"S. HUROK PRESENTS. . . ."

Six years ago, many a U. S. citizen who is now a self-conscious balletomane could not tell a chasse from a shag. Russian ballet troupes taught him. First they were the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe; now, after complicated schisms and reorganizations, they are the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. From the beginning, much of their box-office success has been the work of one man. Fortnight ago, as the ballet season neared its end in Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, that man took part in a performance of Petrouchka. A Russian greatcoat swathed his solid form, false whiskers his jowls; a fur hat veiled his glabrous dome. S. (for "Sol" for Solomon) Hurok, impresario of the ballet, was playing a super. With him, similarly disguised, was Sportsman-Angel Julius Fleischmann (yeast), head of World-Art, Inc., which owns the ballet.

Sol Hurok, whose bland smile and herring-strong Russian accent help him play the jovial, avuncular manager to perfection, has made S. HUROK PRESENTS--he insists on big type--a profitable billing in U. S. concert business. He arrived in the U. S. in 1905 with less than $2 in his pockets, knocked about as a peddler of pins & notions, a trolley conductor, a factory worker. Fond of music, he organized the Van Hugo Musical Society (he invented the name, which he thought imposing), and arranged concerts for labor organizations. His first real artist was Violinist Efrem Zimbalist, whose fee he beat down to $500. S. Hurok hired the New York Hippodrome for popular-priced concerts, a new thing then. To swell the advance sales on Belgian Violinist Eugene Ysaye, Hurok advertised in the Sunday Telegram: -- Actress Marta Eggert.

EXCELLENCIES THE PRINCE

AND PRINCESS OF BELGIUM

Have Been Asked Whether They

WILL ATTEND THE CONCERT OF YSAYE,

WORLD'S GREATEST VIOLINIST

Hurok filled the house, netted $4,000.

In 1921, Sol Hurok bagged Dancer Anna Pavlova, who called him "Hurokchik." In the next four years her tours, on which he often accompanied her. netted the two of them $500,000. Two other Hurok dancers were the late Isadora Duncan, who fortified herself with whiskey and champagne, left a confetti-like whirl of bouncing checks wherever she went; and Loie Fuller, whose tour was supposed to be keyed to the ludicrous U. S. progress of her friend Queen Marie of Rumania. Other attractions launched in the U. S. by Hurok: Basso Feodor Chaliapin, Contralto Marian Anderson, Dancer Mary Wigman, the Vienna Choir Boys, the Piccoli Theatre, Pianist Rudolf Serkin, Hindu Dancer Uday Shan-Kar.

For about a decade, 80% of U. S. concert business has been amiably divided between two firms, NBC Artists Service and Columbia Concerts Corp., each the result of merging several concert agencies. S. Hurok declined to be merged. Instead he made a deal with the NBC Artists Service whereby, for a commission, it books all his attractions.

In the early days of the Ballet Russe, S. Hurok seemed to have met his match in Colonel Wassily de Basil, the Russian who had assembled the troupe. In all published matter, de Basil's name had to be in type equal to, or bigger than, Hurok's. There was much furious measuring of type, and once Hurok had to go out, pastepot in hand, and stick the Colonel's name on some three-sheet posters from which it had been omitted. Today Colonel de Basil manages a rival troupe and earthy S. Hurok, who knows what he likes, is final arbiter of the Monte Carlo ballet programs.

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