My copy of Ballet Review arrived recently with a lovely little reproduction of Edward Gorey's booklet of drawings, The Lavender Leotard. Originally published in 1970, it contains many references to the "look" and style and distinctive mentality of NYCB -- audiences and performers -- in the 50s and 60s.

I especially liked the simple drawing: of two child-balletomanes, perusing the performance list for the new season: "There are twenty-seven Swan Lakes this season, but only twenty-one Firebirds." You had to be there to understand how true this was. Ditto: "Don't you feel the whole idea of sets and costumes is vulgar?" And: "I sometimes think if I see that lavender leotard with the little skirt that doesn't quite match in one more ballet .... " And well do I remember wonderful programs like: "I thought we'd break him [an especially tiny child] in on Swan-Lake-Firebird-Afternoon-of-a-Faun-and-Western-Symphony."

Probably the key to NYCB mentality at that time is the drawing of two children informing two much taller adults: "Other companies merely put on ballets; we dance."

A couple of drawings alluded to ballets or events or something that I couldn't place. For instance, the boy tosses a tutu-clad lady into the air: "I'm Ike, you're Mamie." I know this refers to the Eisenhowers: but what's the connection to NYCB?

Then there are the two references to the White Swan pdd, one with Benno, one without. What's the story behind that?

Also: "You're right, that was Glinka they were doing, but Minkus he was wearing." What ballets?

And, is there a specific ballet refernces in: "Let-s see - he didn't do his first variation, and she didn't do her second one; Barbara did the fifth instead of the fourth, and Carol substituted for Linda, and Susan wasn't there at all, but then who was ... ?

In other words: does anyone have any thoughts about, or responses to, this marvellous -- but rather cryptic (typically Gorey) -- little work of art?

Stars and Stripes

I'm betting Raymonda Variations.

the Ike & Mamie ref. is to STARS AND STRIPES and acc'd to Hayden this was suggested by d'Amboise as they were about to go on stage for their pas de deux on some occasion.

the glinka/minkus refers to two pas de trois balanchine choreoraphed in the same period: GLINKA pas de trois and MINKUS pas de trois. (both likely had costumes by karinska - my ref. book is not near at hand.)

i'm not sure about the benno problem - he was never part of any balanchine i saw but perhaps he was at some point - again my ref. book(s) not close enough at hand to dig aroun.

and yes, the skipped variation(s) one refers to RAYMONDA VARIATIONS - (in)famous in its day for having this or that portion cut due to day-to-day company dilemmas - at one perf. i saw in the 70s the entire 3rd mov. of SYMPHONY IN C was dropped due to insurrmountable casting problems on that day.

Noting the many changes in Balanchine's Swan Lake over the years Nancy Reynolds in Repertory in Review writes only that "long ago the Prince's friend Benno disappeared." For the original cast she lists Frank Hobi as Benno.

According to Choreography by George Balanchine, the costumes for the Glinka Pas de Trois (entry 307) were by Karinska, and the costumes for the Minkus Pas de Trois (also called "Pas de Trois Classique" and " Paquita Pas de Trois" (entry 247) were by Jean Robier, with whom I'm not familiar. The premiere was in 1948, for the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. There's no note to suggest that NYCB used anything but the original designs.


From the same source ("Swan Lake", entry 285), Benno was danced by Frank Hobi in the premiere in 1951, and the "Dance of the Four Cygnets" was in it as well, but in 1964 there were a handful of major revisions, to both Odette's and Siegfried's solos, replacing "Dance of the Four Cygnets" with "Valse Bluette," and eliminating Benno. I'd never seen a performance with Siegfried's solo, but the book says it was "often omitted."

Many thanks for identifying these references.

This subject puts me in mind of a remark by Robert Caro, the biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson. In an essay in "Tributes: Celebrating Fifty Years of New York City Ballet," he wrote, "The ballet has never lost its wonder for me, and I try to make sure it never will -- by not learning too much about it." Similarly, I think Gorey's charming booklet is best served by not attempting to dig up now-outmoded references. Remaining cryptic adds to its charm.

there i think we can agree to disagree; i think the charm lies in knowing *exactly* what they mean!

I'm already wavering, pmeja. So in which ballets did that lavender leotard with the little skirt that doesn't quite match make an appearance?

I'd love to know the answer to this, too. But maybe this refers to a general problem faced by the company in its earlier days rather than to a specific production. The first frame of the book imagines the author introducing "two small, distant, ageless, and wholly imaginary relatives to fifty seasons of the New York City Ballet." If we look back to the City Center days, I recall there was a not-infrequent sense of tiredness, improvization, and even shabbiness in the costuming of some of the ballets.

One cartoon definitely reminds me of those notorious orchestra seats at City Center. The ballerina -- depicted in arabesque -- is seen from a vantage point well below the stage. From this angle, she completely obscures her partner, who stands behind her. You cannot see their standing feet. The captain: "I warned you not to get them tickets before row R."

Thanks for the responses so far. Here ae a few more idenitification challenges for our NYCB experts:

1) Ballerina to partner. (She's wearing one pointe shoe and one bare foot): "I suppose wearing only one somehow makes me more so." More what? And what's the ballet?

2) Ballerina in long soft tutu is drawing on a long black glove. She says to the man standing in front of her: "You've given me the wrong one." What ballet?

3) Ballerina in Romantic tutu, jumping, speaks to her partner. He wears black, with white lace jabot and tartan trimming: "I think it would be more amusing if they threw you at me." What balle?

4) Ballerina in classical tutu, trying to escape her much smaller partner: "You know what? I forgot the feather." What ballet?

I would bet that 2 is La Valse and 4 is perhaps Firebird? 3 sounds as if it could be Scotch Symphony.

1 is Profane Love in Ashton's "Illuminations".

4 is "Firebird".

The throwing in #3 sounds like a reference to the second movement of Scotch Symphony, but the only other Balanchine ballet I can think of where there was a tartan is Figure in the Carpet. I'm not sure what the characters are supposed to be performing.

http://www.nycballet.com/uploadedImages/Co.../scotch-new.jpg

The throw happens twice in the second movement of "Scotch Symphony" when two kilted men appear and march with the "Sylphide" across the stage, then toss her to the "Poet" character.

The throw no longer occurs in the NYCB staging. Instead, the two kilted men gingerly place the ballerina in the poet's arms. Very disappointing to us old-timers.

That's where the throw does happen, but is there another Balanchine ballet where they'd be dressed like that in which the character suggests adding the toss, or is the ballet they're dancing supposed to be La Sylphide?

Gorey kept pretty much to references to NYCB. There was no toss in the Gigue in "Figure in the Carpet", and "Scotch Symphony" was intended to reference La Sylphide.

the toss in question is definitely a ref. to SCOTCH SYMPHONY - gorey noted it oftenin conversation that it became a pass-off when the actual throw started to have mishaps.
as farrell fan notes in this thread, many who knew SCOTCH when the throw was still there, missed it sorely when it was tamed in later years.

I only saw it in the days of the pass-off, but it always looked pretty scary to me

In the Six Ballerinas documentary, Maria Tallchief described how Danilova (I think) told her after a performance that she needed to look up during the toss, and Tallchief told her she was trying to look serene, but there were several men tossing her and only one to catch her.

Other throws that have gone MIA:

• The ones on the big diagonal in 3rd Movement Symphony in C. They now merely sissonne lifts.
• The ones in Second Movement Brahms, which used to be so thrilling. The man would toss the woman and then catch her in a back-bending swoon. Gorgeous moments which are still lovely, even only a shadow of its intended effect.
• The ones in Monumentum pro Gesualdo.
• The ones in Agon's second pas de trois still has some oomph, but are veering dangerously in the direction of pass-off.

So much for the Balanchine rep (although I may have missed some). I wonder what happens to Dances at a Gathering -- the big waltz -- if the ballet masters begin to make allowances there?

Picking up on the height disparity, I wondered if this might refer to Bouree Fantasque, whose first movement is a series of visual jokes about a tall ballerina with a too-short partner.

Gorey frequently shows the male as smaller and less consequential than the female. (Possibly a reflection of Balanchine's opinion of their relative importance in ballet generally?) I go with "Firebird" on this one, partly due to costume (the 50s-60s classical tutu) and simple feather headdress, a la Tallchief.

About the tosses -- I have a dim memory of Tallchief being tossed quite a distance towards the camera on an old tv video replayed occasionally on Classical Arts (Firestone? Bell?). Wasn't that Scotch Symphony?

About Gorey -- you couldn't miss him in the lobby. Did he write at all about ballet (in conventional terms, I mean)? Are there any memoirs which include discussion of Gorey's thoughts about the ballets he saw?

Yes it was--it was on that Balanchine film that was aired on PBS this week.

By the way, Gorey makes a cameo apearance in the Lavender Leotard -- tha't's him wearing the mink coat, seen from the back -- unless it's Robert Greskovic, wearing the mink coat that Gorey gave him from his collection.

Bart, you can find Gorey interviewed by Anna Kisselgoff and Tobi Tobias in "Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey," edited by Karen Wilkin.

don't get carried away, Paul: however much i admired EG's minks he never gave 'em away. he did pass along others - mostly racoons - but no mink.

Thanks, kfw, for that reference. Just ordered it from Amazon (quick link above -- and Ballet Talk gets a share). BT won't get much of a share, because the gooks is available in multiple quantiies for 99 cents. Wilkin also has another book on Gorey, with many illustrations.

rg, I also remember the racoons, which always made me think of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lost Generation, etc. ... with just hint of someone having raided Grandpa's closet. Gorey in the lobby was almost as memorable a performance as what was going on onstage. I always hoped to see a straw boater on his head, but never did

the only hats i ever saw EG wear were caps: one a tweed newsboy-style cap and another one a knitted version of what might be greek sailor's cap.
these only for bitter cold days.
otherwise i sense he didn't much like hats.
tho' i don't know how he treated the sun problem(s) of the summer - he lived out of nyc, in the cape during those mos. so saw little of him then.

I was in the theater for the NYCB performance that got the tosses removed from Scotch Symphony. Unfortunately, I don't remember the year (early 60s), but the cast was Tallchief and Anthony Blum. The boys threw her and Blum missed, sending the two of them tumbling down in a heap of tulle and tartan on the stage. The tosses were forthwith removed from the ballet, not to return while I was still going (up to the mid-70s). No one was hurt, as I remember, but for sheer embarassing awkwardness, it was a special moment.

Thanks so much for that story, pop. It certainly puts things into perspective! I can hear the collective audience gasp.

Wow! I had no idea. Can you imagine NOT catching Maria Tallchief!
This reminds me of a moment in the third pas de deux in the Andante of the Mozart Divertimento. There was a tricky spin that was removed after Allegra Kent fell while executing it. Did anyone ever see it?

re: divertimento, i believe gorey noted the culprit in the moment described here was erik bruhn.

Yes, it was Bruhn. Arlene Croce also wrote about that moment, explaining why Balanchine subsequently made the choreography tamer and safer.

I think Tallchief returned to City Ballet in '62 or '63. She brought Bruhn with her. She didn't stay long. I recall "Scotch Symphony" being taught to the Joffrey (by Vida Brown? Una Kai?) in '66 and the toss was still in there. The tossed was Noel Mason, and the catcher, Nels Jorgensen.

Thanks for that information, kfw. The book has just arrived (listed on Amazon, but sent by Goodwill Industries which, to my surprise, apparently has a large used book business; the copy was pristine and arrived promptly).

The volume includes many interviews (from this famously, but apparently incorrectly, uncommunicative person). I love Gorey's vision and his work in bits and pieces. It sems a bit constricted, however, when you look at it as the basis a life-time's oeuvre encompassing decades. The key influences and obsessions seem to have come into place very early in his life and not changed very much thereafter. It does take an obsessive to attend EVERY performance of the New York City Ballet for so many years, but Gorey explains why he does it and almost convinces me that the effort was worth while.

The first interview in Wilkin volume begins with a rather touching vignette:

Several of the interviews (with Anna Kisselgoff and Tobie Tobias) include statements explaining the advantages of attending multiple performances of the same ballets, even when you don't particularly like the ballet.





His favorite dancers as of the early 70s were Diana Adams and Patricia McBridge. He considered Balanchine the single greatest genius whose work he knew.

Ted Gorey never stopped lamenting the loss of Diana Adams, whom he adored - Prodigal Son was ruined for him forever when she stopped dancing the Siren - and he never took to Farrell. He considered her affected, and so she was pre-Bejart. (Farrell was at her greatest in the post 1975 period, a matter Arlene Croce covers definitively.) The little gang that met on the first ring during intermissions in those days would often find Gorey already there, having walked out annoyed with the ballet or the casting. Along with McBride, I remember that he admired Kent, even though one never quite knew what she would do next, or if she would make it at all, and he also liked Helgi Tomasson. What he considered Verdy's fussiness drove him nuts and caused some of his most explosive complaints. He used to say that the 'Sands of the Desert' section of Figure in the Carpet was a beige bore that went on forever. He was one person who was not sorry to see that little work die.

Re Balanchine 'liking' people to fall. Believe me, no one, Balanchine or otherwise, liked seeing people fall. They got injured and caused casting problems. It also unsettled the audience and distracted their attention. What Balanchine liked was dancers going all-out and giving everything they had, with full energy and commitment. "What are you saving it for?" was his response to over-caution and low energy.

I wasn't trying to suggest that he got vicarious pleasure out of it, but that many dancers have repeated that he felt that a fall meant that they were dancing all out, and he would praise them. Considering how rarely he gave praise, and how dancers recall remember the rare examples when he did, praise when falling while dancing full out stuck in their minds and recollections. (No one ever said that he was happy when someone tripped accidentally or was injured.)

I hope to use that line someday somewhere.

So he wasn't overly fond of Firebird, Swan Lake, and Western Symphony -- who would have imagined? I read somewhere that over the years he sat out more and more ballets. Can anyone who attended regularly back then speak to that? Was it, as this quote would indicate, particular ballets, even Balanchine ballets, that he would decline to see? Was he just bored? Did he not want inferior casts to mar cherished memories?

Me too! A great line.


From the interviews, I have the impression that some of Gorey's feelings about attending every performance transcended the qualities of individual ballets and dancers. Perhaps it was the possibility of the unexpected and the sublinme: "Those Satuday matinees when nobody is there and people are dancing like dreams." Another great line

Gorey's talent lay in the ability to delve deeply, obsessively, and with a powerful sense of irony and the macbre, into the darker side of life, while using what was essentially a small art form. For some reason, I saw a connection when I read a review recently -- in the NY Review of Books -- of the work of a 19th-century writer working in an entirely different genre. Fellix Feneon, an art critic, published, in the French press in the decade before World War One, over 1,000 exceptionally brief stories describing real events that were often grotesque or wierdly tragic. These "nouvelles en trois lignes" (short stories in 3 lines) were brilliantly compressed and followed rules of composition almost as rigid as haiku. And, most Gorey-llike of allLike Gorey, Feneon proclaimed his eccentricity in his dress. A photo from the 1880s shows him as an exeedingly tall and thin man, with a chin beard like Uncle Sam's. He wears a top hat and a distinctive caped overcoat -- not fur like Gorey's, but a signature costume nonetheless.

Here's a link to the review, unfortunately without the photo: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20732

I overheard him bitching about "Mozartiana" one night. He particularly seemed to dislike the music.

I can't answer for Mozartiana because health issues had more or less put an end to regular attendance for me by the mid 70s, but I do remember that Gorey did sit out more and more ballets as time went on, and eventually stopped coming to every performance. He had very distinct likes and dislikes, not all of them predictable, and sometimes, like the rest of us, he was just in a bad mood. He tended to skip the non-Balanchine stuff, of which there was more than you would think (a recent going over of Nancy Reynolds' Repertory in Review was an eye-opening reminder of just how many second-rate ballets made it into the repertory even then) - if we were in for a Taras, Tanner, etc. work he'd usually sit it out unless there was someone he really liked in the cast.

He wasn't mad about Robbins either, and quickly had enough of Dances at a Gathering, In the Night and the others - he really disliked Robbins' musical sense as I remember. There were certainly Balanchine works he disliked, and it could take him a season or so to decide if he liked a new ballet, but aside from obvious horrors like PAMTGG and Electronics, I don't remember which particular Balanchine ballets he didn't care for. As for Western Symphony and such, it was less dislike than being very tired of them. We all were. It took a spectacular cast to get a number of fans to watch the umpteenth Western, Stars, etc.

And Balanchine tinkered constantly, which could be annoying enough to cause some colorful Ted-bursts. Firebird was one of the worst - Mr. B couldn't leave it alone, although I thought the production with Von Aroldingen decked out in big white wings was pretty hilarious. She looked like a prehistoric flying dinosauer out for prey. Gorey was not amused. He was fussy about casting, but usually watched unless it was someone he truly couldn't stand, like Mimi Paul.

To change the subject - Helene, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you thought Mr. B enjoyed people falling and getting hurt. But I think it was something he was more cautious about than you may believe. Melinda Roy's story on the Balanchine Celebration tape is perhaps the only one I remember in which he praised a dancer for actually falling. If you know others, it would be nice to know the story and the dancer involved. My impression, both at the time, and from what I've read since, is that Balanchine was of two minds. He would change choreography (like SS) that had proved dangerous, or that a dancer had real trouble doing, but that he wanted a full, all-out expenditure of energy and commitment. And while he may not have been effusive he did have ways of letting dancers know that they had done well. If books are a source, then Mazo's Dance Is a Contact Sport is pretty clear both that his dancers loved Balanchine and that they got injured at a terrible rate. It was Robbins who was the company bete-noire, apparently.

Thanks for answering my question, Bart and FF. And thanks, popularlibrary, for your very interesting memories -- I missed your post last night or I wouldn't have asked, but given that your answer further filled in the picture, I'm glad I did!

EG rarely sat out ANY balanchine ballet. he would sit out the odd work by other choreographers.
i think b/c he often slipped out of the first ring, where he liked to perch on one of the side stairs, w/o sometimes waiting for curtain calls to be over, he might seem to have sat out the ballet altogether, but he really didn't sit out that very much.
he stopped coming to every perf. only when he left town, initially b/c his mother wasn't well on cape cod where he would spend his summers but then where he would spend some ballet season time b/c of her needs.
so far as i can recall he had every subsubscription to NYCB seasons and would buy the non-sub. perfs at the box office.
true, he had strong likes & dislikes, who doesn't? and he thought for himself; no one else's high or low opinion of any work or any dancer could alter his own thinking. (he's not the only one i know who wasn't taken w/ mozartiana - a writer friend once proposed doing an article about why she failed to admire the work, but in the end i don't think ever published such a piece.)
i know from real experience that when any of his friends tried to convince him to miss a perf. here or there to say, see a movie, his reply to such a suggestion would invariably be: well, i have this ballet ticket, see... and....
sometimes charles france woud really twist his arm to blow off a perf. but not often.

Thank you, Bart, for those quote s from Feneon.... priceless.


it hardly seems an oversimplification to say that Duchamp brought this ideal to New York, planted it , and it took root. Remy Charlip''s dances work in a vein like this (not to mention his rewrite of Hamlet, "Young Omelettte," which is like walking on eggshells....), and on a grander scale, works like the fabulous "Antic Meet" of of Merce Cunningham. Satie seems to be the patron saint of them all, and HE had -- what was it, 10 suits of pearl-grey velvet, which was the only costume in which he ever appeared in public?

I am pretty sure that the tosses are still in Monumentum pro Gesualdo....

I think the "feather" cartoon refers to Firebird, as the feather is essential to his being rescued from Katschei. Most of the costumes in the cartoons (for example "La Valse" with the glove) seem to be pretty right on....though I am not as familiar with many of these ballets as YOU guys!!!! Sigh.....

I am going to have to learn how to navigate and explore this site much better.... when the new "Lavender Leotard" came out in Ballet Review, I posted a quick note in a Forum (don't recall which one) to alert people about this little treasure. Not only did no one reply, but until today, I never found THIS fun thread!!

Welcome to the club, ViolinConcerto. Glad you found the thread. Any other cartoons you particularly liked or images that rang a bell with you?

Think Theseus, Ariadne, Minotaur, maze. Isn't there a ballet about that?

Martha Graham made a work called ERRAND INTO THE MAZE - 'inspired' by theseus and the minotaur, etc. except in this case the lead is a female dancer, seeking...

No Theseus ballets that I (just me) know of, but there is a pretty good re-telling of the search in the maze in Fellini Satyricon, accompanied by the Balinese Kejak (aka the "monkey chant").

I loved the Agon one ("I can't imagine now why this ever seemed so difficult"), and loved learning that "There are photographs of George and Lincoln in the brooches on their bodices" in "Nuts." I also imagine that "I made it myself out of a hundred and thirty-two keychains" refers to the beaded curtains. The Firebird/Swan Lake one made me nostalgic for the days of the old "snake" schedule, now gone, and for ballets that were programmed about six to eight times a season instead of three to five...... (And for performances where both are programmed, which I call "The battle of the birds.")

I have always imagined that "I made it myself out of a hundred and thirty-two keychains" refers to Allegra Kent's readiness to do creative recycling -- to make a purse out of old tights, or -- she made something, like a chain-mail bodice (but not that -- I just can't remember what) out of a couple hundred safety pins....

She mentions this in her autobiography.

And Gorey LOVED Allegra.
PS She loved HIM-- if I remember right, when Gorey died, she wrote a long sweet memoir of him for Dance Magazine that made their relationship seem ... well, words fail me. With a sound track by Satie.

I was racking my brain to try to remember in whose autobiography I read this, and Paul, you hit it on the head

EG would sometimes refer to kent in his happy mentions of her as 'Leggy-poo' - wordplay combining, i assume, a version of 'allegra' and a gilbert&sullivan-ish ending.
his drawing of a frog partnering a pretty ballerina from a body of water was used by kent for her water-beauty book's party invite - it was reproduced initially in a boxed set of 'loose leaves' called F.M.R.A. and perhaps elsewhere since.
(EG was very fond of gilbert&sullivan; he designed at least one Mikado i know of and perhaps other works by G&S.)