I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [119]
A couple of days later, Shaun, Deni Lamont, and a crowd of us went to a production of the full-length Le Corsaire at the Stanislavsky Theater. At that time, no full-length production of Le Corsaire (that I know of) had been seen in the West. The ballet was a campy melodrama, like watching Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling. Sitting in the “Royal Box” were Khrushchev, his wife, and the president of Finland. Standing off Khrushchev’s left shoulder was a bull of a man, a bodyguard dressed in black leather, with his two hands folded over his groin. During the performance, I’d occasionally crane my neck back to look up at the box, and I’d swear that bodyguard’s gaze fixed directly on me.
The next day, when I finally got past Comrade Prick at the Kremlin gate, I dashed to class, and standing outside the ballet studio was Khrushchev’s bodyguard, sizing up each dancer. Later, at rehearsal, he was in the theater watching from the audience. Perhaps it was paranoid on my part, but I was convinced he had singled me out the previous night, and had come by this morning to verify I really was a dancer.
Two months earlier, I’d been lying in a hospital cot in Hamburg, not knowing if I’d ever dance again. On October 19, I stepped onto a stage in Moscow to perform the pas de deux in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Melissa Hayden. Oh God, to dance again, what a joy!
The next day, Jonathan Watts, a principal dancer and elegant cavalier who covered many of my roles, got injured dancing Raymonda at the matinee, so that ballet was replaced with Scotch Symphony for the evening program. I had a half hour’s notice, and was off like a bird. My ballerina, Allegra Kent, danced beautifully, but was worried for me. My torso was weak, I couldn’t lift well, and I got winded quickly, but I got through—decently.
Soon after, I danced the ballet Episodes with Diana, who had recovered from another of her injuries. Episodes was set to Anton von Webern’s music—serial, twelve-tone, and perhaps never played before in Russia, certainly never for a ballet. Diana confessed to me her fears, “They’re gonna hate this ballet, and its music. We’re gonna lay an egg.” It turned out the reverse—not only were the musicians thrilled with the score, but along with Bizet’s Symphony in C, it may have been the NYCB company’s biggest success.
Twenty days from my first barre back in Vienna, I was relieved and thrilled to be performing again, but I wouldn’t consider myself truly “back” till I was able to conquer Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Raymonda, and, especially, Apollo.
There was a group of interpreters assigned to us by the Soviet agency Intourist (the government’s official tourist bureau)—Julia, Valentine, Felix, and Leda, an attractive girl who never said a word and seemed to be a gofer for everyone else. “Anything you want or need, tell us. Anywhere you want to go, tell us. We are here for you,” was announced to all of us. Mousey little Julia rarely spoke up, and Felix hid in a corner, so Shaun immediately decided Valentine would be the one to cultivate. The U.S. State Department watched over us as well, and assigned their agent to look after us. As he was diminutive in size, we dubbed him Tommy Tuck. Our mail came, via diplomatic pouch, to the American Embassy, and Tuck relished the mail call. He would hand out letters and report the contents publicly. “Oh, Jacques, you have a letter. Christopher’s over his cold!” The little rat was making sure we got the message: our State Department was opening and reading our correspondence. We wanted to slap him.
Our outgoing mail was also sent via the embassy’s diplomatic pouches, and forget about sending packages. If you wanted to send home a gift, you had to persuade someone