Relates Lincoln Kirstein's efforts in 1933 to begin a ballet school and performing company for George Balanchine in Hartford, Conn., told partly through correspondence between Kirstein and the director of Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, A. Everett Austin, Jr. Includes discussion of Tamara Toumanova, Roman Jasinsky, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Balanchine's ballet review Les Ballets 1933, the ways Mr. Austin went about raising money for this adventure, Vladimir Dimitriew, Edward Warburg, the political problems that their plans to establish a ballet school in Hartford encountered, Balanchine and Dimitriew's rejection of Hartford as a home for the school and company, the appearance of the New York based company called The American Ballet at Wadsworth Atheneum's Avery Memorial Theatre, Dec. 6-8, 1934, and the opening night attendees from the social and artistic worlds. Also includes correspondence between Austin and composer Virgil Thomson concerning his opera Four saints in three acts.
Author
Gaddis, Eugene R.
Title
The Hartford catastrophe.
Found in:
Ballet review. New York. v. 28, no. 2 (summer 2000), p. 54-74. ill.