The year in which these lines are written has been singularly rich, rewarding, and happy: climaxed as it was by the production and release of the motion-picture film, _Tonight We Sing_, based on some experiences and aspects of my life. If the film does nothing else, I hope it succeeds in underlining the difference, in explaining the vast gulf that separates the mere booker or agent from what, for want of a better term, must be called an impresario, since it is a word that has been fully embraced into the English language. Impresario stems from the Italian _impresa_: an undertaking; indirectly it gave birth to that now archaic English word “emprise,” literally a chivalrous enterprise. I can only regard the discovery, promotion, presentation of talent, the financing of it, the risk-taking, as the “emprise” of an “impresario.” The presentation of this film has been accompanied by tributes and honors for which I am deeply and humbly grateful and which I cherish and respect beyond my ability to express. None of these heights could have been scaled, none of these successes attained, without the help, encouragement, and personal sacrifice of my beloved wife, Emma. Her wise counsel in music, literature, theatre, and the dance all stem from her deep knowledge as a lady of culture, an artist and a musician, and from her studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, her rich experience in the world’s cultural activities. Her sacrifices are those great ones of the patient, understanding wife, who, through the years, has had to endure, and has endured without complaint, the loneliness of days and nights on end alone, when my activities have taken me on frequent long trips about the world at a moment’s notice, to the complete disruption of any normal family life. To my wife also goes my grateful thanks for restraining me from undertakings doomed in advance to failure, as well as for encouraging me in my determination to venture into pastures new and untried. At the head of that staff of loyal associates which carries on the multifarious details of the organization on which depends the fulfillment of much of what has been recited in these pages, is one to whom my deepest thanks are due. She is that faithful and indispensable companion of failures and successes, Mae Frohman. She is known intimately to all in this world of music and dance. Without her aid I could not have been what I am today. It is impossible for me to give the reader any real idea of the sacrifices she has made for the success of the enterprises this book records: the sleepless nights and days; the readiness, at an instant’s notice, to depart for any part of the world to “trouble-shoot,” to make arrangements, to settle disputes, to keep the wheels in motion when matters have come to a dead center.