Fun at the Ballet

Ballet is often at its best when it is (intentionally) funny. At Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, where the loudest laughter is usually confined to Sherry's Bar, the visiting Ballet Theater last week provoked some grandiose yacks.

Biggest laugh-getter was Judgment of Paris* by British Choreographer Anthony Tudor, which turned Greek mythology's trio of goddesses into three aging Parisian filles of dubious joie, vying for the favor of a sleepy potential customer (Tudor). Famed Choreographer Agnes de Mille, who danced the part first in 1938, turned up as Venus in droopy net stockings, ruffled corselet and a blonde wig suggesting Gorgeous George playing Lady Godiva. As Juno, Ballerina Viola Essen conveyed the bored allure of a Minsky stripper at the first morning show. And as Minerva, Ballet Theater Angel Lucia Chase achieved the air of a brave but discouraged workhorse whose limbs simply can no longer negotiate that hill. In the end, Dancer de Mille's tired but hefty seductiveness, climaxing in an elephantine cancan step, won the contest of the three disgraces.

Two nights before, Ballerina Nora Kaye starred in another episode which also seemed funny--when it was all over. As Blanche du Bois in the grim ballet version of A Streetcar Named Desire, she had come within a few bars of the moment when Stanley Kowalski is supposed to rape her. The scene should have ended with Blanche making a spinning jump at Stanley (Igor Youskevitch) and being flung helplessly over his shoulder as the lights go out. Ballerina Kaye (110 Ibs.) jumped, all right, but as she did her right arm landed in her partner's left eye. The next thing she knew, Youskevitch (152 Ibs.) was Kaye-oed on the floor. The house doctor took nine stitches. Squinting out of his good eye, Youskevitch canceled his next two performances ("For the classic dancing, you have to have two eyes").

* For another Judgment, see ART.

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