S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance WorldHurok, Sol
History
S. Hurok Presents; A Memoir of the Dance World
Hurok, Sol
Ballet -- History
The company changed into traveling clothes as quickly as possible, and
buses slithered down the steep slopes of Quebec to the Station, where
harried railroad officials were holding the train. There was yet another
delay for one person who was left behind on urgent business, finally to
be seen coming, with two porters carrying his open bags and yet another
bellboy with unpacked clothes and toilet articles. As the last of the
retinue was pushed aboard, the train started. But it was long before
sleep came, and for another two hours the party continued up and down
the length of the train, in compartments, bedrooms, washrooms, as staff,
orchestra, stage-hands broke all unwritten laws of fraternization.
All were asleep, however, when the train swayed violently and with
groaning and bumping came to a sudden stop. It was the last journey and
it, of course, simply had to happen. The flanges on the wheels of two of
the baggage cars that had made the 21,000-mile journey gave way just as
the train started the long crossing of the Three Rivers Bridge between
Quebec and Montreal. Fortunately, we were moving slowly at the approach
to the bridge, slowing down for the crossing, or else--I shudder to
think what might have occurred if we had been trying to make up
time--the greatest tour of history would have ended in a ghastly
tragedy.
As a result of the derailment taking place on the bridge, we were hours
late arriving in Montreal. But the tour was over!
Here was a tour where every record of every sort had been broken. It had
reached the point where, if there was a pair of unoccupied seats in any
auditorium from coast to coast and back again, we were all likely to
feel as if the end of the world was at hand. I have mentioned the
mundane matter of the financial returns. From a critical point of view,
I cannot attempt to summarize the spate of eulogy that greeted the
company in every city. Cynics may have something to say about this, to
the effect that the critics had been overpowered by size and glamor.
But a careful consideration of it all, a sober analysis, disproves any
suggestion that this was the result of any uncritical rush of blood to
the head. On the contrary, it reveals that the critical faculty was
carefully exercised and that the collective testimony to the excellence
of Sadler’s Wells was based on sound appreciation.
It is impossible for me to bring to a close this phase of the concise
history of the association in ballet of which I am the proudest in my
life without sketching an outline of the quartet that makes Sadler’s
Wells the great institution it is, together with a few of the
outstanding personalities that give it color and are such an important
part of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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