WEBVTT

1
00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:13.500
It's the 20th of March, 1985, for a great page of the movie with the aplomb and the

2
00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:14.980
HT&T productions.

3
00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:19.180
This will be made in a bars and tones on channel one and channel two.

4
00:00:56.780 --> 00:01:04.520
We're about the first season of the Ravigna operas and how much time would you get to

5
00:01:04.520 --> 00:01:05.720
rehearse each ballet?

6
00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:06.940
As much as you wanted.

7
00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:07.860
A week?

8
00:01:08.160 --> 00:01:08.660
Yeah.

9
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:11.400
And where did the dancers come from?

10
00:01:13.320 --> 00:01:14.200
Around here.

11
00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:16.740
You recruited the dancers?

12
00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:17.960
Mm-hmm.

13
00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:28.740
There's a story about a niece of Tom's walking through the house and some reporter or someone

14
00:01:28.740 --> 00:01:35.720
saying, when you grow up, don't you want to be a dancer like your grandma and Ruth?

15
00:01:36.100 --> 00:01:37.500
And she said—

16
00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:39.660
I should say not too much work.

17
00:01:40.340 --> 00:01:41.780
Too much time on the telephone.

18
00:01:41.780 --> 00:01:43.700
Yes, that's right, too much time on the telephone.

19
00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:48.780
Yeah, because they change the opera sometimes at the last minute and then you have to call

20
00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:49.920
up everybody in town.

21
00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:51.900
You know, that was hard.

22
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:55.660
Some singer would get sick, you know, like they do.

23
00:01:57.140 --> 00:01:58.220
They're always getting sick.

24
00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:01.140
They're always having to change operas.

25
00:02:02.260 --> 00:02:05.980
Now, you had been going to the opera ever since you were a child in Indianapolis.

26
00:02:06.160 --> 00:02:07.580
You'd seen an opera there.

27
00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:22.940
It has often struck me that even now, many opera singers with beautiful voices move very

28
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:29.960
clumsily so that when you come to the part of an opera where there's a ballet in it,

29
00:02:29.960 --> 00:02:37.320
it's a relief to be able to sit back and watch dancers move beautifully.

30
00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:42.320
Yes, it's true, but I think the singers now move much better than they used to.

31
00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:48.200
They learn to dance, a lot of them, and they learn to act, and I think they're much,

32
00:02:48.500 --> 00:02:49.660
much better than they used to be.

33
00:02:49.760 --> 00:02:52.020
I know it's a great, great difference, don't you?

34
00:02:52.020 --> 00:02:52.640
Yes, I do.

35
00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:54.460
Yes, I do, just in the time that I've been going.

36
00:02:54.460 --> 00:03:07.120
But in 1926 was the style that opera singers were using as they performed almost as though

37
00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:12.580
they weren't playing with each other, moving forward for an aria and sort of declaiming

38
00:03:12.580 --> 00:03:13.460
it to the audience.

39
00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:15.020
Yes, they didn't act.

40
00:03:15.020 --> 00:03:17.800
They didn't fit in and act together.

41
00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:21.660
I think that's true, and they were mostly sort of big and fat in those days.

42
00:03:21.660 --> 00:03:29.100
They don't seem to be so big and fat anymore, and it's entirely different now, I think.

43
00:03:30.260 --> 00:03:40.420
And the ballets, how did you approach, did you have an overall kind of theory where you

44
00:03:40.420 --> 00:03:47.360
said to yourself, well, ballets in operas should be a certain kind of way?

45
00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:48.820
No, of course not.

46
00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:51.600
I think the ballet should fit into the opera.

47
00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:56.160
If the opera was Spanish, then the dancing had to be Spanish.

48
00:03:56.220 --> 00:04:00.300
If it was, oh, Polish, then it had to be Polish.

49
00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:03.860
I think every opera had to be different, and so they were hard to do.

50
00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:09.160
You had to do a lot of sort of research and think about it a lot.

51
00:04:09.420 --> 00:04:16.500
Samson Delilah was quasi-oriental, you know, sort of what you call quasi-oriental.

52
00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:18.320
I was trying to think what would you call it.

53
00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:25.020
And Tannhäuser back in the day, I think I told you the story about the fur coats.

54
00:04:25.900 --> 00:04:33.360
I wanted to do the Tannhäuser, it was a great big ballet, and I wanted pieces of furs hanging

55
00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:36.060
from the costumes, one of the costumes made out of furs.

56
00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:43.520
So I asked Carol Fox to ask all the ladies who didn't want their, she gave us their

57
00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:45.340
wonderful fur coats, so they did.

58
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:52.920
And we had so many marvelous fur coats that the dancers all kept them, and then we bought

59
00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:55.960
artificial fur, and we all got wonderful fur coats for nothing.

60
00:04:58.460 --> 00:04:59.340
That's wonderful.

61
00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:00.080
Yes.

62
00:05:04.820 --> 00:05:10.820
You sort of, an interesting thing happened right after the first season that you did

63
00:05:10.820 --> 00:05:17.840
at Ravina, the Metropolitan Opera came, or the ballet, the premier dances of the Metropolitan

64
00:05:17.840 --> 00:05:27.220
Opera came to you and asked you to sort of stand in for her while she went away on vacation.

65
00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:31.020
Rosina Galli, yes.

66
00:05:32.500 --> 00:05:33.700
And you...

67
00:05:33.700 --> 00:05:37.940
Well, she didn't dance for a few years, she was always sick, so they got me to come in,

68
00:05:37.940 --> 00:05:39.840
so I was very happy to do it, of course.

69
00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:46.660
You were the first American solo principal dancer at the Metropolitan Opera Company.

70
00:05:46.660 --> 00:05:47.040
Yes.

71
00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:50.320
And you majored in the Bard Bride.

72
00:05:50.320 --> 00:05:50.740
Right.

73
00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:54.180
Do you remember anything about...

74
00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:59.080
Well, there's charming little dances, just absolutely beguiling, the music is charming,

75
00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:05.000
there's a little polka, and there was a dance called the Furiant, F-U-R-I-A-N-T.

76
00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.720
And I don't remember who choreographed it, I didn't.

77
00:06:09.960 --> 00:06:13.360
Whoever was the ballet master, I don't know who it was.

78
00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:15.440
I can't remember it all.

79
00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:21.820
Anyway, they were charming dances, I loved doing them.

80
00:06:22.640 --> 00:06:28.220
And you were a great success in them, a very great success.

81
00:06:29.280 --> 00:06:35.700
It's been suggested that you were such a great success that she got healthy rather

82
00:06:35.700 --> 00:06:36.060
rapidly.

83
00:06:36.140 --> 00:06:38.160
Yes, she did, she came back and danced right away.

84
00:06:41.080 --> 00:06:45.280
She was the mistress of Gattaca Zaza, so she could do whatever she wanted to do.

85
00:06:46.640 --> 00:06:48.860
But she didn't want anybody to steal her spotlight.

86
00:06:49.060 --> 00:06:50.840
Oh, she certainly didn't.

87
00:06:53.640 --> 00:07:01.440
In your second season with the Ravenia Opera was when you choreographed another one of

88
00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:03.820
your great successes, the Bolero.

89
00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:06.720
Oh yes, I did.

90
00:07:06.840 --> 00:07:10.820
Now how did that come about, that you did that?

91
00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:18.280
I liked the music and I thought I could do a good ballet to it, so I did.

92
00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:22.640
It was a very good ballet actually, I'd forgotten all about it.

93
00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:28.040
That music became so cliché and so awful after everybody started using it.

94
00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:34.420
But this was at the very beginning and I think it was a very interesting ballet.

95
00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:36.460
Was it a sexy ballet?

96
00:07:37.300 --> 00:07:39.360
Yes, it was.

97
00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:41.800
I'm trying to remember what it was like.

98
00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:46.400
I did two or three different versions of it.

99
00:07:46.400 --> 00:07:50.220
One was with a girl in the middle and this boy.

100
00:07:51.600 --> 00:08:01.280
Then I did one, he would go around her and she would sort of dance very sexily.

101
00:08:01.960 --> 00:08:07.540
Then I did a version where the boy was in the middle and the girl danced around him.

102
00:08:07.620 --> 00:08:10.760
I don't know which was better, but they were both kind of interesting.

103
00:08:10.760 --> 00:08:15.320
The girls sat in chairs all around.

104
00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:19.960
I remember one version, they knitted.

105
00:08:23.440 --> 00:08:28.180
Then each girl would get up and try to lure this boy who was in the middle and she put

106
00:08:28.180 --> 00:08:28.960
her knitting down.

107
00:08:29.580 --> 00:08:31.360
It was quite original I think.

108
00:08:32.560 --> 00:08:33.880
It sounds very original.

109
00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:34.580
It was.

110
00:08:35.300 --> 00:08:37.240
I don't know why we never did it more.

111
00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:40.400
The music got so cliché.

112
00:08:42.260 --> 00:08:48.000
It needed really a big symphony orchestra so the music wouldn't be boring.

113
00:08:49.040 --> 00:08:50.320
It needed everything.

114
00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.120
It needed the whole works.

115
00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:59.480
The Bolero was an independent evening.

116
00:09:01.040 --> 00:09:02.840
It wasn't obviously as part of an opera.

117
00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:07.840
The Ravigna opera was now permitting you to do separate ballets.

118
00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.260
That was no big deal.

119
00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:15.760
It was marvelous.

120
00:09:15.940 --> 00:09:16.740
I was delighted.

121
00:09:19.540 --> 00:09:24.040
Then you began doing, I don't know if you began them in the third season, the children's

122
00:09:24.040 --> 00:09:24.480
matinees.

123
00:09:24.760 --> 00:09:26.180
I did those all the time.

124
00:09:27.320 --> 00:09:34.820
They had a children's performance and they'd give them all 45 minutes of the orchestra,

125
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:40.080
Chicago Symphony, and they'd give them each an ice cream cone and then they would give

126
00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:40.720
them meat.

127
00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:46.460
I did a lot of dances for children.

128
00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:47.220
That was fun.

129
00:09:47.400 --> 00:09:47.960
I like that.

130
00:09:48.260 --> 00:09:50.260
It's lots of fun to perform for children.

131
00:09:50.780 --> 00:09:55.140
They're so spontaneous and open to everything.

132
00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:02.540
There's a little story about a ballet you did for the children called Moonlight Sailing.

133
00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:08.300
Dermot Zoff designed the costumes and they were awfully nice.

134
00:10:08.940 --> 00:10:12.440
They had little sailboats with little sails and masts.

135
00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:19.100
I apparently took too much choreographic liberty and the whole audience came backstage the

136
00:10:19.100 --> 00:10:22.060
first time I did it and said, what's the matter with you, Ms. Page?

137
00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:24.420
Don't you know that sailboats can't go backwards?

138
00:10:26.900 --> 00:10:30.540
So you have to be careful what you do for them.

139
00:10:30.880 --> 00:10:32.220
They're very difficult.

140
00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:36.960
I suppose you also know when they're bored because they move around.

141
00:10:37.980 --> 00:10:39.820
You have to hold their attention.

142
00:10:41.220 --> 00:10:44.260
It's not easy to dance for children, I don't think.

143
00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:56.680
Also, you did Lavals, you choreographed Barefoot and Unpoint.

144
00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:00.220
Oh, yes, I'd forgotten all about that.

145
00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:02.300
That was interesting.

146
00:11:02.340 --> 00:11:07.180
That was Ravel and had the aristocrats.

147
00:11:07.500 --> 00:11:10.560
They were on tow with little tuxedos.

148
00:11:11.560 --> 00:11:15.260
The rabble, they were in the bare feet.

149
00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:25.780
It was a sort of the juxtaposition of the aristocrats and the poverty stricken people.

150
00:11:26.300 --> 00:11:32.080
I don't remember who won, but it was such lovely music.

151
00:11:32.680 --> 00:11:34.580
Ravel is wonderful for dancing.

152
00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:40.040
It was unusual to do a ballet in that fashion at that point.

153
00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:41.700
I guess so.

154
00:11:42.460 --> 00:11:45.140
A mixture of the two styles.

155
00:11:45.140 --> 00:11:47.540
It was 1928 when you did it.

156
00:11:47.620 --> 00:11:48.360
Yes, it was.

157
00:11:52.800 --> 00:11:56.960
Also, you did some choreography to Gershwin's Prelude in Blue.

158
00:11:57.380 --> 00:11:58.000
Yes.

159
00:11:58.980 --> 00:12:01.120
Do you remember what you know about that?

160
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:03.760
Well, that's lovely music for dancing.

161
00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:06.040
Gershwin is marvelous for dancing.

162
00:12:07.880 --> 00:12:09.760
I have pictures of the dances.

163
00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:10.900
I can show them to you.

164
00:12:10.940 --> 00:12:14.480
I don't remember what the dances were like, but I did that in heels.

165
00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:15.900
It wasn't on tow.

166
00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:19.140
I remember the costumes.

167
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:23.360
I remember it was a bluesy sort of a thing.

168
00:12:23.420 --> 00:12:25.640
They were very bluesy.

169
00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:27.880
Kind of sexy, too?

170
00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:29.100
I guess so.

171
00:12:29.100 --> 00:12:30.400
Melancholy.

172
00:12:34.100 --> 00:12:41.300
You speak about pictures of dances and dance notation.

173
00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:53.420
Have you ever done any thinking, Ruth, about what would be the best system for dance notation?

174
00:12:54.300 --> 00:12:56.560
Take moving pictures of it.

175
00:12:57.040 --> 00:12:58.200
Best notation.

176
00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:00.060
There is a LaBane notation.

177
00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:05.160
Somebody named LaBane invented a very complicated way to write them out.

178
00:13:05.900 --> 00:13:06.860
I never learned it.

179
00:13:06.900 --> 00:13:08.780
None of the dancers would ever learn it either.

180
00:13:08.900 --> 00:13:10.220
I have the Nutcracker.

181
00:13:10.280 --> 00:13:12.340
My Nutcracker is LaBane notated.

182
00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:19.600
We would have to have somebody come who knew the LaBane and read it back to us, because none of the dancers will learn it.

183
00:13:20.100 --> 00:13:22.480
It's too complicated and it's too much trouble.

184
00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:25.740
A lot of them rely on their memories.

185
00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:30.080
If you have a film of it, then you don't need a LaBane notation.

186
00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:40.240
In a film, you have an interpretation of it, while in LaBane notation it would just be what the steps were.

187
00:13:42.540 --> 00:13:47.160
I guess it is a good idea, but I've never learned it and I'm never going to.

188
00:13:48.380 --> 00:13:52.700
You have your own system, obviously, for making notes.

189
00:13:52.780 --> 00:13:53.720
Oh, yes.

190
00:13:53.720 --> 00:13:56.260
My dances are all written out.

191
00:13:56.420 --> 00:13:58.980
I don't think anybody can understand them except me.

192
00:13:59.500 --> 00:14:04.780
This is a rond de main inside, and that's a rond de main outside.

193
00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:08.400
What would that mean, unless you explained it to somebody?

194
00:14:11.420 --> 00:14:16.460
I have my own little strut step.

195
00:14:17.060 --> 00:14:18.720
Nobody would know what they meant except me.

196
00:14:21.050 --> 00:14:23.890
My ballets are all pretty much lost anyway.

197
00:14:24.710 --> 00:14:31.330
The Mary Widow isn't because we have kept doing that all the time, and the Frankie and Johnny isn't because that's been on television.

198
00:14:31.510 --> 00:14:39.430
So has the Mary Widow been on television so much that those are down for posterity, but all my other ballets are more or less lost.

199
00:14:40.310 --> 00:14:42.190
It's a shame, but that's the way it is.

200
00:14:43.270 --> 00:14:43.890
It is a shame.

201
00:14:46.050 --> 00:14:51.670
I have stunning ballets too, a whole evening of Carmina Burana and Cattulli Carmina.

202
00:14:51.890 --> 00:14:57.450
We did it first with the Lyric Opera as an opera, and there's lots of dancing in that.

203
00:14:57.750 --> 00:15:02.110
I was so fascinated with the music and everything, and I loved doing it with the opera.

204
00:15:02.850 --> 00:15:03.910
I liked doing it very much.

205
00:15:04.130 --> 00:15:07.670
Then I decided to make a ballet out of it.

206
00:15:07.670 --> 00:15:11.270
The ballet is about half an evening.

207
00:15:11.790 --> 00:15:14.790
Of course, with the Lyric, it's a whole evening.

208
00:15:15.130 --> 00:15:26.690
Then the Cattulli Carmina is interesting too because it's about old men who are making fun of young lovers.

209
00:15:27.550 --> 00:15:28.810
It's kind of an interesting subject.

210
00:15:29.670 --> 00:15:31.770
I have very interesting pictures of that.

211
00:15:32.070 --> 00:15:33.970
We have a sort of a working film from that.

212
00:15:33.970 --> 00:15:38.210
I'd love to do that one again, but it would be hard to revive it.

213
00:15:41.410 --> 00:15:47.970
When, in the days before you could have films of your dances...

214
00:15:48.650 --> 00:15:49.890
Then they're all lost.

215
00:15:50.890 --> 00:16:01.670
When it came time to perform them, the choreographer would teach the dances to the people in the company.

216
00:16:01.670 --> 00:16:02.050
Sure.

217
00:16:02.050 --> 00:16:02.570
To everybody.

218
00:16:02.570 --> 00:16:02.570


219
00:16:04.690 --> 00:16:12.710
When it came time to do your own dances over and over again, let's say a dance like Peter Pan.

220
00:16:12.950 --> 00:16:14.730
Well, I remembered my own dances.

221
00:16:14.810 --> 00:16:15.630
You always remembered them?

222
00:16:15.630 --> 00:16:16.290
Oh, yes.

223
00:16:16.310 --> 00:16:18.730
I remembered everything I danced myself.

224
00:16:19.210 --> 00:16:20.570
If you danced it yourself.

225
00:16:21.270 --> 00:16:21.270


226
00:16:25.090 --> 00:16:28.870
It's a shame, really, that everything isn't just recorded.

227
00:16:30.390 --> 00:16:31.590
There's some...

228
00:16:31.590 --> 00:16:33.770
Now Balanchine's are all recorded.

229
00:16:34.750 --> 00:16:40.390
All his ballets, and about 15 different people can stage them because they learned them with him.

230
00:16:41.390 --> 00:16:43.670
So his ballets will never die out.

231
00:16:43.690 --> 00:16:49.430
They make change a little bit here and there, but they've got films of them and then all these people that know them.

232
00:16:51.370 --> 00:16:54.590
Now, do you think that it would have been...

233
00:16:54.590 --> 00:17:00.090
Do you think that that's a good thing or that it has a stultifying effect on you?

234
00:17:00.170 --> 00:17:03.670
You say, well, this is the way Balanchine did it, and it's good to have them.

235
00:17:03.670 --> 00:17:04.630
Oh, yes.

236
00:17:04.690 --> 00:17:05.090
Okay.

237
00:17:05.890 --> 00:17:06.330
Of course.

238
00:17:07.930 --> 00:17:15.990
I'm trying to find here your notation on the choreography that Balanchine did for you.

239
00:17:16.670 --> 00:17:17.590
Oh, is it in there?

240
00:17:17.610 --> 00:17:18.350
It's in here.

241
00:17:18.490 --> 00:17:19.030
Oh, heavens.

242
00:17:19.030 --> 00:17:24.710
I was going to ask you what on earth...

243
00:17:24.710 --> 00:17:27.210
It was a very simple little dance, very short, simple...

244
00:17:27.210 --> 00:17:30.030
It meant, well, the notes, I mean, it's...

245
00:17:32.930 --> 00:17:34.690
It's almost impossible.

246
00:17:35.210 --> 00:17:35.770
Is what?

247
00:17:36.210 --> 00:17:42.090
It's very difficult to figure out what you meant by your own notes that I thought might be interesting to...

248
00:17:42.090 --> 00:17:43.830
Oh, I'm sure. I probably wouldn't understand them now either.

249
00:17:44.170 --> 00:17:44.850
Yeah, I think so.

250
00:17:45.010 --> 00:17:46.390
Now we can see.

251
00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:52.310
It's here somewhere.

252
00:17:55.990 --> 00:17:56.830
Are you going to...

253
00:17:56.830 --> 00:18:01.030
Shall I get your glasses, Ruth, or maybe I'll just ask you what...

254
00:18:01.770 --> 00:18:02.870
Ask me what?

255
00:18:03.110 --> 00:18:08.030
What some of the notations mean. They are...

256
00:18:10.270 --> 00:18:11.550
Maybe it's in here.

257
00:18:14.030 --> 00:18:15.450
I don't think so.

258
00:18:18.010 --> 00:18:21.950
Are you finished? Why don't you change cassettes while I find this?

259
00:18:22.470 --> 00:18:23.570
What are you looking for?

260
00:18:24.310 --> 00:18:29.430
I'm looking for the notations that you made on Balanchine.

261
00:18:29.430 --> 00:18:30.370
Let me see that book. What is that book?

262
00:18:30.610 --> 00:18:31.170
This is paper page.

263
00:18:31.170 --> 00:18:32.130
Oh, it wouldn't be in there.

264
00:18:32.130 --> 00:18:32.710
It's not in there.

265
00:18:33.010 --> 00:18:33.110
Oh, no.