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This is timecode hour on the third track will be 03 and this is Andre Del Faux interview

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tape number 1.

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It's 102485.

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This is for Neofilm Productions, Loretta Peterson producing.

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This will be tape number 1 tone at zero view on both lines.

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Let's start out by talking about some things that I don't really know which is sort of

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your early life and your early background and how and when you got started as an artist

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and painting and doing things for the ballet.

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Well I was born in Paris and the first drawing I remember was on a check board and I used

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all the white of the check board and I made drawings on those check boards and of course

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my mother was not very happy with that.

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Why not?

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Well because it was not useful for the check board.

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Oh it wasn't a child's chalkboard it was one that you had in your house.

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Oh which she was using.

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Yes.

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I see and you used up all the chalk.

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Yes and maybe I was four or five at that time.

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The first thing I remember about drawing.

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Did you always have the sense that you wanted to be an artist?

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Yes.

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So then when you went to school what did you do?

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When I went to school I forget about that of course for a while because I have to learn

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but after when I was 17 and I decided really to be a painter and my mother didn't object

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but my father objected very strongly because he said that would be a very difficult life

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and there were very few artists who could make a living out of their own heart and so

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my life was, it was the most difficult period of my life certainly because I have to fight

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and to make a living and I was very young so it was not so easy.

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Well you were living in Paris.

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Yes.

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And how did you make a living?

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I made drawings for publicity and after that with my drawings I go to Vogue magazine and

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I show them my drawings who were not fashion drawings at all but I thought maybe I could

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try that and they said yes you could do it.

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And they give me some live models so I could make fashion drawings and it works so finally

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I made money.

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I made enough money to live and to have my own apartment and my own studio.

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When did you get started doing things for the ballet?

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It was after the war.

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I was invited to go to New York by Vogue, American Vogue and so I come to New York just

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after the war, I was 46 I think and I made a lot of drawings for Vogue at this period

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and also publicity and things like that and I met Chelychev who was a friend of mine in

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Paris and I met him.

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He was very kind and very nice to me and he introduced me to Balanchine.

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Balanchine at this period was living in an apartment as empty as this one except it

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was much bigger and it was a duplex and there was a grand piano.

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But a grand piano?

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That's all.

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And coming from this stairs or stairs from the upper floor I saw Maria Toltzschiff coming.

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She was Mrs. Balanchine at this period.

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And I show my paintings to Balanchine and when Balanchine was invited to the opera in

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Paris the year after he think of me and he asked me to make his sceneries and the costume

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first for Serenade and then for Apollo Musaget and so I made both for the opera in Paris

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and it was the beginning of my career as a theatre designer.

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So before that you hadn't thought about theatre designing at all?

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I always loved theatre.

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I always loved theatre even as a child.

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My family not let me at night but I could go to the matinee in the afternoon and even

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at twelve or thirteen I was enjoying the theatre and I love this atmosphere.

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It strikes me that it's a particularly difficult kind of relationship for an artist who designs

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for the ballet.

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Between the choreography, the music, the dancers and the art, the scenery and the costumes.

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It seems to me it's especially difficult because there is not as much freedom as you

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have for example obviously when you do a painting.

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Of course not and it's never exactly your dream on stage.

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It's half of your dream.

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Sometimes it's even less than that.

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But it's very fascinating.

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The beginning is marvellous when you think of doing these things.

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When your imagination works and when you try things and it works.

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That's a marvellous moment.

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That's the best moment.

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After that the reality came and you have to fight with reality.

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But at least you have nice bodies to put costumes on.

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I've made opera too.

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Yes, that's a different proposition totally about the bodies.

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What is that process Andre?

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How does it begin when you start working with a choreographer or ballet director?

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It depends.

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It's different each time.

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Working with Balanchine was the easiest thing in the world.

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He never said a word about anything to you.

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He just gave you the music, the story if there was a story, and you were allowed to see the choreographer.

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He didn't give you any indication of any kind because in his mind there was no scenery and costume.

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His mind was with dances and movements.

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Right, that's the way he choreographed.

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For him scenery and costume were something you have to accept.

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But he couldn't care less about them most of the time.

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He has some sometimes.

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Not usually.

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It was not important for him at all.

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It was not in his mind.

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In his mind the naked body of the dancer and the movements.

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So then after Balanchine...

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After it was done, it was a big success, but he never said I like it or dislike it.

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He never said anything?

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He never said anything.

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You showed him the sketches and he said fine.

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But then after doing those for the Paris Opera with Balanchine, what then did you do?

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I do all the things like Comedie Française and Opera.

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Things that were not balletic.

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But after a while I met Skibin who was half Belgian, half Russian dancer and choreographer too.

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He was at this period with Marky de Cuevas.

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You heard about Marky de Cuevas?

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Yes I did.

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His wife was a rock-feller and who spent a lot of money for ballets.

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He had a big company with a lot of stars in it.

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Skibin was one of the stars and his wife Marjorie Toshif was one of the stars.

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She was a really beautiful dancer and marvelous.

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Everyone says that about her.

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Also poetic.

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It was really marvelous to look at her.

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He was also very handsome.

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Skibin?

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Yes.

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The proportions were fantastic and he had a great style.

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But he preferred to choreograph than to dance.

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He was more.

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So he asked me to make ballets with him and we worked together for a long time.

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In Europe of course.

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Yes of course.

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What ballets did you do for him?

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Oh a lot of them.

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The first one was Tragedy a Verona with the story of Rona.

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Yes, Tragedy of Rona.

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With Tchaikovsky music.

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The premier was in Monte Carlo in this lovely little theatre.

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The second one I think was Annabel Lee.

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Based on Edgar Allen's poetry?

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It was a big success.

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Annabel Lee based on the poem.

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After that I made a lot.

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How was the working relationship with Skibin?

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It was different than with Balanchine because Skibin has a taste to tell stories.

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He liked to tell stories.

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He has a more poetic or literary mind than Balanchine who was a musical and choreographed mind.

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And so the importance of the scenery and costume was bigger for him, for Skibin.

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He gave more importance to the problem of costume and scenery.

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Did that make the working relationship better for you or more difficult?

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Not difficult at all.

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With Skibin I never had any problem.

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He would tell me what he wanted and I would show him what I thought would be nice.

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Most of the time it was just like that.

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After the Marquis de Crevice you also did some things for the Harkness Ballet, the Hiel Danish Ballet.

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Yes, I have done two ballets with Mrs. Harkness.

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Which?

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The first was called Abyss.

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It was a big success.

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The second was the Scottish Symphony with Skibin.

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And for the Royal Danish Ballet?

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For the Royal Danish Ballet I made first Night Shadow of Balanchine.

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And I think they are still dancing it.

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And the second ballet was Sleeping Beauty.

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Now what was your production of Sleeping Beauty? What did it look like?

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Well, it was 17th century atmosphere.

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Kind of Spanish.

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Belasquez.

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Belasquez, yes.

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Now when you go to design a ballet, to what extent do you think you are influenced by the period in which it sat and to what extent the ideas come from in terms of where you are living in the history of art?

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In other words, there are trends going on in art, of which you are very much a part.

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And then there is the, how do you wed the 17th century to the fact that you are a modern artist?

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Yes, well, there is no solution for anything.

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I mean you have to find your solution each time.

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And each time the solution is different.

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That makes working for the theatre so interesting because the problems are always different.

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And of course the solutions have to be invented.

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That's right, solutions have to be invented.

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That makes things fascinating.

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To what extent, Andre, does the choreography influence you creatively as you work on the concept for the scenery and the costumes?

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Oh, sometimes I don't even see this choreography before.

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You haven't even seen it.

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Sometimes.

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Of course I prefer to see it, but sometimes it's not created yet, you see.

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The thing goes together.

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And so with the music and the story, I have something in my mind.

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And the choreography came after.

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Are there ever times when you've seen a ballet that you've designed and you look at the choreography and you think, darn,

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I wish I'd known that it was going to take that direction because I would have designed it differently.

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Well, it never happened, actually.

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Never happened.

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I remember in Apollo Musaget, who is balancing, it was their own thing.

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I have put some long scarves on the three Mus.

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And he took a pair of scissors and he cut a part of those scarves because it interfered with his movements.

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But this is my only...