I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [142]
Eventually I danced the role. I tried to emulate the vision of Balanchine in the role of Don Quixote. I don’t think I was very good.
Don Quixote was some three hours long, and my boys’ class of miniature knights performing in the prologue were cast as altar boys in the finale. During the long wait, they were relegated to a holding area in the lower concourse of the New York State Theater. Francis and Paul Sackett, brothers in the company, appeared only in a few scenes,8 so they were assigned to chaperone and keep the boys out of trouble. “We played games, wild! It was bedlam down there in the dressing room! Till we got everyone into their costumes and up to the stage for our final processional.” With flames in the background from the burning of books by the Inquisition, the entire cast, in lines, sway past the Don as he lies dying in his bed. Scenes from his life pass before his fevered vision—galley slaves and royalty; bishops, priests, monks, and acolytes; mothers with young children; cripples and beggars; even a herd of pigs—a procession of a life represented by the entire cast moving in a diagonal from upstage right to downstage left.
On my knees with Farrell in Don Q, 1965 (image credit 13.10)
At one point during the procession, everything stops, and the Don, transfixed by a vision of Dulcinea, floats into the air, reaching for his vision. Abruptly jarred into reality, he plummets back to his mattress and dies, mourned only by Dulcinea and a few handmaidens. (The bed had a crudely engineered lift, and the ascent and descent were seldom smooth.) The processional was a ponderous march, a dirge from the composer, Nicholas Nabokov, one melody repeated over and over again, with various instruments embellishing layer on layer. At home, my son George, gleeful, confessed that Alex Foster, his ten-year-old classmate, who was built like a tiny truck, with a broad head, broad shoulders, and no neck, had invented a song for the altar boys to chant sotto voce during the procession. As they swayed in cadence, the chant spread, a virus first taken up by the Sacketts, then as a pandemic throughout the corps.
Oh Santa Claus
Come kiss me
On my little
Tushie, tushie, tushie, tushieeeee …
Oh Santa Claus …
Tanny recognized that Balanchine needed to be free to pursue Suzanne, and they divorced. On tour, I would often accompany Suzanne and Balanchine to lunches and dinners—we formed a troika—but back in New York, preoccupied with my family, I rarely had time. Suzanne had taken an interest in a young and talented dancer in the company, Paul Mejia. She brought Paul into the troika, new blood, and you’d often see the three of them together. Then, while Balanchine was away in Europe staging a ballet, Suzanne married Paul.
What a shock to Balanchine! Eventually, he did accept the marriage, but tried to ignore Paul’s presence in the company. Suzanne expected to wield the same power as before, selecting the programs and casting. She felt so assured of Balanchine’s worship that she pushed further and further, testing to see how far he would bend.
On May 8, 1969, there was to be a gala night. Apparently, all day long, Suzanne and Balanchine had been negotiating, with Eddie Bigelow in the role of a tennis ball, carrying messages from one side to the other. Earlier, Eddie Villella had been cast in the third movement of Symphony in C, but opted out. Balanchine replaced him with Deni Lamont instead of Paul Mejia. Both had danced the role. Suzanne demanded that her husband perform at the gala. Balanchine circumvented the problem by replacing Symphony in C with Night Shadow, a ballet starring Suzanne. Suzanne demanded that Symphony in C be restored, or she would refuse to dance at all. They were like two children arguing in a playground. Balanchine wanted to see her dance, so he parried. Symphony in C was back, but without the third movement. Bigelow delivered Suzanne’s response: “Unless the third movement is in, with Paul dancing, I’m not dancing.”
I wasn’t on the program, had a free night, and