• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1399 0

or went back to the stage to practice a step she hadn’t been pleased with in performance. On one hand, there was something sweet and boyish about it. On the other, here was the greatest choreographer in the world sitting on a bench, waiting to see if Suzanne would allow him to spend time with her. It’s easy to judge the weaknesses of others while minimizing our own. I could see myself sitting on a bench waiting for someone I loved and forgetting about dignity and the rest of the world (witness my stalking of Carrie). But he was Balanchine, a giant with judgment skewed, jeopardizing the architecture of the entire company. Carrie commented, “Who would have ever believed that we could lose respect for Balanchine? But we did.” And yet, I thought, how beautiful! He threw away what anyone would think and allowed himself to be entranced. It’s mythic: the King, in the suppertime of his life, by a nymph enchanted, who happened to be a goddess of Dance.

DON QUIXOTE

In May 1965, Lincoln told me that I was to play Don Quixote to Suzanne’s Dulcinea in Balanchine’s new full-length ballet of the same name. Once again, I was to be the surrogate. But it didn’t happen; Balanchine decided, for the opening gala and as often as possible, to dance the role himself. The ballet world was agog. It would be a public expression of his devotion for Suzanne. Richard Rapp, a stalwart member of the company, would understudy and be ready to cover for him if needed.6

Balanchine envisioned Don Q striving for the sublime, his soul enriched by the quest, while society ignores, ridicules, or discounts the nobility of the pursuit. His dedication had a religious flavor. In the book of heaven, Balanchine believed the Don Qs of the world are closest to God. “I throw my pearls before swine.” The misunderstood hero, the artist, was the pearl, unrecognized, alone, and on a different plane of existence, fighting windmills. Don Q would bring this theme together with another—his idealization and pursuit of Dulcinea, man in service to woman.

A man haunted by a beautiful woman, Suzanne Farrell, 1964 (image credit 13.6)

Waiting at a bus stand on Sixty-third Street and Broadway, Balanchine told me, “I have gift for you—something special: Meditation.” He explained, “You are man, ordinary man, Jedermann [Everyman], you see? Walking alone through life, dreaming of her. Haunted—she comes to you, you hold her, strive to keep, but are doomed to lose—she disappears, so you walk on, but because of her, you are different! No more ordinary, made better.” Balanchine’s description of the man in meditation also describes the transforming power of art and is at the heart of what classical ballet is. To participate as a performer or as an audience member makes one better.

Among his hundreds of ballets, there were crowd pleasers featuring superb choreography because he was a consummate master of the craft, and then there were those ballets that touched/explored/illuminated themes precious to him—Apollo, Concerto Barocco, Serenade, Meditation, Violin Concerto, Movements for Piano and Orchestra, and Diamonds are just a few. It irritated him when an audience didn’t know the difference.

Don Quixote was not a success. I thought it great, and my dear friends and balletomanes Drs. Boris and Louise Krynsky felt he had captured Cervantes with a work of genius. “Don Quixote suffered delusions, but without people who have these kinds of delusions, we have no humanity,” Louise said. A profound ballet. Balanchine gave it to Suzanne.

Christopher d’Amboise in a striped shirt, white socks, and a scared look, 1964 (image credit 13.7)

In 1964, when I was thirty years old, I started an experimental ballet class for boys on Saturday mornings. My son George was eight years old, and Christopher, close to five, and I wanted them to experience the art and discipline of ballet without having to be the only boys in a class filled with girls. I invited George’s classmates at the Collegiate School to give up their Saturday mornings and have ballet class with me. Balanchine was intrigued and delighted