program from American Ballet 1935 performance

[sandik]

I haven't fully explored it, but this website seems to be a catalog of online resources for performing arts research, and this particular link

http://libdev.library.cornell.edu/glopad_p....php?id=1003899

will take you to a program from the American Ballet's March 1935 performances in NY.

There's a little rip in the paper -- you can't touch it, but if you squint just right it seems like you can. It's just stunning.

And here

http://libdev.library.cornell.edu/glopad_p....php?id=1003895

is a picture of Lew Christensen in Apollo in 1937.

[bart]

Thanks, sandik, for this resource. I found a brief description of the 1935 Adelphi Theater season of American Ballet in Robert Gottlieb's book on Balanchine. Gottlieb calls this "season" a "modest success", which led to a brief tour of the northeast. (The tour manager made off with the box office receipts.)

I also liked Terry Teachout's brief description of Alma Mater: "a dance about college football dreamed up by Edward Warburg. (Fledgling dance troups will do a great deal to please their patrons.)"

William Dollar certainly seems to have been asked to dance a lot. I recognized the names Eugene Loring, Anabelle Lyons, and Ruthanna Boris. But who was "Giselle"? Not the Willi, I assume.

And -- that's a stunning set for the 1937 "Apollo". Anyone have information about it?

[Mme. Hermine]

Gisela Caccialanza?

[kfw]

And -- that's a stunning set for the 1937 "Apollo".  Anyone have information about it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In his invaluable book "Thirty Years/The New York City Ballet," Lincoln Kirstein writes that "our models were Poussin's backgrounds from his Echo and Narcissus and The Arcadian Sheperds. . . . Stewart Chaney, an adroit and responsible designer, contrived a big Poussineque cave, over which spread trunk and branches of a huge sacred laurel."

This background was "lit to accentuate a late-afternoon glow." Stravinsky approved. Unlike the previous scenery for the ballet, by Bauchant, this "never mocked the music."

[Leigh Witchel]

When the SF Performing Arts Library and Museum exhibited their Balanchine collection last year, there was a program from '34.

I reported on it for Danceview Times. http://www.danceviewtimes.com/dvw/reviews/...winter/sfb9.htm - at the end.

In the same display case is a program from the June 9, 1934 performance by the American Ballet School at Woodlawn, the Warburg estate in White Plains. The 1933 version of Mozartiana, Serenade and excerpts from Les Songes were performed. Extrapolating the evolution of Serenade from this little bit of evidence is tempting detective work. The cast list includes “Miss Pelus”, later to become Marie-Jeanne and “Miss Mann” whom I am guessing is Nancy Knott Mann, who reset the variation from Reminiscence for the Balanchine Foundation nearly 70 years later. There are 19 women and no men listed in the cast. There is no Tema Russo (it was added in 1941).

[atm711]

And -- that's a stunning set for the 1937 "Apollo".  Anyone have information about it?

Here is a bit more about it from Grace Roberts (Borzoi Book, 1946)

"The first revival of the Balanchine version of 'Apollon Musagete' in America was presented by the American Ballet at the Met. Opera House, NY, on April 27, 1937 with a cast that included Lew Christiansen (Apollo), and Daphne Vane, Elise Reiman, and Holly Howard (the three muses). For this performance seventy members of the NYPhilharmonic played, conducted by Igor Stgravinsky.............

The production of Apollo Musagete

rejoiced in a decor and costumes by Stuart Chaney that were several degrees removed from Stravinsky's notions of what they should be. The Muses were clad in conventional Greek tunics. The setting, a naturalistic landscape, was cluttered with an assortment of objects: broken columns, urns, a colossal head, capitals, and a rock for the apotheosis, the whole over-hung with a great set of draperies, complete with fringes and tassels."

She concludes with the following assessment:

"Of the cast, only Holly Howard gained critical praise. Lew Christiansen received no credit for a fine performance, though, his admirable physique, classic dignity, and controlled technique were perfect for the role of Apollo. Several years later when Ballet Theatre revived the ballet, Andre Eglevsky, whose performance did not in any way measure up to Christiansen's, received the acclaim of the critics, who by that time had been more or less beaten into an acceptance of Balanchine's advanced style."