Balletomaniac

Marshalled by a retired Cossack colonel, 64 young Russian dancers invaded Manhattan last winter, set up shop with a 50-piece orchestra, crates of colorful scenery, 6,000 costumes, and forthwith proceeded to prove that the ballet still exists as a great & glamorous art (TIME, Jan. 1). Nearly 25,000 U. S. readers, many of whom had never seen a Russian ballet, caught much of its fascination from Nijinsky, the mad dancer's biography written by his Hungarian wife Romola, who blames her husband's insanity on the late great Serge Diaghilev (TIME, March 19). Last week Arnold L. Haskell, Britain's ablest dance critic, who knew both Diaghilev and Madame Nijinsky, recorded his own ballet enthusiasms.* Dancers in Colonel Vassily de Basil's Monte Carlo Ballet Russe know Author Haskell as a bubbling, bald little man who trails them from town to town, settles many a backstage dispute, writes occasional reviews for British papers (New Statesman, New English Weekly, Manchester Guardian) and turns up persistently at rehearsals and performances in an overcoat several inches too long. Author Haskell identifies himself as a life-long balletomaniac who studied dancing to understand its difficulties. He quarreled with Diaghilev over his last ballets and Diaghilev never forgave him. He describes Diaghilev's weaknesses: his sexual abnormalities, his greed for sweets, his crazy superstitions, his countless inconsistencies. But in the Machiavellian persecutor which Madame Nijinsky portrays Critic Haskell takes no stock. An incompetent dancer, she schemed her way into the troupe--a fact which Mme Nijinsky admits herself. His fellow dancers always . . thought Nijinsky unbalanced. Diaghilev kept him from the world because as a sheltered, brooding introvert he did his finest work. Without Diaghilev he deteriorated as a dancer and as a choreographer. As an impresario he was a pathetic failure. When Diaghilev died Haskell, like many another balletomaniac, despaired of the ballet's future. But the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe and the development of Choreographer Leonide Massine gave him fresh hope. The Monte Carlo Ballet, now on the verge of a five months' U. S. tour. has four outstanding dancers : handsome David Lichine, spectacular for his leaps, his sensuous grace; pretty feathery Tatiana Riabouchinska, whom Colonel de Basil has insured against marriage; dark dynamic Tamara Tamounova and Irina Baronova. The greatest of these, says Critic Haskell, is Baronova, 15, ashy, pale-haired Russian emigree who grew up in the Balkans, studied in Paris with the Imperial ballerina, Olga Preobrajenska. Baronova's technic is amazing. She can do 32 spins (fouettes) without stopping. But more, her dancing has the same subtle, unearthly quality which marked the early playing of Violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Author Haskell prides himself on his collection of ballet slippers, although as a balletomaniac he pales beside a St. Petersburg clique which paid $175 for a pair of Taglioni's, had them cooked, prepared with a special sauce and ate them at a banquet.

*Balletomania--Simon & Schuster ($3.75).

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