The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1943-05-26
BALLET LEAPS AT
DRUMS OF WAR
BY JOHN SELBY
ASS0ciated Press Arts Editor

NEW YORK, May 24.-By the
end of this month the Ballet
Theater will have played to
more than 10000 people in the
.still-glamorous interior of the
Metropolitan Opera House. Sol
Hurok, who is chiefly response
BILE for this, says that packing
them in since April in such
quantities is worlds record
for ballet. He says, too, it's not
remarkable.
Mr.. Hurok is short, bald
man with peculiarly intent eyes.
He slumps forward at his desk
when talking to you and his
words betray his Russian origin
he occasionally, event yet, tan
giles his English just bit.
I'm the early 'twenties," he
says, "they told me that the
country was Russian-crazy. They
said anything Russian would go
over, and I said they were
wrong. Because Chaliapin, Pay
iowa, the Moscow Art Theater
and some other things were fab
ulously popular meant nothing.
Those things were the best things
first; they were Russian Sec
ondarily.
$50 with ballet. Just any bal
let won't pack them in. 1t needs
constant renewal believe ballet
is entertainment, and I've added
to the classic core people like Ar
gentinita from Spain, Zorina from
Hollywood, Igor Stravinsky as
conductor. So on"
Mr.. Hurok says the audience
for ballet has changed. He be-
heves that the people who say bal
let when he took up Anna Pavlowa
in 1917, and for years afterward,
were largely the people with mon
ey, people used to spending and
careless who knew it. The others
went upstairs or not at all.
But now, he thinks, these people
are the insure ones. Some of them
are deeply involved in war activ-
tiles, but many more either are
not spending freely, or prefer to
spend a bit more inconspicuously,
with fewer gold gowns, and orchid
necklesses.
Meanwhile war prosperity has
put money in the hands of thou
sands who had little in depression
years. These cannot build houses
or buy motor cars or travel ex-
tensively. They spend, therefore,
a certain part on entertainment,
and this, Mr.. Hurok thinks, is
good thing for his Ballet Thea
tire and for the people as well.
Quality and Glamor" are the
reasons the public likes ballet, ac-
cording to Mr.. Hurok. And he's
frank enough to believe that the
traditions which hang like Spanish
moss all over the Metropolitan
opera are a help. He thinks it's
the perfect place for ballet, and
his bank account backs him up.
Columbia seems to be set on re-
issuing all the Beethoven string
quartets, which is everybody's
good luck considering the fact that
they are being played by the Buda-
pest Quartet, probably the best in
the world today. The new issue is
No. IL in E flat one of the later
quartets and one of those tradi-
tionally thought of as difficult. ;"
Actually No. IL is as radiant and
almost as direct in its appeal as
most of the earlier ones, and the
Budapest performance is superb.
The quartet is a new recording.
The same firm is reviving the ia
nous set of records Joseph SZigeti
made of Prokofieff's D major vio-
lin concerto with Sir Thomas
Beecham and the London Philhar-
monte. The concerto still seems
needlessly barbarous as music, but
the performance is something to
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