In the Shadow of the Greats

I reengaged Verdy and Villella for the leads, with Klekovic and Johnson as the alternates. Martin-Viscount was cast as Benno and I had my roster of local soloists to dance the featured roles. But I needed help with the staging and asked Frederic Franklin to set Act II. Today, with readily available videos, the value of skills like Franklin’s has diminished, as now even a mediocre ballet master can mount a work if he has the patience to reconstruct it from a tape. At the time, Freddie was invaluable--usually.

I planned to stage Act I drawing on my memories from Nina Kirsanova’s Belgrade version, which descended from a pre-revolutionary Moscow production. Following in Marius Petipa’s footsteps, I would provide Acts I and III and Franklin could do Lev Ivanov’s job of contributing Acts II and IV.

Unfortunately, Freddie did not remember Act IV--except for the “Dance of Lament,” which during the Serge Diaghilev era had been interpolated into Act II. Violette and I tried to paste Act IV together from Cyril Beaumont’s descriptions and from memories (which in my case were very few, as by Act IV, I was usually in the dressing room, removing my makeup). We opted for the Soviet interpretation that ends with a promising future, instead of the tragic death of Odette and Siegfried.

The announcement of our Swan Lake production in Dance Magazine attracted the attention of Dame Alicia Markova, who was then on the University of Cincinnati’s faculty. Although many people attended the show--including Dance Magazine’s Bill Como, a New York critic, whose name I have forgotten, and people from ABT and the Joffrey--for me, it was a big honor that she had come to see the performance. When we learned that she was in the house, we invited her to the post-performance party, an invitation which she accepted. When I met her at the party, I lapsed into Russian, not knowing that she did not speak the language. “Well, we can speak in English, if you don’t mind,” she replied. We sat down and talked. I found her to be very British. I gathered the courage to ask, “What did you think of the performance?” She replied, “It was different, yes, it was very different,” and changed the topic. It was a non-specific answer, more tactful than instructive. The remark stayed with me. I use it too.

I had invited Stevan, but he was unable to attend and sent Dimitri Parlic in his place, as Parlic was working with him in Birmingham, Alabama. Parlic was never one to mince words and because I had been his dancer--and he gave me much less respect than he gave to Stevan--he could be blunt with me. I think he was surprised that I was capable of producing a performance like that, so he took the fatherly approach. He said, “You know Nicolas, you have to build the performance logically. You cannot make the ensemble numbers so strong that the public grows tired of clapping before the main pas de deux. You have to build progressively towards that focal point.” Later on, I observed this in other production, but at that time, I did not know that.

The catered party was in the basement of the Syria Mosque. It was not chic, but it was nice. As I recall, Joe Negri and his orchestra provided entertainment and many important local actors were there. Stage director Don Brockett--whom I had met through Audrey Roth--suggested an “auction” to raise money for PBT with the dancers going to the highest bidder. As I recall, we hesitated to ask Villella and Verdy to participate, but everyone got involved and our Sasha went for an especially good price. Pittsburgh always measures things in money, so the dancers who “earned” more also won more applause and cheers.

I wanted décor for my production of Peter and it really turned out beautifully. Elizabeth Kahler’s costumes were very vivid and the whole presentation had a fairytale ambiance. I was very proud of these three works; though they were essentially done for children they were presentable to adults.

Violette Verdy, who had come to see the ballets was very complimentary and said, “You have something of Balanchine,” which pleased me very much, as my work was still very much influenced by the Massine style.

Ruth Page staged Alice (in Wonderland) for the Children’s Series at the Playhouse. Joyce Cuoco was cast in the starring role with other leading parts assigned to Patricia Klekovic, Kenneth Johnson, and Richard Fox. Mary played the Queen of Hearts, which was one of her last roles with PBT, while company members assumed the many whimsical characters. Neal Kayan (Orrin’s brother) arranged the musical collage along with Isaac Van Grove and conducted our small orchestra. Neal played one of the two pianos, while company pianist Phyllis Connor played the other. Henry Scuillo and William Price were the percussionists. Barbara Ellenberger and Harrison Shields provided the vocals. The ballet had designs by Andre Delfau and costumes made in New York by Karinska. The performance, which was sponsored by PBT in affiliation with Point Park College, proved to be another jewel.

I filmed the ballet for Page and along with my film of Peter and the Wolf; we donated it to the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. I never finished filming The Night on Bald Mountain or Walpurgis Nacht, as I was short on film. Peter and Walpurgis survived in the repertoire, but Mountain, disappeared, owing to its complex sets. I wish that these kinds of shows were still produced today, as they are a great introduction to dance for children.

Several years after Peter premiered its youthful interpreter Richard Fox, who was one of PBT promising character dancers, died tragically in a freak accident. As he and his family were moving to a new apartment, he jumped aboard and fell from a moving truck, sustained a concussion, and consequently a cerebral hemorrhage. It was a sad and cruel accident--movement was his craft and a mistaken movement took his life.

Arthur Blum was excited about the prospect and engaged a lawyer to bring Vostrikov to the U.S.--which I think was accomplished with a student visa. Within a week, he was granted permission and we received him with open arms. He was pleased to be here as well. I remember that he had a little speech impediment--he stuttered whenever he became emotional. He proved to be a great asset to our company. I cast him as Mercutio--he looked “right” for the role. He was unforgettable. I remember that some members of the audience wept after his death scene.

During my visit to Verona, as a dancer with Theatre d’Art du Ballet, I fantasized about the production that I would one day produce. I took a guided tour of the city and photographed every detail. Later, in America, I saw Franco Zeffirelli’s film which starred young actors. I was convinced to cast young dancers in my ballet.

With Filipov and Vostrikov on PBT’s roster, the idea solidified, as I had a Romeo and Mercutio, respectively. However, I lacked a Juliet. As usual, I consulted with Violette Verdy, who suggested NYCB’s Gelsey Kirkland. Kirkland was then the company’s hot property. I met with George Balanchine, to ask for his permission. Without hesitation, he said, “Yes.” Gelsey knew little about Pittsburgh and less of me. She lacked enthusiasm, but agreed to think it over. Later, she refused to take the job.

I went back to square one and back to Violette. This time, she recommended young Edra Toth, a Hungarian girl, then on the roster at Boston Ballet. She advised me to speak with E. Virginia Williams, as Edra would be just perfect. Off to Boston I went. Virginia received me very cordially and was delighted that I was interested in hiring Edra. Edra too was ecstatic about the opportunity and accepted the assignment.

As I still needed a Tybalt, I recruited Orrin Kayan, who had played the role in Ruth Page’s version that was set to Tchaikovsky’s score. He had strong acting skills and the ability to play an aggressive character. He lived up to my expectations. Completing my principal cast was Jewell Walker as Friar Laurence--Walker, who taught mime at Carnegie Mellon University had previously performed in my Noir et Blanc.

We brought in Christopher Martin, a fencing master from New York to stage the fight scenes. Our fencing sequences were outstanding. I think that if our production had competed against any other production, we would have won the duel.

Designer Henry Heymann and I collaborated on the set design, working from my photographs taken in Verona and Padua, Italy. I insisted that the décor be a stylization of the buildings that contemporary Italians regard as the Capulet’s and Montague’s abodes, Friar Laurence’s monastery, Juliet’s balcony, the Capulet tomb, and the piazza where the fatal duels were fought. I realize that Shakespeare never visited Italy. The Italians adopted his story and assigned choice real-estate to promote the myth. Whether the story is coincidence or truth, the contemporary Italians are making a bundle, charging tourists to visit these sites. I must admit that I was one of those victims.

I felt that my production corresponded with those pictures and with the Italians’ conception. I disagreed with the set design in Lavrovsky’s production, with its monumental architecture that reminded me of the Julius Cesar era in Rome. Since I was using the same score, as he had, the concept of the story had to be similar. Scenes in the ballet were composed to be spectacular and based on motion.

It took a month of preparation to plot the choreography; edit the musical scenes; prepare the costume designs and décor; and to determine the function of the scenes. The in-studio work required about six weeks, plus a week onstage of tech, orchestra, and dress rehearsals.

Prior to rehearsals, I developed ideas, cut the music, and jotted down some preliminary phrases or optional movements to test on the dancers, though most of the actual choreography, which draws from my style based on the influences of Massine, Béjart, Charrat, and Lifar, was created in the studio, with them. While it may appear to those outside of dance that choreography just flows like an open faucet--that is not really true. It takes much preparation and mental concentration to create output over the course of several hours in rehearsal. I was trained and conditioned by my television experiences in Paris where time was limited. I always comfortably choreographed an average of one minute of dance in a one-hour period, a formula that always worked for me.

We sold all five performances to Standing Room Only capacity. This was a great box office achievement. I realize that even American Ballet Theatre, when it played on tour in Pittsburgh, barely drew an audience of fifteen hundred. My cast was outstanding--they were youthful, convincing actors, who mesmerized the public and pulled the audience into the dramatic action. Maestro Semanitzky did an exceptionally fine job.

About seventy-five percent of the critics were complimentary, agreeing with my interpretation of the subject. The remaining twenty-five percent criticized the ballet for not adhering faithfully to Shakespeare’s play, as they had envisioned his words differently. Here, I must interject that Prokofiev’s musical composition is fashioned after Lavrovsky’s libretto, which only touches on themes of Romeo and Juliet. As ballet has no words, it could not rely on the beauty and substance of Shakespeare’s language. When Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet was initially presented, it focused on the text and substance of Shakespearean-style dialogue. Lavrovsky’s scenario utilized Prokofiev’s brilliant composition as its vocabulary. Yes, I agreed with the fanatics--the words were missing. It was not Shakespeare. Instead, it was Shakespeare’s dramatic concept expressed via Prokofiev’s score.

Ours was a memorable performance for two reasons--on October 8, 1971, we opened in Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts as an inaugural event for the new theater. This production was the American premiere of Romeo and Juliet, though the San Francisco Ballet, which had mounted Michael Smuin’s version, disputed it. The fact is that my production was the first full-length American production of Romeo and Juliet.

Years later, critic Clive Barnes, after seeing numerous American productions, said that mine “remains among the best seen in the United States.”

We filmed the premiere and held a screening at the Falk farm near Bedford, Pennsylvania, where we annually held a party. I was held in such high esteem by the Falks that I was a guest in their home, while the others stayed in cottages on the property. Rumor had it that during one of these gatherings, one of the dancers who had been partying too exuberantly, made a crude joke about Loti--which came back to bite him later, as without justification, she instructed me to replace him.

In subsequent productions the leading roles were performed by JoAnn McCarthy and Jordeen Ivanov as Juliet and Ismet Mouhedin as Tybalt, while Friar Laurence was portrayed by Edward Caton, Frederic Franklin, Kenneth Johnson, and me.

Following Romeo and Juliet, we restage The Nutcracker, which now moved to Heinz Hall and repeated its earlier success. We added a few performances and realized that it would be a moneymaker and an audience builder.
I asked Sasha, who was then on ABT’s roster, to negotiate a meeting with ballerina Natalia Makarova. Makarova, her boyfriend Vladimir Rodzianko, Sasha and I met at New York’s Hotel Wellington for drinks and small talk before I extended an invitation to her to perform with PBT as a guest artist. Natalia was interested in the Pittsburgh gig, if Rodzianko could conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony. As I could not immediately agree to that, I promised to get the answer when I returned to Pittsburgh.

Semanitzky had no objections. I was happy to extend the invitation to Natalia. Loti Falk and Arthur Blum concurred that it would be good press.

Natalia chose Ted Kivitt as her partner and he too accepted. We had only to work out the details. We scheduled the performance for December 3, 1971. I was worried about incorporating Natalia and Ted into our existing production and that they would criticize it. However, she claimed to be comfortable with it--and it did carry the traditions of the Petipa/Ivanov version. There were some differences in the mime scenes and the smaller parts. Her interpretations of the black and white swan dances fit perfectly. The transitional scenes were very much standard staging. Natalia helped me with my patch quilt Act IV, by demonstrating how the swans reverted to maidens again--how they walked, carried their arms, and how they behaved.

I engaged a claque that was instructed to throw red roses onstage after Makarova danced and to yell “Bravo.” (This was common in mid-nineteenth century Paris and the practice was later adopted by Diaghilev, who recruited deep voiced youths. If he could manipulate a success, so could I.) As the curtain rose, we were very tense and excited. The overture was fine, but by the “Pas de Trois” Rodzianko was rushing the orchestra so much that the dancers had difficulty following the tempo. Perhaps he did not remember the music. As time passed, the slow parts were fast; the fast parts were slow. Obviously, he was not in control of the orchestra. The tempos were so off that the performers had difficulty dancing. Tempo was also wrong for Makarova’s sections, but she did not complain. Her solos were a great success and we showered her with flowers--though the momentum was off and the claque did their best. After the performance, she asked us how Rodzianko had conducted. Sasha looked at me and then said in Russian Нечуво [pronounced nichuwa] which means “nothing/okay.” The ensemble was enraged and was eager for Semanitzky’s return.

When Klekovic and Johnson danced the succeeding performance on December 5, there were no red roses tossed onstage, but they earned a standing ovation, which I could not understand. Yes, they did a wonderful job, but did the public think that they were Makarova and Kivitt? Or was it because the ballet was played at the right tempo and the dancers danced better than ever? I am left with an everlasting memory of that performance. And Johnson has teased me “Ah, your Russians--we had better success.”
Chapter Twenty: You Know What You Know…

After many years of work devoted to the college, which produced good dancers and choreographers, I puzzle over whether or not I reached my goals. Yes, there were successful moments, but I never assembled a class of promising, talented students who were focused on ballet alone. I worked with thousands of students, but never produced the ideal dancer. Jordeen Ivanov, JoAnn McCarthy, and their generation were the nearest to that ideal. The university’s dance program is revitalized and enrolls 250 full-time students annually, who come from studios where standards are higher than in 1967. Yet, I must inform some students that unless their poor placement is corrected, their work will lack classical quality. My attempt to establish professional middle and high schools on the Kirov model was initially a paradise, but it collapsed with the college’s escalating financial crisis. In 1973, when the college and PBT separated, I suggested establishing a new PBT school. However, we were required to teach underprivileged children, as a city project. These children were completely uninterested and undisciplined. Most came for poor families and were brought up on the streets. The PBT School was established after my tenure ended.

Perhaps I should have opened a private studio to nurture and develop students from their early years through their teens. I never had that luxury and probably never will. I had a great wealth of experience to share. Teaching was also a self-awareness process as it reaffirmed, crystallized, and clarified my knowledge. I have been teaching for thirty-eight years. It has become second nature. I love teaching those who are interested. I hate teaching those who do not want to learn, who are uninterested, or are resistant. However, it is rewarding when former students--like Rob Ashford--who may have been momentarily resistant, change their minds, and develop into successful artists.

I unfortunately, do not think that I fully achieved my artistic goals.

In Pittsburgh, I started from nothing. Without help from Mark Lewis, Arthur Blum, and Loti Falk, I would not have progressed as fast or as effectively. However, I had to educate them first and that dominated the initial years of my tenure.

I wanted to gradually develop the audience and the company--by following the historical progression of ballet repertoire--and to eventually raise the standards of both. I knew how to lead the company towards its ultimate goal, but when I lost Loti Falk’s confidence, the company’s healthy growth diminished. She failed to understand that I was not doing what I wanted to do. I was instead adapting to the interests, needs, and understanding of the local audience, while slowly building the company’s quality.

Ironically, Patrick Frantz, who was PBT’s third artistic director, favored the Béjart-style that I had envisioned for PBT. Loti did not even realize that this was where we were going.

Instead, she blamed me for lack of artistic growth and artistic mismanagement.

I think the company achieved an international level and was enviable to competing companies. When I severed my relationship with it, I felt that my baby was not yet mature and had not completed the educational process to be a leading company.

Hiring Patricia Wilde was a positive move for PBT, but her vision was completely different from mine. Her experiences with Rebekah Harkness’ the Harkness Ballet had groomed her to accept Loti’s orders and to never say “yes,” but to never say “no.” She heavily depended on George Balanchine’s repertoire, which was dissimilar from the way that I had groomed Pittsburgh audiences. The corps improved and she had some very good artists on the roster. The company progressed slowly, but reached neither the level of Pennsylvania Ballet nor the Cleveland Ballet, its nearest neighbors.

In 2003, PBT celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary with Swan Lake performances. I was invited to participate in an onstage ribbon cutting ceremony. Typically the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jane Vranish credited Loti Falk as the company’s founder. Without Loti, PBT would not have flourished, but without me Loti would have never become involved in ballet. Despite that, it was a good feeling that we started something that succeeded and survives. However, if I had remained with PBT, it would have achieved its current level of artistry much sooner.

Terrence Orr returned to programming popular story ballets, which long ago I discovered rang the cash drawer, while mixed bills played to empty seats. Yes, the company is in a bit better shape and under the influence of American Ballet Theatre. There are a couple of solid soloists and the corps is fairly good. They are heavy on administrative support staff, while dancers are shy in numbers. Consequently, PBT draws students from its school to supplement the cast in large works. Yet very few of those students are offered full contracts upon graduation. The policy of augmenting the corps with students has caused tension between the union dancers and management. From my perspective, the company is where I left it.