San Francisco's Ballet

Marvel to the U. S. has been San Francisco's operatic behavior all through Depression. Its seasons have been brief but even with expensive, imported singers they have usually paid for themselves. Two years ago the handsome municipal opera house was dedicated. Later Impresario Gaetano Merola stocked it with chorus and ballet schools, the only U. S. organizations of 'the kind outside New York.

To head the ballet school Impresario Merola wisely chose Adolph Bolm who used to dance in the peerless Diaghilev troupe with Karsavina, Mordkin, Nijinsky. What the school has accomplished in less than two years was demonstrated one night last week before all the Californians the opera house could hold. The dancing they saw was expert, technically sure. And more, it had escaped from the musty routine which stales most opera ballet. With equal spirit and understanding the Bolm dancers did a classical Chopin Reverie, a weird Chinese folk drama and a Ballet Mecanique for which they wore costumes of wood, Cellophane and tin to represent the dynamos, switches, flywheels and pistons which young Soviet Composer Alexander Mossolov had in mind when he wrote his noisy, hard driving Iron Foundry.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.