S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance WorldHurok, Sol
History
S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance World
Hurok, Sol
Ballet -- History
There were: Fokine’s heritage--_Les Sylphides_, _Carnaval_, (no longer
in repertoire), _Petroushka_ (no longer in repertoire), _Spectre de la
Rose_ (no longer in repertoire), plus two creations, _Bluebeard_, and
_Russian Soldier_ (no longer in repertoire). Andrée Howard had staged
_Death and the Maiden_ and _Lady Into Fox_ (both dropped before I took
over the company). Bronislava Nijinska had revived _La Fille Mal
Gardée_ and _The Beloved One_ (no longer in the repertoire). Anton Dolin
had revived _Swan Lake_, _Giselle_ (now performed in a Balanchine
version), _Princess Aurora_ (now touched up by Balanchine), and had
created _Quintet_ (dropped after the first season), _Capriccioso_
(dropped in the second season), _Pas de Quatre_ (now done in a version
by Keith Lester), and _Romantic Age_ (no longer in the repertoire).
Leonide Massine had revived _The Fantastic Toy Shop_, _Capriccio
Espagnol_, and _The Three-Cornered Hat_ (all out of repertoire). He had
produced three new works, _Don Domingo_, _Aleko_, and _Mlle. Angot_,
none of which was retained in the repertoire. Antony Tudor had revived
_The Lilac Garden_, _Judgment of Paris_, _Dark Elegies_, _Gala
Performance_, and had produced _Pillar of Fire_, _Romeo and Juliet_,
_Dim Lustre_, and _Undertow_, none of which remain. Agnes de Mille had
produced _Black Ritual_, _Three Virgins and a Devil_, and _Tally-Ho_,
none of which is actively in the repertoire. José Fernandez had produced
a Spanish work, _Goyescas_, which lasted only the first season. David
Lichine had revived _Graduation Ball_, and had produced _Helen of Troy_
and _Fair at Sorotchinsk_ (the latter no longer in repertoire). Adolph
Bolm had revived his _Ballet Mecanique_ (first season life only),
produced _Peter and the Wolf_, a perennial stand-by, and the short-lived
version of _Firebird_. John Taras had contributed _Graziana_, and Simon
Semenoff a version of _Coppélia_ and _Gift of the Magi_, neither of the
three existing today. Jerome Robbins’s _Fancy Free_ and _Interplay_
remain while his _Facsimile_ has been forgotten. Balanchine had revived
_Apollo_, _Errante_, and had produced _Waltz Academy_, all of which have
disappeared.
In order to save the curious reader the trouble of any computation, this
represents a total of fifty-one ballets either produced during my
association with Ballet Theatre or else available at the time we joined
hands. From this total of fifty-one, a round dozen are performed, more
or less, today. A cursory glance will reveal that the repertoire was
always deficient in classical works. They are the backbone of ballet. It
is to be regretted that the Tudor ballets, which were the particular
glory of Ballet Theatre, have been lost to the public.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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