Tohu-Bohu in Paris

The audience remained quiet for the first two minutes. Then came boos and catcalls . . . Neighbors began to hit each other over the head with fists, canes or whatever came to hand . . . Everything available was tossed in our direction, but we continued to play on . . . Stravinsky had disappeared through a window backstage, to wander disconsolately along the streets of Paris.

--Pierre Monteux in Dance Index

Last week the scene--Paris' Theatre des Champs-Elysees--and the principals were the same as at that uproarious premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 1913, and again there was bedlam. But this time the composer stood in his box, bathed in spotlight glare and the audience's acclaim, clasping his hands together like a victorious boxer. The tohu-bohu did not abate until Stravinsky marched onstage to buss Conductor Monteux on both cheeks. Said beaming Pierre Monteux: "There was just as much noise the last time, but of a different tonality."

A good share of the applause belonged to the orchestra that played the work--the Boston Symphony. The 104 musicians of the Boston had started their first European visit in a muddle over housing arrangements. The men wanted to shift for themselves, rebelled against a plan to billet them all in one hotel. Their conductor, Charles Munch, solved the problem in a hurry: "I don't care whether you gentlemen sleep together. What matters to me is that you play together."

Play together they did. In their first appearance at Paris' international Festival of the Arts, they offered modern French (Roussel, Honegger) and American (Barber, Piston) music, and left the audience (including President Auriol) shouting itself hoarse. In courtly appreciation, the orchestra and Conductor Munch broke a long-standing symphonic rule and played an encore. Two nights later came the success of Monteux, Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring.

Paris' critics came out gasping superlatives. Said Le Figaro: "An extraordinary ensemble, playing with an assurance and ardor that bordered on fanaticism." L'Aurore's critic said, "Never before have we heard anything comparable to the sumptuous sonority of the strings and mordant quality of the trumpets." Said one Boston musician: "We did our best because we realized what it meant to Munch and Monteux to play in Paris."

Ahead for the Boston: The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfort, Berlin, Strasbourg (Munch's home town), Lyons,

Bordeaux and London.

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New York's City Ballet captured its share of applause on its first Paris visit too. After Swan Lake, Ballerina Maria Tallchief had to take eight curtain calls; so did Nora Kaye after The Cage. The audience at the Opera refused to go home until George Balanchine himself came out for a bow. Total curtain calls: 29.

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