his retirement, however, and in grettable eyeblink, hardly worth remember- the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, ing – an unfortunate case of Balanchine’s ge- ticket sales were down. The orchestra and nius being rejected by the stuffy opera crowd.3 singing forces had fallen from the top rank. The connection between the opera produc- The in-house ballet troupe had deteriorated tions and the Broadway shows has received al- to a “shocking” state, so much so that an out- side ballet company had to be hired.6 As one Marian Smith, professor of music at the Universi- ty of Oregon and editor of La Sylphide: Paris 1832 and reporter put it, “It would be difficult to imag- Beyond (Dance Books, 2014), is currently working ine a much more trying situation than that with coauthor Doug Fullington on Five Ballets from which confronted Edward Johnson when . Paris and St. Petersburg. called upon to take charge of the opera or- ©2019 Marian Smith 125 ganization for which he had sung for many way chorus girls: a troupe of “young people years.”7 endowed with beauty of form and face”14 who Johnson – congenial, optimistic, a man of were “capable of competing with any revue in quiet authority – set to work quickly upon dancing and pulchritude”15 and “good looking taking the reins in mid-May. By August 7, 1935, enough to please any tired business man.”16 he was ready to disclose his plans publicly. In From the old troupe the Met would keep “the a wide-ranging “fireside chat” with reporters, best looking ones, the best dancers and those Johnson laid out his vision for the theater, of- with the best extremities.”17 fering at every turn a sense of freshness and Moreover, “a modern ballet” would be “pro- bright renewal. The star system would be cur- vided in place of the distressing flannel-clad tailed “so as to provide for better, balanced dancers of old.” “No longer will the girls in casts instead of most of the money going to Aida come on in wrinkled legs. Under the di- one or two singers.”8 The singers’ claques rection of George Balanchine, the ballet will would be abolished. The house itself would be have life and interest.”18 “Modern costumes, freshened by a thorough cleaning, new paint, modern technique, the modern idea of classic better lighting, and “comfortably squashy dancing prevail.”19 Another reporter summed seats.” American singers would now be espe- it up: Balanchine’s “appointment means the cially welcome, for the Met would aim to be- complete revolution of the ballet into more come a “clearinghouse for American opera” modern and attractive lines.”20 And his ballet whereby the Met would share artists and pro- company was to be one of the features that ductions with other American companies.9 will “turn opera into something Broadway will Johnson also spoke bluntly about taking on like and will want to come to.”21 the Met’s growing competition. The Rockettes When Balanchine and his troupe arrived at were drawing large crowds at Radio City, and the Met, so did the twenty-eight-year-old Lin- the number of new musicals on Broadway had coln Kirstein.

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