André Delfau Interview No. 03 [October 24, 1985]

V.2011-05-0535

October 24 1985

A: . . . She [Lydia Abarca] went to Broadway. She wanted to be a star on Broadway. And it was a mistake and she broke her leg and her feet, and after that it was the end of it . . . .
Q: Back to . . . we were talking about Carmen, the Dance Theatre of Harlem production of Ruth's Carmen and your Carmen, and the resistance that the dancers had to the costumes.
A: Yes.
Q: What is the source of that kind of resistance?
A: I can't tell, fairly. But I think it was because they were used to dance without costumes. I mean to dance in tights or in tutu. They were dancing Balanchine or modern abstract ballets.
Q: Do you think they're afraid they look ugly, they won't. . . they'll look less attractive in a costume?
A: I suppose. Yes, something like that. I don't know why, I really can't tell. But it was not very pleasant for me.
Q: There's a story I read somewhere about you walking in, and the dancer who was dancing the role of Carmen had sort of taken the top that you designed and tossed it away and put on something new.
A: I don't remember that.
Q: You don't remember.
A: No, no, I remember the wardrobe mistress. I've no problem with the dancers. I mean, if they were happy or unhappy, that's another story, but I've no problem. They wear my costumes. But the wardrobe mistress said that she would have done better.
Q: She would have done better herself?
A: Yes. You see, because I made very simple costumes, and she saw that without ruffles . . .
Q: Have you encountered that very often in your career?
A: Never. Never.
Q: That's why that was an unusual . . . .
A: Very, very unusual.
Q: It was also a very unusual and difficult experience for Ruth.
A: I think, yes.
Q: Do you remember what the history of that was with Arthur Mitchell agreeing to do Ruth's Carmen . . . the Page/Delfau Carmen, a new Carmen?
A: I don't remember that. I mean, I don't remember anything with Ruth especially. I remember my own problems, but I don't remember if Ruth had some problems.
Q: There were some problems. There were . . . there was a time when you went to Spoleto and Ruth did . . . and I think you went with her to help, and she just sat around -- almost for weeks -- waiting for a break so that she could work with the dancers to teach them the choreography, to teach them the steps, and that didn't happen.
A: Yes, I remember that, yes.
Q: And the whole project seemed to just drag itself out. They promised to rehearse it, and made plans to perform it, and then they'd say, "Well, no, we won't perform it," then, "We'll do it a few months later," and then wouldn't do it then either. And finally, I read somewhere, that you said to Ruth, "Ruth, I think maybe Arthur Mitchell doesn't want to do anybody's ballets but his own." Do you remember saying that?
A: No. Yes, but he never made a ballet in his life.
Q: Well, what did you say? I don't want to . . . that you did . . . finally, you just said to her, Look, this isn't . . . .
A: He's not a choreographer at all.
Q: Okay, so then what did you want to say? He just didn't want to do it, maybe?
A: Yes, yes, I suppose. I thought more like that.
Q: If, as Ruth was going through this difficult time with the Dance Theatre of Harlem with this Carmen . . . . It would seem that every time she would go to Europe, she would turn to you and call you and say -- even if there was no particular work to do necessarily, although you were almost always working on some ballet or other together . . . . She just wanted to . . . .
A: Oh, well, we had become, of course, very good friends, that's for sure.
Q: I think you're her best friend. What do you think?
A: I guess. I think, yes.
Q: I don't think she's ever had anyone in her life that creatively she's felt such a strong partnership with, as she has with you.
A: Oh, she had a very strong partnership with a Russian designer called Remisoff. His name was Remisoff. Yes, but I never met him. He died.
Q: But it wasn't nearly as personal, André.
A: Maybe not. Maybe not. Yes.
Q: What do you think there is about the combination of personalities of you and Ruth that work so well?
A: I consider we are very different.
Q: I know.
A: And maybe that's why.
Q: What is it that you especially like about her?
A: I suppose it's the fact that she's so different from me. She's a happy person and she likes life, and I'm not like that and . . . .
Q: You're not happy and you don't like life?
A: Well, not especially. I mean, of course, I don't hate life, but I'm not a worshipper of life, and she is. I suppose she gives me this kind of something she has, and I suppose I give her something I have, too . . . this kind of thing.
Q: I think that you've been a major influence on her choreography.
A: Oh, I don't think that.
Q: Do you think I'm wrong?
A: I don't think that, no. I never interfere with choreography. Not much, I mean.
Q: Oh, I didn't mean it that way. I meant that once she began working with you, once it became an every summer situation in St. Tropez and every time that Ruth was . . . just about every time that Ruth was going to do a new ballet, she worked with you on the scenery and the costumes. Once that happened, I mean, she writes frequently in her diary that she discussed the ballet with you, and she would say, "We worked for several weeks and discussed the ballet." And she would say day after day after day that you were discussing. What were you discussing? Not just the sets and costumes?
A: No. But not the choreography.
Q: Okay, well, then what?
A: The ideas. I mean, the ideas, the theatrical part.
Q: The theatrical part of the idea. So the emotion . . . for example, when you discussed Chocolate Soldier, Bullets and Bonbons . . .
A: Yes.
Q: . . . what were the discussions, what kind of things did you discuss when you worked on that?
A: Well, how to show the types, how to make them look clear for the audience, you see.
Q: So the discussions were intellectual.
A: Yes.
Q: Completely.
A: Yes. About the spirit of the play, and how to transpose a play in movements and keep the story.
Q: Of course. Now, when you would later see a ballet, see it with the choreography, a ballet of Ruth's, were you surprised ever?
A: No. It seemed natural for me.
Q: It looked the way you thought it would look, in terms of the dancing, choreography. Did you ever discuss specific dancers for particular roles?
A: Oh, yes, but usually she has the same dancers. You see, she had a company. And she had the same dancers so. But for a long time, I didn't see them dancing, I made the costumes, I made the scenery, but they all go to America and I stayed in France . . . .
Q: But did you feel as though you knew them -- Orrin Kay an, Kenneth Johnson, Patricia Klekovic, and Larry Long?
A: I certainly knew their measurements, because the costumes were made in Paris and most of the time they can't come to fit, so we have to have the exact measurements.
Q: When you finally saw them dance, did they look about the way that you thought they would, or were they . . . .
A: Certainly. They were products of Ruth. I mean, she created her own dancers, too. And so they were made to dance in Ruth's ballets and to integrate into this kind of special, theatrical, choreographic dance.
Q: Did you have a favorite among Ruth's ballets or among the ballets that you'd done with Ruth?
A: I think Carmina Burana, finally, was one of the best.
Q: Why?
A: Because it has a very strong atmosphere.
Q: What about Bolero?
A: Oh, Bolero. Bolero was very amusing to do. Very amusing. I had a lot of fun with it. It was a scandal, which seemed so strange.
Q: Who came up with the idea of setting it in a brothel?
A: Me, it was my idea. And the idea of the knitting needles and waiting for the customers to come.
Q: That was your idea, too?
A: Yes, yes.
Q: And they're sitting in rocking . . . they're sitting in chairs.
A: Yes, yes. Chairs around the wall, and they are sitting with black shawls and knitting, and the sound of the knitting is the sound of the music, too. Before the curtain is open, you heard the sound of the knitting and you don't know what it is, but then you see a room, a big empty room with girls sitting, all in black shawls, and so it didn't look especially erotic at all. But when the customer came, of course, it changed, and they were supposed to be naked with stockings. Of course, it was unthinkable to have them really naked. Now I think you could, we could do it. . . . We put stockings on skin-colored tights . . . and so apparently, it was shocking even like that. And it was a scandal in Las Vegas. Imagine! In Las Vegas there are naked dancers for fifty years, and it was scandal.
Q: They had to take the garters off the costumes and put them in tights so they wouldn't appear to be showing their garters. What was your response to that, André, when you heard about what had happened?
A: Well, I think it was charming. It's always nice if you could have a scandal, you see, because it seems so impossible now to have one. I didn't do it for that, but still . . . .
Q: Of course not.
A: But, ah . . . .
Q: There's also some story about you and Ruth up late one night, all night, painting chairs? For Bolero?
A: Yes.
Q: What was that?
A: Well, because we did not have so much money, and so we buy those very cheap ordinary chairs, but I wanted them black and they were not. So we painted them black all night.
Q: All night. Right. You and Ruth painting the chairs.
A: I was in Chicago for Bolero. Usually, I don't come for the ballet, but for Bolero I was there. And I could make a lot of . . . . At some moments the walls of the room were to become transparent, and you could see all the men around.
Q: When you would . . . okay, so you . . . most of the summers from 1961 really on, almost until she sold the house at St. Tropez, you and Ruth would spend a part of every summer . . .
A: Exactly, yes.
Q: And then you started coming to this country to work with her by what, 1971, '72, certainly?
A: Yes, something like that, yes, yes.
Q: And during the rest of the time, you would be painting on your own things, or working for other ballet companies or what?
A: Yes.
Q: Both?
A: Both, yes. And for theater, too. I made a lot of plays in Paris and things like that.
Q: Which do you enjoy most?
A: Oh, I prefer to work for ballets than for plays or opera. It's more poetic, you see. You have noticed. I like to make some plays, but you have to need doors, windows, and a lot of things.
Q: Stuff.
A: Yes.
Q: It's not the same kind of freedom.
Q: There's also some story about you and Ruth up late one night, all night, painting chairs? For Bolero?
A: Yes.
Q: What was that?
A: Well, because we did not have so much money, and so we buy those very cheap ordinary chairs, but I wanted them black and they were not. So we painted them black all night.
Q: All night. Right. You and Ruth painting the chairs.
A: I was in Chicago for Bolero. Usually, I don't come for the ballet, but for Bolero I was there. And I could make a lot of . . . . At some moments the walls of the room were to become transparent, and you could see all the men around.
Q: When you would . . . okay, so you . . . most of the summers from 1961 really on, almost until she sold the house at St. Tropez, you and Ruth would spend a part of every summer . . .
A: Exactly, yes.
Q: And then you started coming to this country to work with her by what, 1971, '72, certainly?
A: Yes, something like that, yes, yes.
Q: And during the rest of the time, you would be painting on your own things, or working for other ballet companies or what?
A: Yes.
Q: Both?
A: Both, yes. And for theater, too. I made a lot of plays in Paris and things like that.
Q: Which do you enjoy most?
A: Oh, I prefer to work for ballets than for plays or opera. It's more poetic, you see. You have noticed. I like to make some plays, but you have to need doors, windows, and a lot of things.
Q: Stuff.
A: Yes.
Q: It's not the same kind of freedom.
A: And as I said, the bodies are not so beautiful, even in the theater.
Q: How has your work in the theater and in ballet influenced your painting?
A: Oh, I think a lot.
Q: In what way?
A: Because my paintings are theatrical.
Q: If you had to give yourself sort of periods, trace your own artistic development, how would you do that? How has your approach to painting and designing changed over the years?
A: It is very difficult for me to realize that.

18m 25s

Color

Stereo

1/1

English

Yes

Cassette Tape ➜ Betacam ➜ 20 min.

Interview