Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century, Homans - B+

                     Georgi Balanchivadze was born in St. Petersburg in January, 1904. His father, Meliton, was Georgian; his mother, Maria, Russian. When Georgi was 9, he was accepted in the Imperial Theater School and left home to live in the school's barracks. It was an excellent school where he learned French and how to play the piano, and most importantly, danced ballet daily. The children frequently appeared in ballets at the Mariinsky Theater, often before the Czar. By 1916, the hardships of the war impacted the school, and soon the streets were awash in the blood of the Revolution. Georgi once saw people cut up and eat a horse that had dropped dead on the street. As civic society collapsed, his parents and siblings moved to Georgia. George and a young dancer, Tamara Geva, were married in 1922. Both young dancers performed wherever and whenever they could. He and some friends founded the Young Ballet and his 'Funeral March' premiered at their first performance. A second ballet drew criticism from the Mariinsky board in the spring of 1924. George and his friends decided it might be a good time to see if their performances would appeal to European audiences. They left Petrograd. "The destruction and death that engulfed his city and his life came with, and even in part caused, an artistic vitality that was central to everything he went on to do. The revolution had ruined his childhood and provided, in no small measure, the source of his genius."

                    After a brief stop in Berlin, the troupe moved to Paris at Diaghilev's request. With Nijinsky and Fokine as choreographers and Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov as composers, Diaghilev established Ballets Russes as a world class ballet company. He hired George as a dancer and choreographer, and obtained a Nansen passport in the name of Balanchine for him. George worked closely with Stravinsky, who became a mentor and father figure to him. He created ballets, staged operas, and generally ran the company for Diaghilev. After Diaghilev died in 1929, George worked in Copenhagen, London and Paris creating ballets and trying to create or find a business model that could survive. Lincoln Kirstein, American dance patron and impresario, convinced him to move to America.

                     Kirstein  wanted to create a permanent ballet company in America and was convinced that George was the person to help accomplish his goal. Balanchine landed in New York in October, 1933. Kirstein incorporated the School of American Ballet, found space to occupy, fed and housed Balanchine, and made superhuman efforts to insure the legality of George's visa to America. Later that year, the school opened in the Tuxedo Building at 59th and Madison. Many of the students were the children of Russian and European refugees. George, long divorced from Tamara and fearful of dying of tuberculosis, continued his life long pursuit of women, and bedded his dancers. His first ballet in America was 'Serenade.' A brief appointment to the Metropolitan Opera failed. He turned to Hollywood and Broadway. He was fabulously successful, and began making money by choreographing a dozen Broadway shows and five Hollywood films over the decade of  1936-45. He was a full fledged member of the artistic European avant garde taking America by storm. While in Hollywood, he married Vera Zorina in 1938, and choreographed dance scenes for her in a number of films. The marriage was brief, and ended in 1940, although it wouldn't be until 1945 that they divorced. "He loved her as a woman, but not as a dancer. She loved him for his dances, but not as man." 

                    George tried to enlist in the US Army, but was too old. His war consisted of extensive charitable activities intertwined with his Hollywood doings, and culminated in his fourth marriage. Kirstein enlisted and entered Europe as part of the Monuments Men search for stolen European art. He came home bound and determined to create a ballet company. "Ballet with its devotion to making beautiful bodies, was a living artistic link to a devastated European past." NYC under Fiorello LaGuardia was desirous of creating a cultural infrastructure to rival the great cities of Europe. When a member of the mayor's team saw Balanchine's 'Symphony In C' and 'Orpheus', he offered George and Kirstein financial support to expand their Ballet Society into the New York City Ballet. The first performances were at City Center in October, 1948. He built the company from the ground up with people he wanted in all of the administrative positions, where loyalty to him and the company was a prerequisite. He trained his dancers rigorously, was in total command, and forever dominant. For many in the company, it felt like a religion.  A very important addition to the company came when Jerome Robbins joined the NYCB. "Robbins was the only living choreographer that Balanchine truly admired..." Balanchine introduced 'The Nutcracker' in 1954 and then began work with Stravinsky in creating one of his greatest works, 'Agon.' It was enthusiastically  received, and declared to be a masterpiece.

                Cold War competitiveness led NY to build Lincoln Center and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and pushed George to do something he did not wish to do. He took the NYCB to the USSR. The lengthy tour of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, and Baku was a resounding success, but a tremendous emotional drain on a man who had such vivid recollections of the revolution and a visceral distaste for communism. At home, the new home of the Ballet was opened in 1964, giving Balanchine the theater he always wanted. A significant grant from the Ford Foundation put the company on an improved financial footing and allowed George to draw a salary for the first time. 

                Balanchine loved women and often created wondrous works with a specific woman in mind. He bedded many, many of his dancers and fell in and out of love like a teenager. Into his life in the early 60's came one of the great loves of his life, Suzanne Farrell. Born Roberta Ficker near Cincinnati in 1945, she was four decades younger than Balanchine. "Suzanne was no mere infatuation, she was a grand obsession, an all-consuming love that fell upon him with a force and urgency that astounded everyone around him." He cast her was Dulcinea, himself as Don Quixote in the work he had been imagining and planning for decades. "After the premier of 'Don Quixote', he and Farrell set out on a path that would leave his kingdom, and his life, in ruins." He was totally focused on her to the exclusion of the rest of the company. Her refusal to sleep with him just made him try harder. He created ballet after ballet for her driving some of the dancers to quit. When he realized that Suzanne and dancer Paul Mejia were a couple, he began to dismantle Paul's role at NYCB. They married in 1969, and Balanchine fell apart. When he took Suzanne out of a scheduled performance, she and Paul walked away. Balanchine aged a decade overnight and let Jerome Robbins take the lead at the company.

                       The death a few years later of his friend and mentor, Igor Stravinsky, sent him back to work as he planned a major Stravinsky Festival for the NYCB. He spent the months before the June, 1972 week of performances back in command totally dominating the corps as it prepared. It was an astounding success - Balanchine was back on top. As he approached 70, he had accomplished all that he had dreamed of for his ballet company. Suzanne Farrell asked to return and he agreed. A few years later, he suffered a heart attack. A year later, he had triple bypass surgery. He recovered, but unknown to his doctors, he had contracted mad cow disease. His last years were filled with work and aches and pains.  He spent four delirious months in Roosevelt Hospital before the end came on April 30, 1983.

                     I love ballet, and I especially appreciate the NYCB. I am enthralled every time I see a performance. The combination of majestic music, the beauty of the dancers, and the movements are spellbinding. At the same time, I confess I know nothing about music, dance or any of the other abstractions discussed in this book. I suspect I have missed a great deal. I believe that someone who understands it all might appreciate this very long, 752 page biography more than I have. It should be noted that the author is a dancer and I suspect only a dancer could write this. Enjoy.