New York City Ballet’s 1962 tour of the U.S.S.R. was lauded as a political victory, but artistic director George Balanchine was unmoved. “He could no longer hold a nostalgic reflection of himself and an imagined tsarist past,” Jennifer Homans writes.
Seeing the cavernous stage, Balanchine immediately pulled the planned dancers for “Serenade,” who could barely be seen in the vast auditorium, and replaced them with taller ones. This time, and for most of the rest of the run, the Soviet people stood and cheered for the company, urging on their favorite artists by chanting their names and, at the end, calling for Balanchine to take a bow—“Ba-lan-chine! Ba-lan-chine! Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo!”—until he appeared from the wings and bowed modestly.
His temper flared. One night, after a bravura technical performance by Edward Villella in “Donizetti Variations,” the cheering audience called Villella back for bow after bow, until he finally performed an impromptu encore. Balanchine was beside himself with rage and stood in the wings fuming. Such a deviation from the score was everything he had fought against, and he was as angry as the company had ever seen him. As he later put it, “This is not circus.
On October 27th, “Black Saturday,” an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Cuba and the pilot killed. Information was not widely available, and secret negotiations were under way, but the surprise downing of the plane further frayed nerves in Washington, Moscow, and Havana. By then, the United States was already at2, one level below war; U.S.
When tomorrow came, Armageddon had been averted. Kennedy and Khrushchev had reached an agreement, and late that afternoon the news was broadcast in Russia and around the world. As it happened, that night was N.Y.C.B.’s last performance in Moscow, and after the cheering and chanting at the end of the show Balanchine took the stage again. This time, he graciously invited the audience to follow the company to its next destination, which would be Petrograd, he said, deliberately using a name for St.
The more he was fêted, applauded, and celebrated, the more depressed, self-controlled, and in charge he became. When he learned that students and artists couldn’t get tickets for the company’s performances, he arranged a free performance of his most radical works at the Palace of Culture: “Apollo,” “Agon,” and “Episodes.” He met with Soviet choreographers to discuss the principles of his art, and when the youngest among them asked for more he met them again informally at the theatre.
He rejoined the company in Kyiv just in time to board the plane for Tbilisi, where, again, Andrei was waiting, this time with family in tow. It was a looking-glass moment, the life he might have had. Suddenly, he was little Georgi, and he met the relatives he did not know: Andrei’s glamorous wife, their darkly handsome sons , and their daughter, a dancer. There was also Apollon Balanchivadze, George’s half-brother from his father’s first marriage, whom he had known briefly as a child.
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