The composer of some sixty-odd ballets, it is the most imposing record in modern ballet’s history, perfectly amazing productivity. No one but himself is capable of restoring them. When produced or restaged without his fine hand, they are a shambles. I should like to offer my friend, Leonide Massine, a hope that springs from my heart. I can only urge him, for his own good and for the good of ballet which needs him, to rest for a time on his beautiful island in the Mediterranean and to spend the time there in study and reflection, crystallizing his ideas. Then he will bring to us new and striking creations that will come like a refreshing breeze clearing the murky atmosphere of much of our contemporary ballet scene. If Massine would only relax his constant drive and follow my suggestion, the real Massine would emerge. After a summer on his island, he gave us one of his most recent creations (1952), an Umbrian Passion Play, _Laudes Evangelli_, to religious music of the Middle Ages. An interesting side-light on it is that the very first ballet he had in mind at the beginning of the Diaghileff association was based on the same idea. At the height of his maturity, there is no indication of age in Massine. Age, after all, is merely a question of how old one feels. I remember, in the later days of his ballet, shortly before his death, Diaghileff was planning a special gala performance. At a conference of his staff, he suggested inviting Pavlova to appear. Some of his advisers countered the proposal with the suggestion that Pavlova was too old. My reply was brief and to the point. “Pavlova will never age,” I said. “Some people are old at twenty. But Pavlova, never; for genius never looks at the calendar.” What was true of Pavlova, is equally true of Leonide Massine. * * * * * The growth, the development, and the appreciation of ballet in America are the result of a number of things, both individually and in combination. There may exist a variety of opinions on the subject, but one thing, I know, is certain: the present state of ballet in America is not the result of chance. In 1933 I had signed a contract with de Basil to bring ballet to America; yet there was an element of chance involved in that my publicity director, vacationing in Europe, saw a performance of the de Basil company, and spontaneously cabled me an expression of his enthusiasm. Since this employee was not a balletomane in any sense of the word, his message served to intensify my conviction that then was the time to go forward with my determination to follow my intuition. Here ends any element of chance. The basic repertoire of the first years was an extension of the Diaghileff artistic policies. The repertoire included not only revivals from the Diaghileff repertoire, but also new, forward-looking creations. I was certain that a sound and orthodox repertoire was an essential for establishing a genuine ballet audience in this country.