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Ballet Alert! Quiz #31
March 29, 1999
Antony Tudor Quiz

1. What was Antony Tudor's real name?

William Cook

2. What was his first ballet?

Cross-Garter'd

3. Tudor danced on Ballet Theatre's famous opening program in 1940 in a ballet by Eugene Loring. What was the role?

The Dummy in Loring's "The Great American Goof."

4. For a time during the 1960s, Tudor was director of what ballet company?

Royal Swedish Ballet

5. What ballet did Tudor create for The Royal Ballet in 1967 and who was its star?

Shadowplay for Anthony Dowell (also Meryl Park and Derek Rencher)

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Ballet Alert! Quiz 30
March 22, 1999
Romeo and Juliet Quiz

1. The Ballets Russes presented an avant-garde version of Romeo and Juliet with a score by Constant Lambert in 1926. Name the choreographer and the stars.

Bronislava Nijinska; Karsavina and Lifar.

2. Who choreographed a (very long) one-act version for American Ballet Theatre to the music of Delius?

Antony Tudor

3. Who choreographed the very first version of the now famous Prokofiev score, and for what company?

Vana Psota, Brno State Theater for Opera and Ballet, 1938

4. Who choreographed the first version of the Prokofiev score in the West, and for what company?

Frederick Ashton's for the Royal Danish Ballet, 1955.

That's the answer we'd expected. It really wasn't intended to be a trick one. Honest. Problems arose over the defintion of "the West," as there was an earlier version in Zagreb. To an American, anyway, Zagreb isn't "the West." We humbly offer in our defense that the way we phrased the question was the way the Ashton version is usually described in articles about R&Js.

5. Who was the Bolshoi Ballet's Juliet that defined the role for at least one generation of balletgoers (East and West), especially famous for her beautiful "run with the cloak"?

Galina Ulanova.

And now, for the Really Obscure Extra Credit Question:

Who choreographed a version of Romeo and Juliet to the Tchaikovsky suite of that name for Suzanne Farrell?

Paul Meija. We hadn't thought to check Farrell's autobiography, but had remembered this version from a gala in New York in the winter of 1979-1980. As we remembered it, the program did not mention Guatemala.

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Ballet Alert Quiz #29
March 15, 1999
Nureyev Birthday Quiz

1. Who was Nureyev's principal teacher in Leningrad?

Alexander Pushkin

2. Nureyev danced this showpiece pas de deux at the Moscow Ballet competition 1958. He later introduced the duet to the West and it became one of his signature roles.

Le Corsaire

3. Name two roles created for Nureyev by Sir Frederick Ashton.

There were three, actually. Any two will do. Poem d'extase (a solo), Armand in Marguerite and Armand, and Friday's Child in Jazz Calendar.

4. Nureyev had one ballet created for him by Balanchine. What was it?

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

5. What full-length ballet from the Russian repertory was Nureyev's first staging in the West, and for what company did he stage it?

Raymonda for the Royal Ballet Touring Company. (The Swan Lake in Vienna came later)

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Ballet Alert Quiz #28
March 8, 1999
Diaghilev's Designers

When the Ballets Russes first pounced on Western Europe, the splendid, imaginative designs of Russian artists were a large part of its appeal. Diaghilev soon turned to European artists (painters, musicians, designers), and one of the most famous "byproducts" of the Diaghilev era is that so many of the young artists who worked with him became internationally renowned outside of ballet. How many of these artists do you know? (And please take just a second to think of what those studios were like when all of these people were in the same room! Not to mention the parties.)

1. Who was the designer for La Tricorne (The Three-cornered Hat)?

Pablo Picasso

2. Who was the designer for The Song of the Nightengale (1920)?

Henri Matisse

3. Who designed the costumes for Le Train Bleu?

Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel

4. Who was the designer for Romeo et Juliette (1926)?

Max Ernst and Joan Miro

5. Who designed Vaslav Nijinsky's "American" ballet, Till Eulenspiegel (1916)?

Robert Edmond Jones

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Ballet Alert Quiz #27
March 1, 1999
Diaghilev Characters

The following is a list of characters from Diaghilev-era ballets (all are from the more notable works in the repertory). Name the ballet and its choreographer to which each character belongs.

1. The Siren

The Prodigal Son (Balanchine)

2. The Charlatan (a/k/a The Old Magician)

Petrouchka (Fokine)

3. The Little American Girl

Parade (Massine)

4. The Chief Eunuch

Scheherezade (Fokine)

5. La Garconne

Les Biches (Nijinska)

Judy's casting:

(In order): Nina Ananiashvili, Victor Barbee, Gillian Murphy, Sir Anthony Dowell, and Susan Jaffe. Great gala night, Judy! Thanks.