WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:10.020 This is tape number nine, it's 20 March, 85, it will be called 03-9. 2 00:00:10.460 --> 00:00:14.860 This is Ruth Page, our carpool tape for a direct theater film. 3 00:00:15.820 --> 00:00:17.740 This is a TNT production. 4 00:00:18.040 --> 00:00:22.700 Every time you buy it, you should give one away or throw it away or sell it. 5 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:25.380 And then you wouldn't be all cluttered up. 6 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.200 But the clothes don't ever go out of style. 7 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.760 They buy really interesting things. 8 00:00:32.620 --> 00:00:34.300 I don't think they ever go out of style. 9 00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:40.860 So my closets are awfully full. 10 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:46.440 Did you do much shopping? 11 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:49.500 On your trips, you never, there's never any mention of shopping. 12 00:00:49.540 --> 00:00:51.500 I don't want to shop. No, I never shop. 13 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:57.220 Well in Hong Kong, at that time when I was there, you were supposed to be... 14 00:01:00.040 --> 00:01:07.900 When you were out on tour in the United States, you used to send your laundry home to Indianapolis. 15 00:01:08.860 --> 00:01:10.720 How weird, I don't remember that. 16 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:17.220 You used to, before you were married of course, you used to send it home. 17 00:01:18.460 --> 00:01:19.980 Well I certainly wonder why. 18 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.480 Apparently it was difficult to get it done on the road. 19 00:01:25.360 --> 00:01:27.740 And you would send it home. 20 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.360 And they would send it back to you. 21 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:36.420 Well that's an interesting item, certainly very interesting. 22 00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:43.540 The reason it made me think of it is that there was a note that you enclosed to your mother about having bought something. 23 00:01:43.720 --> 00:01:45.340 And you said, this will be a good thing for my trousseau. 24 00:01:45.380 --> 00:01:49.840 And it's just easier to buy these things when you run into them than to go shopping all the time. 25 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:55.940 Yes, I think that's true. I never go shopping. If I see something, I get it. 26 00:01:56.140 --> 00:01:59.620 If I think I'm going to use it or see a dress I like, I get it. 27 00:02:00.160 --> 00:02:04.040 I don't ever go shopping in that sense. I hate to shop. 28 00:02:06.080 --> 00:02:12.220 But you've picked up interesting things in your travels. I mean this house is full of them. 29 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.680 Did you always do that, even, you know, buy interesting things? The dolls, the dolls bands? 30 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:23.680 Yeah, in that library, those are real Balinese dolls I bought there. 31 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.760 That's a puppet. One of them is a puppet. 32 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.980 Yeah, I bought things like that when I saw them. 33 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:33.400 I could carry them home. 34 00:02:34.760 --> 00:02:39.120 I was reading today, somebody gave me one of those Siamese headdresses. 35 00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:43.940 They're tall, you know, and they're perfectly beautiful. 36 00:02:43.940 --> 00:02:47.800 Somebody gave me one in Rangoon and I carried it all around the world with me. 37 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:53.520 Because I liked it so much, I brought it home. It's around here someplace, I don't know where. 38 00:02:56.160 --> 00:02:59.000 Probably over at the school, all my costumes now are over there. 39 00:02:59.920 --> 00:03:01.240 I don't have any costumes here. 40 00:03:01.880 --> 00:03:07.500 Were you consciously, as you were traveling, before you had begun to really do choreography, 41 00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:17.060 were you doing research on costumes and that kind of thing, making notes, or were you just soaking it all in? 42 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:22.760 I didn't make any notes, I don't think. I just was interested in them. 43 00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:26.880 I was interested in the way different countries danced. 44 00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:30.020 Each country has their own way of dancing, you know, each. 45 00:03:30.420 --> 00:03:33.400 And that's awfully interesting how different they are. 46 00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:35.560 It's rather fascinating. 47 00:03:35.720 --> 00:03:43.680 The Japanese are so different from the Balinese, and the Balinese, with Java's right next door to it, they dance entirely a different way. 48 00:03:44.600 --> 00:03:46.300 Siam, they dance differently. 49 00:03:47.380 --> 00:03:51.500 I don't know much about the dances of India. I never studied dancing in India. 50 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:53.920 Why not? 51 00:03:54.260 --> 00:03:54.500 Hmm? 52 00:03:54.740 --> 00:03:55.260 Why not? 53 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:59.600 I don't know, I have no idea. I don't know. Just didn't. 54 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:00.780 Just didn't? 55 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:01.660 Just didn't. 56 00:04:01.660 --> 00:04:05.020 What about Spanish dancing? 57 00:04:05.300 --> 00:04:07.460 Oh, I love that. Yes, I studied that very seriously. 58 00:04:08.060 --> 00:04:14.780 Because Baum sent me, Adam Baum sent me to a Spanish teacher in New York named Aurora Ariaza. 59 00:04:14.980 --> 00:04:20.260 And I'm so grateful that he did send me to her because I like Spanish dancing. 60 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:23.220 I used it a lot in the operas. 61 00:04:23.620 --> 00:04:27.220 You know, when I was at the operas, I've been in opera companies all my life. 62 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:31.220 You need all those different kinds of dances that would fit into the operas. 63 00:04:32.640 --> 00:04:41.880 What is there about Spanish dancing that is so demanding and so different, so especially demanding? 64 00:04:41.960 --> 00:04:43.500 Is it the castanets or is it...? 65 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:45.660 Well, I never learned to play the castanets. 66 00:04:45.880 --> 00:04:49.220 Well, it's the way they stamp on the positions of their bodies. 67 00:04:49.220 --> 00:04:52.960 And it has a character. 68 00:04:53.180 --> 00:04:55.540 All the national dances have character. 69 00:04:55.780 --> 00:04:59.160 They're all in the mazurkas, very different from Apollonés. 70 00:05:01.340 --> 00:05:03.680 And all the dances are different. 71 00:05:04.020 --> 00:05:06.600 But I just happen to like the Spanish ones the best. 72 00:05:06.900 --> 00:05:09.780 And all over Spain, they're different from each province. 73 00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:11.800 It has a different kind of a dance. 74 00:05:13.320 --> 00:05:16.220 I remember the Spanish gypsies when I... 75 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:17.760 Where was it? 76 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:22.500 I think it was in Ronder, someplace where they lived in caves at that time. 77 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.200 And there wasn't even any floor. 78 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:28.300 They just danced in the dirt in their bare feet, you know. 79 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:30.320 I found that awfully interesting. 80 00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:36.600 Now I understand the caves are all got floors in them and they wear heels. 81 00:05:37.220 --> 00:05:40.180 And it's more... call me a faux. 82 00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:49.580 So as you were traveling, you were never consciously doing dance research. 83 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:52.080 You were just looking at things that interested you. 84 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:53.760 Dance was the most interesting thing. 85 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:56.660 Well, yes, when I was traveling. 86 00:05:57.600 --> 00:05:59.240 Mostly it was dancing myself. 87 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:00.780 I didn't have too much time. 88 00:06:01.400 --> 00:06:06.420 But whenever I could, I tried to see the local dances and tried to learn them. 89 00:06:07.300 --> 00:06:09.640 Yeah, and then there was that wonderful eight-month trip. 90 00:06:09.640 --> 00:06:15.020 Back from Japan, where you really got to see so much. 91 00:06:19.580 --> 00:06:24.100 You danced when you went to Buenos Aires to dance in Cokdor. 92 00:06:24.780 --> 00:06:27.280 You also danced for the Prince of Wales. 93 00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:30.980 What do you remember about that incident? 94 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:34.980 Well, it was an opera called Lorelei, I think. 95 00:06:35.640 --> 00:06:38.280 And I didn't dance it towards the very end. 96 00:06:38.280 --> 00:06:42.820 And I don't think the Prince of Wales was very interested in opera. 97 00:06:43.540 --> 00:06:47.560 And so he came late purposely and they didn't start the opera until he came. 98 00:06:48.340 --> 00:06:52.400 So that poor man, I danced about five o'clock in the morning, I think it was. 99 00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:57.300 And the poor Prince of Wales had to... well, he had to be polite, you know. 100 00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:00.040 So I do remember that. 101 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:00.540 Yeah. 102 00:07:05.820 --> 00:07:10.200 And then you came back to Chicago, 103 00:07:11.200 --> 00:07:17.760 where the Chicago Allied Arts was really getting itself going, getting it started. 104 00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:18.900 105 00:07:20.580 --> 00:07:26.660 However, and you were by this time married to Tom, just newly married. 106 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:33.040 However, that wasn't much of a season that Chicago Allied Arts was doing, was it? 107 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:34.620 I mean, it was just... 108 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:36.540 No, I don't think so. 109 00:07:36.740 --> 00:07:42.080 It was rather, oh, there were a few performances here and there all around. 110 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:47.440 That must have made it very difficult for you to live, 111 00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:55.320 because there really wasn't very much to do, very much income being generated by your dancing. 112 00:07:55.320 --> 00:08:00.440 Well, it was enough. I didn't need much money. 113 00:08:04.420 --> 00:08:07.900 And Tom was still at that point working for his father's block. 114 00:08:07.900 --> 00:08:09.380 I guess so, yes. 115 00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:13.320 And you were living, as a matter of fact, with Tom's father. 116 00:08:13.320 --> 00:08:15.200 Yes, we were. 117 00:08:17.060 --> 00:08:20.620 A remarkable man. I learned a lot from him. 118 00:08:20.980 --> 00:08:21.980 What did you learn from him? 119 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:28.340 Well, I learned he could sit in a room and have millions of people all around him 120 00:08:28.340 --> 00:08:33.580 talking and carrying on and drinking, and he could completely concentrate on what he was doing. 121 00:08:33.780 --> 00:08:36.160 He never knew... I thought that was very... 122 00:08:36.160 --> 00:08:38.300 Oh, there's my telephone. 123 00:08:39.180 --> 00:08:41.640 Somebody want to answer? There's one, it's right out in the hall. 124 00:08:42.100 --> 00:08:42.780 She'll get it. 125 00:08:44.260 --> 00:08:45.520 It's right there. 126 00:08:47.020 --> 00:08:49.180 She, Carmen, can't ever answer the phone. 127 00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:51.360 That's a good thing we're here. 128 00:08:51.380 --> 00:08:52.760 She can't understand anything. 129 00:08:56.740 --> 00:09:05.600 Now, in February of 1926, you first performed Peter Pan and the Butterfly 130 00:09:06.180 --> 00:09:08.360 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. 131 00:09:08.460 --> 00:09:09.720 Oh, that's... 132 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.960 A role made for you, I should think. 133 00:09:13.980 --> 00:09:15.800 Yes. Who was it, Carmen? 134 00:09:17.100 --> 00:09:20.480 Sometimes it says the name of Mr. Peterson, please. 135 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:21.240 Mr. who? 136 00:09:21.460 --> 00:09:21.900 Peterson. 137 00:09:22.180 --> 00:09:25.500 Oh, maybe they're asking for Loretta. Did you leave this number? 138 00:09:25.520 --> 00:09:28.280 No, she asked for Mrs. Payson. 139 00:09:28.800 --> 00:09:29.240 Peterson. 140 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:32.160 Would you like Loretta to take a message? 141 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:36.620 Yeah. Let him leave his telephone. Ask him what he wants. 142 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:37.900 Yeah, find out what he wants, Loretta. 143 00:09:37.920 --> 00:09:41.080 I don't know anybody named Peterson, I don't think. Tell him I'm busy. 144 00:09:45.300 --> 00:09:49.940 It's for her. 145 00:09:50.180 --> 00:09:51.100 Oh, it's for her. 146 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:56.060 No, thank you, darling. 147 00:09:56.280 --> 00:09:58.040 Do you like coffee or anything? 148 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:00.700 This is fine, Carmen. 149 00:10:01.260 --> 00:10:03.980 Would anybody else like coffee? 150 00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:05.940 Tea. 151 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:10.320 You want coffee? 152 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:11.060 153 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:11.060 154 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:11.060 155 00:10:11.060 --> 00:10:13.060 I'm going to have some tea, I think. 156 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:14.100 Tea. 157 00:10:15.540 --> 00:10:18.000 She makes wonderful tea. Don't take the cookies away, Carmen. 158 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:21.040 They'll all get eaten ultimately, I promise you. 159 00:10:21.880 --> 00:10:22.560 Should I keep rolling? 160 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:23.780 Yes, absolutely. 161 00:10:26.020 --> 00:10:26.600 Peter Pan. 162 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:29.760 We were talking about Peter Pan and the Butterfly. 163 00:10:32.020 --> 00:10:34.460 There's some wonderful pictures of you as Peter Pan. 164 00:10:34.660 --> 00:10:38.880 Yeah, I was Peter Pan. I was a very Peter Pan-ish character, I think. 165 00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:44.360 It was a cute little dance, very cute, and it always got en cord. 166 00:10:45.540 --> 00:10:48.460 What kind of a dance was it? I mean, what can you remember about it? 167 00:10:49.040 --> 00:10:50.660 Well, I came in with little pipes. 168 00:10:52.940 --> 00:10:55.820 It was a simple little dance, but cute. 169 00:10:55.880 --> 00:11:01.860 Then I found this dead butterfly, and I was trying to make it fly. 170 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:05.800 I don't remember what happened to the poor butterfly. I think he did fly away, finally. 171 00:11:05.800 --> 00:11:10.780 But it was a cute little dance. It was very charming, very youthful. 172 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:12.780 Very Ruth Page. 173 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:13.800 Yes. 174 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:16.820 You danced it a lot? 175 00:11:17.040 --> 00:11:19.500 Yes, all the time, every place. 176 00:11:20.860 --> 00:11:22.840 And the costume was very... 177 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:25.080 Yes, you've seen the pictures in the costumes. 178 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:27.080 Very sort of jaunty. 179 00:11:27.700 --> 00:11:31.020 Remesov designed the costumes. It was a charming costume. 180 00:11:31.780 --> 00:11:37.260 And Remesov was later to work with you a great deal. 181 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:39.320 Yes, I worked with Remesov a lot. 182 00:11:41.680 --> 00:11:44.060 He came over here... 183 00:11:44.060 --> 00:11:47.520 Do you remember a thing called Balieff Chauphsouris? 184 00:11:49.280 --> 00:11:53.660 Well, it was a very, very successful sort of a show. 185 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:59.420 And Balieff was a real character. I don't know how to describe him. I can sort of vaguely remember it. 186 00:11:59.420 --> 00:12:03.880 And Remesov came over. He was the artist for the company. That's where I first knew him. 187 00:12:04.800 --> 00:12:08.280 And he was a great friend of Adolf Böhm's, too. I met him through Adolf Böhm. 188 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:17.220 Then, unfortunately, Remesov got a job, or fortunately for him, in Hollywood doing films. 189 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:22.820 So every time I wanted costumes, I'd go out to Hollywood and get them. 190 00:12:23.540 --> 00:12:26.960 He lived in Palm Springs, I remember. I enjoyed going out there. 191 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:31.160 He was a very interesting man. A very great artist, I think. 192 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:37.460 You've been fortunate to work with a number of very great artists in the course of your career. 193 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:41.000 194 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:41.960 Noguchi and... 195 00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:45.100 Clavet. 196 00:12:47.260 --> 00:12:47.900 Noguchi? 197 00:12:48.760 --> 00:12:50.540 Yes, I worked a lot with him. 198 00:12:50.540 --> 00:12:51.380 Yes, Noguchi. 199 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:53.020 Is that one of Noguchi? 200 00:12:53.020 --> 00:12:54.420 Yes. Do you know him? 201 00:12:55.860 --> 00:12:56.140 Yes. 202 00:12:59.160 --> 00:13:06.380 I love it. He's really got involved. Yes, indeed, he designed a number of things for Ruth Walton. 203 00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:15.420 Including, I wanted to ask you, I cannot find any pictures of the famous sacks and sticks costumes. 204 00:13:15.740 --> 00:13:19.980 Where are they? I mean, the wonderful Noguchi sack that he designed. 205 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:21.920 Well, they're right in the living room there. 206 00:13:21.920 --> 00:13:24.080 Well, I know the drawings, but I mean... 207 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:25.580 Oh, pictures? Photographs. 208 00:13:25.660 --> 00:13:28.240 Oh, I'll give you some. I guess I'm in the other room. 209 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:31.060 They were wonderful costumes, they must have been. 210 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:35.780 Yes, they were. Jersey sacks, you got inside of them, you could do anything you wanted to. 211 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:38.160 I have a lot of pictures of them, if you want to see them. 212 00:13:38.160 --> 00:13:41.360 Well, yes, we will, and when we get to it. Yes, thank you. 213 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:44.120 He's an enormously talented man. 214 00:13:44.380 --> 00:13:45.920 Okay, that's it. You guys are... 215 00:13:46.800 --> 00:13:50.960 This is an interesting thing. I mean, cameraman, he never does that. 216 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:53.960 That's how involved he's gotten in listening to you. 217 00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:57.360 He never speaks up. 218 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:04.300 Okay, well, now, 1926. 219 00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:09.200 There you were in Chicago. It was summer. 220 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:20.600 And the Ravine opera came to you, I think, at Adolf Böhm's suggestion, 221 00:14:21.540 --> 00:14:25.900 and asked you to become their ballet director and premier danseuse, right? 222 00:14:26.220 --> 00:14:30.800 I don't know whether it was Adolf Böhm's idea or whose it was, but they offered me the job. 223 00:14:31.140 --> 00:14:33.620 Well, how do you remember it, Ruth? Maybe it's wrong in these books. 224 00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:37.500 Well, Mr. Eckstein, Louis Eckstein, was running it, 225 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:42.300 and he was looking for somebody to do the ballets there. 226 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:45.240 I don't know how he found me. I have no idea. 227 00:14:46.760 --> 00:14:51.100 But I was always glad to have that job because that's where I learned all about opera. 228 00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:57.380 I was there until he died, and they had marvelous opera there, you know? 229 00:14:57.380 --> 00:15:05.120 Lucretia Bori and Martinelli and Johnson, Edward Johnson, and all the greatest singers. 230 00:15:05.280 --> 00:15:08.620 They'd come out here and spend the summer, take houses and spend the summer. 231 00:15:09.500 --> 00:15:15.260 And they did all the classic operas, and they did also sort of knowledges. 232 00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:20.680 They did Rondinet and Marouf and Amor Brouhoud. 233 00:15:20.680 --> 00:15:24.620 And I think it was extraordinary company. 234 00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:27.740 The more I think of it, the more extraordinary I think it was. 235 00:15:28.640 --> 00:15:32.520 And then when he died, everything changed there. 236 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:38.920 It was a charming little theater that now it's an awful looking thing, but it was a charming small theater. 237 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:44.120 And we all loved performing there, loved spending the summer at Revinia. 238 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:50.780 Everybody, all of us used to take houses out there and lived there all the time and worked very hard. 239 00:15:52.380 --> 00:15:59.720 This was, I believe it was six, six years actually, six seasons that you were the ballet director at the Revinia. 240 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:02.200 I thought it was seven years, but maybe, I don't know, it doesn't matter. 241 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:04.720 Six or seven, it doesn't matter. 242 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:08.240 Until he died. 243 00:16:08.420 --> 00:16:09.060 Until he died. 244 00:16:09.060 --> 00:16:14.700 Now at the time at which they came to you in 1926, I mean it's hardly necessary to point this out, 245 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:21.820 you were 26 years old and you had never really choreographed anything other than dances for yourself, 246 00:16:21.860 --> 00:16:26.180 which you'd been doing since you were born practically, in your life. 247 00:16:26.420 --> 00:16:27.560 Yeah, that's true. 248 00:16:28.400 --> 00:16:30.960 They took a big chance on me. 249 00:16:31.740 --> 00:16:33.460 They really did take a chance. 250 00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:35.480 But it came out, it was fun. 251 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:36.960 You weren't frightened? 252 00:16:37.300 --> 00:16:37.780 No. 253 00:16:38.620 --> 00:16:40.180 I knew I could do it. 254 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.040 It's a special thing. 255 00:16:42.180 --> 00:16:43.540 Opera is a very special thing. 256 00:16:43.800 --> 00:16:48.700 I've always liked opera and I like to choreograph for operas. 257 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:50.460 No choreographers don't. 258 00:16:51.280 --> 00:16:52.260 I know, I know. 259 00:16:52.340 --> 00:16:56.280 And it is indeed one of your strengths, one of your great strengths. 260 00:16:56.280 --> 00:17:10.200 The first season, this was your first opportunity to really use other people's bodies as well as your own 261 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:13.920 to choreograph for other dancers, I'm saying it clumsily. 262 00:17:16.560 --> 00:17:22.240 Was that difficult for you to make a change to doing that? 263 00:17:22.240 --> 00:17:24.140 No, it seemed perfectly natural. 264 00:17:25.060 --> 00:17:29.520 Were you worrying about scenery and costumes? 265 00:17:29.600 --> 00:17:37.540 Well, I think they rented all the scenery from the Metropolitan of New York, if I'm not mistaken. 266 00:17:37.820 --> 00:17:41.040 I don't really know, I don't pay too much attention to the scenery, frankly. 267 00:17:41.360 --> 00:17:46.320 The costumes, I gather, were none too special and you wrote your mother and you said to her, 268 00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:49.620 Mother, will you help me and will you make some costumes for me? 269 00:17:49.620 --> 00:17:52.100 Because you were, of course, the lead dancer. 270 00:17:52.100 --> 00:17:54.640 Yes, I never liked the costumes that the opera gave you. 271 00:17:55.580 --> 00:18:00.860 Of course, you should have to wear the ones that they give you, it should fit into the opera, but I didn't. 272 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:03.120 I think you should have to, I was. 273 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:03.960 Of course. 274 00:18:04.080 --> 00:18:05.580 Yes, of course, right. 275 00:18:08.120 --> 00:18:11.580 That very first season, you did a great many operas. 276 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:13.940 The first one that is listed here is Carmen. 277 00:18:14.080 --> 00:18:18.600 You did Carmen, Aida, Faust, Samson and Delilah, Traviata. 278 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:19.480 Really? 279 00:18:19.620 --> 00:18:20.000 Yes. 280 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.900 You see what an interesting repertoire they had. 281 00:18:23.100 --> 00:18:24.820 Don't you think that's rather extraordinary? 282 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:25.440 283 00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:27.600 Nobody does that now. 284 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.880 Lyric does six operas a year, I believe. 285 00:18:34.120 --> 00:18:34.860 Six or seven. 286 00:18:35.260 --> 00:18:38.880 How much rehearsal time, I mean, how did you approach it, Ruth? 287 00:18:38.900 --> 00:18:41.100 How much rehearsal time did you get with the dancers? 288 00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:41.960 What was it like? 289 00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:44.020 I got up all the time I wanted. 290 00:18:44.420 --> 00:18:48.440 They were paid by the week, so I could rehearse whenever I wanted to. 291 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:54.180 And the directors with whom you worked who were directing the operas? 292 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:56.080 They were very cooperative. 293 00:18:57.140 --> 00:18:58.080 I forget who they were. 294 00:18:58.280 --> 00:19:00.720 De Freire, I think, was one of them. 295 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:04.000 And isn't that funny? 296 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.700 I can't remember who the directors were, but they were all very cooperative. 297 00:19:10.340 --> 00:19:14.500 You discussed it with whoever was directing it, and then you did what he wanted. 298 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:17.620 He didn't like it, he'd tell you, and if I didn't like it, I'd tell him. 299 00:19:17.620 --> 00:19:19.900 And we got together all right on it.