Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas

Abstract

Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas was a delight to ballet-goers. It possessed that most precious of attributes, theatrical glamour. Its performances seemed always to have a frisson of excitement to them. It was rich in star dancers, artists who thrilled by their bravura as by their emotional command over their roles, and their audience, which made even the most dubious creations seem oddly exhilarating. The company boasted a varied and often stimulating repertory: Fokine, Balanchine, Massine, Lichine, Nijinska, Taras, Dollar, Ana Ricarda, Antonia Gobos, Edward Gaton, Eglevsky, Rosella Hightower, and George Skibine were among its choreographers. Looking at the de Guevas troupe, and I was blessed in being able to see the extent of its performances from 1947 until its last gasp in 1962, was always exhilarating: you breathed a theatrical ozone more heady, more intoxicating, than the quieter airs inhaled during the usual run of dutiful performance on home ground, or even with such visiting luminaries as New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. When the Russians arrived the Moscow Bolshoi in 1956, the Leningrad Kirov in 1961 there came the same (though very different) sense of watching more intensely, experiencing more vividly. There comparison had better end, for some small number of the de Cuevas offerings were ill-advised, more vehicular for stars than serious as art objects. But the sense of enjoyment, the vivid records in studying such superlative artists as Nina Vyroubova, Rosella Hightower, George Skibine, Serge Golovine; of catching the late and still dazzling glow of Riabouchinska, Toumanova, David Lichine, Andre Eglevsky, and Leonid Massine in serious revivals of Ballets Russes repertory, were inducement enough to return time and again to the de Guevas company. It made ballet-going even more addictive, more intoxicating, than it already was. Can this, I wonder, be said of any troupe today even including the Moscow and Petersburg ensembles?