S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance WorldHurok, Sol
History
S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance World
Hurok, Sol
Ballet -- History
In summing up Massine’s creations for the new company, I have left his
most important contribution until the last. It was _St. Francis_,
originally done in our first season at London’s Drury Lane, where it was
known as _Noblissima Visione_. A collaboration between the composer,
Paul Hindemith, and Massine, it may be called one of Massine’s greatest
triumphs and one of his very finest works. The ballet, unfortunately,
was not popular with mass audiences; but it was work of deep and moving
beauty, with a ravishing musical score, magnificent scenery and costumes
by Pavel Tchelitcheff, and two great performances by Massine himself in
the title role, and Nini Theilade, as Poverty, the bride of St. Francis.
For the record, let me note the other works that made up the Ballet
Russe de Monte Carlo repertoire under my management: Massine’s
productions of _The Three-Cornered Hat_, _The Fantastic Toy Shop_, and
_Le Beau Danube_. George Balanchine staged a revival of _Le Baiser de La
Fée_ (_The Fairy’s Kiss_) and _Jeu de Cartes_ (_Card Game_), both
Stravinsky works he had done before, and all borrowed from the American
Ballet. There was a new production of Delibes’s _Coppélia_, in a setting
by Pierre Roy; and the Fokine-Blum works I have mentioned before.
I accepted as a new production a revival of Tchaikowsky’s _The
Nutcracker_, staged by Alexandra Fedorova, and a re-working of parts of
Tchaikowsky’s _Swan Lake_, also staged by Fedorova, under the title of
_The Magic Swan_.
Three productions remain to be mentioned. One was _Icare_, staged only
at the Metropolitan Opera House in the first season, a graphic and
moving re-enactment of the Icarus legend, by Serge Lifar, to percussive
rhythms only. The second was Richard Rodgers’s first and only
exclusively ballet score, _Ghost Town_, a _genre_ work dealing with the
California Gold Rush. It was the first choreographic job of a talented
young American character dancer, Marc Platoff, born Marcel Le Plat, in
Seattle. Not a work out of the top drawer, it was nevertheless a good
try for a young choreographer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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