Word: hurok
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This season Manhattan has seen more spins, leaps, foot-twiddles than it ever had before: 14 weeks of Russian ballet. Last week the Russians (two troupes managed by Impresario Sol Hurok) were on tour. In a smallish theatre a plushy audience (which included Mr. Hurok) beheld a ballet company which seemed as corny as they come. The coryphees were wildly out of step with one another and with the music. The men wore tights, jackets and bow ties which looked like three-a-day vaudeville. The prima ballerinas, apparently a haughty Italian, a frizzy-headed Frenchwoman, an intense Russian, wobbled...
...have I seen such fire and rhythm!" Platinum-haloed Maestro Leopold Stokowski, who knows fire and rhythm, got Dancer Carmen Amaya to give a special performance for him and his All American Youth Orchestra, willingly paid a fine for keeping the theatre open after midnight. Glossy-domed Impresario Sol Hurok, who knows a good thing even when he doesn't see it, signed up Carmen Amaya by cable for a U.S. visit...
Thus built up, Dancer Amaya arrived in Manhattan last month. Instead of launching her in a concert hall, Impresario Hurok turned her over to a Broadway restaurant, the Beachcomber (home of the multi-rummy Zombie), for $1,000 a week and a cut of the gross. Carmen Amaya makes about $2,000 a week, keeps the Beachcomber roaring with the oles of Manhattan's Latins. For she is a flamenco (gypsy), and the best in her line since Spain's late great La Argentina...
Such was Balustrade, a ballet presented last week in Manhattan by Sol Hurok. It was the windup of the longest season of Russian ballet-14 weeks-the city had ever seen. Balustrade, like the ballets of the old days in Paris, was a pudding of the several arts. The music was by Igor Stravinsky, and conducted by him. It was his Violin Concerto, played by Samuel Dush-kin, who helped "edit" it ten years ago and is about the only fiddler who ever saws it through. The choreography was by George Balanchine (born Balanchivadze in Russian Georgia), who never tires...
...breath-taking qualities, the Ballet Russe has its shortcomings-shortcomings the more grave because much U.S. money has gone into the ballet, notably from such backers as Edsel Ford and Yeast Scion Julius Fleischmann. Whereas Diaghilev was imaginative, ahead of his time, and not above shocking his audiences. Mr. Hurok's two troupes make little effort at even keeping up to date. Massine's ballet, St. Francis, whose music by Paul Hindemith is among the best in the modern theatre, has slipped from the repertory; Sol Hurok does not like it. Among the new ballets now presented...