Word: lucia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...celebration across Lincoln Center, at the Metropolitan Opera House, where the American Ballet Theater put on a 40th anniversary gala evening. A.B.T. does this sort of thing every five years or so for fun and fund raising, but this gathering had special meaning: it marked the 35th year that Lucia Chase and Oliver Smith have directed the troupe; in September Mikhail Baryshnikov will replace them...
Chase has long been the dominant force behind the big, ambitious and at times unwieldy company with its temperamental stars and eclectic repertory. Choreographer Agnes de Mille remarked that "Lucia is nine-tenths granite," probably an accurate assessment, but a side of Chase that the public did not see. Formerly a ballerina, she became a self-effacing impressario who stayed out of the spotlight, gave insipid interviews when talking at all, and quietly went on ordering up the baling wire to keep A.B.T. going...