I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [139]
Taras finally reached Balanchine and convinced him to at least come see the understudy in rehearsal. He did and was enthralled. Within minutes, he was up and rehearsing Suzanne, lifting her leg, molding her gestures, demonstrating to me how I should hold her, using every legitimate excuse to touch her.
With Suzanne Farrell in an upside-down lift: Karin von Aroldingen, front right, in a floor split, 1963 (image credit 13.5)
“God took away Diana, but sent me Suzanne!” Balanchine gushed. Suzanne was superb in the premiere. We also performed it for a TV premiere at the new Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center.
The baby came, and Diana and Ronnie named her Georgina. Balanchine, close to sixty years old, finally gave up the idea of having Diana dance for him. She was relieved. He ensconced her as director at the school. Balanchine’s unwavering devotion shifted to the nubile Suzanne. She became an extension of Diana, who had been never less than perfect, but always detached and cold. As a relay player passes the baton to the next player, Diana passed Balanchine to Suzanne.
Suzanne was the more interesting dancer. She would throw herself off-balance—her entire body expressing the energy of the movement. Every fiber imbued movement with passion and energy. Standing in the wings or onstage with her, you could see her facial features tense with ferocious concentration, but that look didn’t cross the footlights. What did project was the drama—by her body, her every movement, her elegance, her love of gesture, the plié and arabesque, the off-balance dancing, her musical instincts, and her powerful, feminine form. She was a demon of dance. Diana didn’t really like to dance, whereas Suzanne didn’t like to do anything but dance. Balanchine dubbed them both “my alabaster princesses.”
Mr. B got his new muse. The ultimate in unattainability, she quietly received everything. He gave her more and more, and she accepted it as if it were her due. I never heard her thank him; she gave him her dancing as his reward. Like Odysseus captivated by the sirens, he seemed helpless to resist her. If she came to class wearing an ace bandage on her knee, he would cut the grand pliés at the beginning of class. “You know, maybe we start today with tendu battements. If you want pliés, you can do yourself, later.” When Suzanne took the bandage off, “You know, today, maybe we start with grand pliés.”
In a ballet I was choreographing, I ended the adagio with Suzanne lifted over my head. Then, tossing her, I would catch her spinning body, seconds before she touched the ground. Balanchine was horrified. “You must change ending. Too dangerous! Suzanne is too precious. She could be hurt! If you don’t want to change step, use someone else! Patricia McBride!”
He offered Suzanne an ultimate gift, the power to choose which ballets would be on the program and who would dance them. The company grumbled, but Melissa was most direct in complaining: “She decides who’s going to dance what, and gives herself all the juicy roles. The rest of us get her leavings.” In company class, standing with her hands on her hips, Milly announced, “I have to wait until she’s injured to get to dance!” In personal relations with Balanchine, Suzanne was the perfect hot and cold faucet—warm, caring, and attentive; then cold, distant, and rejecting, juggling him masterfully between the two. She never gave him her body, except in dance, and what a body—as a dancer, as a muse, fabulous. He got exactly what he deserved (and probably what he truly wanted)—not a wife or a sexual partner, but a muse to worship through his artistic creations.
Balanchine had a romantic, chivalrous streak—Galahad purified by the suffering he undergoes in striving to win his Holy Grail. Onstage, this romanticism translated to elegant and gorgeous ballets. In life, it made him a “stage door Johnny,” waiting outside Suzanne’s dressing room. Would she have dinner with him? Could he walk her home? He would sit outside, waiting for her answer, while she took off her makeup,