Ballet's Harvest

Two years ago on a drizzly December morning 75 Russians stood in the lounge of the M. S. Lafayette, each solemnly breaking off a bit of rye bread and dipping it in salt. The ceremony was an ancient one, observed in Russia by peasants and tsars. On this occasion it was intended to bring good fortune to the dancers of the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, arriving in Manhattan for their first U. S. season.

First discord came when photographers asked the girls to pose so that they would reveal their legs at full length. "But we are not show people," objected one of the few who spoke English. "We are artistes! Artists of the ballet!" The general public at first seemed as slow to understand as the persistent cameramen. After a gilded first night (TIME, Jan. 1, 1934), the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe performed time & again to half-empty houses. Last week the troupe was back in Manhattan for a two week stay at the Metropolitan Opera House. This time the bread and salt had brought an abundant harvest. There was a great clamor for tickets, a queue waiting for standing room. Persistent applause greeted the dancers who could spin with such grace, leap with such ease.

Ballet had suddenly become a rage not only in Manhattan but in 100 other U. S. cities visited by the Monte Carlo dancers since last October. The fever began in earnest last season when the company toured 20,000 miles, surprised everyone by grossing $1,000,000. This season more ground was covered, with earnings even greater. The Ballet danced with the leading symphony orchestras in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit. It played to capacity audiences in cities which had never seen a ballet. There were sold-out houses in Little Rock, Ark., El Paso, Tex., Portland, Me. In Brockton, Mass., a leading citizen was impressed because the ballet's appearance there was on of the rare occasions when he had known his townsfolk to turn out in formal evening clothes.

A certain oldtime glamor kept company with the Russians wherever they went. The series of books on Nijinsky and the old Diaghilev company helped to inspire enthusiasm. The old Diaghilev ballets have had the greatest success. The youthful company has worked hard to interpret them faithfully, boasts several leading dancers who have conspicuous talent. From the Diaghilev company came Leonide Massine, the galvanic maitre de ballet whose dancing is marvelously fleet and polished. Another Diaghilev dancer is Alexandra Danilova, a piquant ballerina trained in Petrograd's Theatre Street. Beau Brummel of the company is black-haired David Lichine, whose leaps have excited the admiration of Harvard track stars.

The ballerinas who fetch the most applause are Tamara Toumanova, Tatiana Riabouchinska and Irina Baronova, all in their teens. Toumanova, a dark-skinned Caucasian, was born on a train in Siberia as her parents were attempting to escape from the Revolution. At 7, in Paris, she was praised by Pavlova who gave her a bouquet; Toumanova still cherishes its withered leaves and dried-up blossoms.

Riabouchinska was born a banker's daughter during the Tsarist regime, studied with Kshesinskaya, the ballerina who was Nicholas II's mistress up to the time of his marriage. In London the fair-haired Riabouchinska had so many stage-door admirers that the Ballet's director, Colonel Vassily de Basil, rushed her to Lloyd's, insured her against marriage for several years to come.

Baronova, whose dancing has a pure emotional quality, seemed well watched by her zealous parents who have accompanied their pretty daughter on the three U. S. tours. In Columbus, Ohio two months ago the wide-eyed Baronova suddenly disappeared. She had eloped with Gerald Sevastianov, Colonel de Basil's handsome young secretary.

On tour the Company has required a special train with five baggage cars for scenery, eleven Pullmans for the dancers, stagehands and the 50-odd orchestramen. The train is a world by itself. Baronova is twitted for her marriage and the fact that it caused her to desert her two pet monkeys. Toumanova is teased about one admirer in Austin, Tex., who sends her flowers at every railroad stop, another in Montreal who besieges her with presents and long-distance telephone calls. Cinemadirector Rouben Mamoulian, a fellow Caucasian, entertained her royally each night the company spent in Los Angeles. Aboard train Dancer Lichine keeps a daily log for the company, mourns when there is no scandal, no petty jealousy to record. In their few hours of leisure the dancers rush for a cinema, a 5 & 10-c- store, a cut-rate druggist to buy their cosmetics. During rehearsals they subsist on milk, eat ravenously when a performance is over. Aboard train they will buy anything from ham sandwiches and chocolate to Coca-Cola "widout ice."

Ballet Master Massine travels this year, as he did last, in a trailer attached to his powerful Lincoln car, keeps his own chef who feeds him Russian food. Massine made trouble in Los Angeles as a result of a soft-hearted moment in Vancouver where he adopted a stray dog gazing at him through a restaurant window. The creature became so devoted to Massine that he followed him on stage at a Los Angeles performance.

In Manhattan last week there were more cheers than ever for Toumanova, Baronova, Riabouchinska, Lichine, Massine. High spot of the engagement was to come with the revival of Stravinsky's Les Noces, for which Nijinsky's sister Bronislava has traveled especially from Europe to direct the choreography.

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