Ruth Page collection

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Collection Data

Names: Page, Ruth, 1899-1991 (Creator); Fisher, Thomas Hart (Contributor); Page, Marian Heinly (Contributor); Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (Correspondent); Chicago Opera Ballet (Associated name); Ruth Page's International Ballet (Associated name)
Dates / Origin: Date Created: 1918 - 1970
Library locations: Jerome Robbins Dance Division; Shelf locator: (S) *MGZMD 16
Topics: Manuscripts -- Collections; Choreographers; Ballerinas
Notes: Biographical/historical: Ruth Page: A Chronology, 1900-71 1900 Mar 22 Born, Indianapolis, Indiana 1915 July Studied with Jan Zalewski, Anna Pavlova Company, Midway Gardens, Chicago 1916 June 2 Graduated, Tudor Hall School for Girls, Indianapolis 1916 Oct 7 First public appearance as dancer, James Whitcomb Riley Festival, Murat Theatre, Indianapolis 1917 Began studies at Miss Williams' and Miss McClellan's French School for Girls, NYC Began dance studies with Adolph Bolm Appeared in Bolm's “poem-choreographic” “Falling leaves” in Victor Herbert revue Miss 1917, Century Theatre, NYC 1918 Jan-1919 Feb Toured South America with Anna Pavlova Company 1919 Fall Resumed studies at French School, NYC 1919 Dec Danced “Infanta” in John Alden Carpenter's Birthday of the Infanta, Chicago Grand Opera Company 1920 Spring-Summer Appeared as Première Danseuse with Adolph Bolm's Ballet Intime, London Coliseum Studied with Enrico Cecchetti, London 1920-22 Toured U.S. with Bolm's Ballet Intime 1921 Dec 6 First performed “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” “La Gitanette,” and “The Poisoned Flower,” Apollo Theatre, NYC 1922 Mar Appeared with Bolm in Danse Macabre (first dance-film with synchronized sound) premiered at Rialto Theatre, NYC 1922 May 8 Danced, with Chester Hale, at Annual Actors' Equity Benefit performance, NYC 1922 Oct-1924 Mar Première Danseuse, Irving Berlin's Music Box Revue (Music Box Theatre, NYC, 1922-23, and U.S. tour, 1923-24) 1923 Dec 23 Met Thomas Hart Fisher, Chicago, Illinois 1924 Oct 8 Guest Artist, Veiled Prophets Ball, St. Louis, Mo. 1924 Nov 27, 30 First performances of Chicago Allied Arts, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago (Tamara Karsavina, Guest Artist; Ruth Page, Première Danseuse) Danced Foyer de la Danse (Bolm) 1925 Jan 1, 4 Danced in Bolm's The Rivals, and Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor, Chicago Allied Arts, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago 1925 Feb 8 Married Thomas Hart Fisher, “Rosewell,” Indianapolis, Indiana 1925 Mar Joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Monte Carlo Commissioned “Polka Mélancolique,” dance by George Balanchine 1925 Aug-Sept Guest Artist, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Coq d'Or, Petrouchka, Lorelei 1925 Aug 18 or 23 Danced in Command Performance for Edward, Prince of Wales, Teatro Colon 1925 Nov- Dec- 1926 Jan Danced in Bolm's Mandragora, The Elopement, and Bal des Marionettes, Chicago Allied Arts, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Memorial Theatre, Chicago 1926 Feb 1 First performed Peter Pan and the Butterfly, Goodman Theatre, Chicago 1926 June 26- Sept 6 Ballet Director and Première Danseuse, Ravinia Opera (choreographed Carmen, Aïda, Faust, La Juive, Samson and Delilah, La Traviata, La Vida Breve) 1926 Oct 24- 31 Danced in Bolm's La Farce du Pont Neuf, Visual Mysticism, and Parnassus on Montmartre, Chicago Allied Arts, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago 1926 Nov 14 Danced, with Chicago Allied Arts, for Marie, Queen of Rumania, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago 1926 Dec 26- 31 & 1927 Jan 2 First performed The Flapper and the Quarterback, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago 1927 Feb-Apr Guest soloist, Metropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Opera House, NYC 1927 Feb 7 Debut in The Bartered Bride, with Metropolitan Opera 1927 Apr Began solo and joint concert tours 1927 June-Sept 2nd Season, Ballet Director and Première Danseuse, Ravinia Opera 1928 Apr 27 Danced “Terpsichore” in Bolm's Apollon Musagetes, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 1928 June-Aug 3rd Season, Ravinia Opera. For Children's Matinee, choreographed Moonlight Sailing, Circus, Coquette-1899, and Gershwin's Prelude in Blue 1928 Sept 5 Sailed from Vancouver on Empress of Canada for Coronation Ceremonies of Emperor Hirohito, Tokyo, Japan 1928 Oct 1-25 Danced in solos and duets with Edwin Strawbridge, Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, Japan (first performances of The Shadow of Death, Diana, American Indian Eagle Dance, and Ballet Scaffolding) 1928 Nov 16 Danced in solo concert, Peking, China 1928 Nov-1929 Apr Toured Far East, Middle East, and Europe 1929 Summer Death of Dr Lafayette Page 1929 Jun-Aug 4th season, Ravinia Opera. For Children's Matinee, choreographed Sun-Worshippers (later Oak Street Beach), The Flapper Goes Oriental, and Japanese Print 1929 Nov 1 First performed Two Balinese Rhapsodies, Gershwiniana ( Prelude No. 1) and St. Louis Blues, Chicago Women's Club, Chicago 1929 Nov 17 Performed Sentimental Melody (Copland) in joint recital with Edwin Strawbridge, Guild Theatre, NYC 1929 Nov 29 Performed in joint recital with Frank Parker, Civic Theatre, Chicago 1930 Feb 21 First performed Indian Hill, Skokie School, Winnetka, Illinois 1930 Mar 1 Sailed on Aquitania for six solo performances sponsored by the Sophil Society, Moscow, U.S.S.R. 1930 Spring Returned to U.S. via Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, and Spain 1930 June-Aug 5th season, Ravinia Opera. For Children's Matinee, July 17, choreographed Three Russian Tea Cosies (Stravinsky), Figure Eight (8/31), and Bolero (later Iberian Monotone); danced with Blake Scott 1930 Dec 10 First performed Garçonette, Modern Diana, Pre-Raphaelite, Incantation, and Gypsy Dances of Spain, Ward-Belmont Auditorium, Nashville, Tenn. 1931 Jan 12 First performed Giddy Girl, Lewisburg H.S. Auditorium, Lewisburg, Ky. 1931 Feb 8 Danced the “Princess” in L'Histoire du Soldat, with Blake Scott and Jacques Cartier, Goodman Theatre, Chicago, and on Apr 12, Guild Theatre, NYC 1931 June-Aug 6th season, Ravinia Opera. For Children's Matinee, Aug 30, choreographed Cinderella 1931 Dec 9 First performed Vecchio Minuetto 1931 Dec 31 First performed, with company, Pavane and La Valse, Booth Theatre, NYC 1932 Feb 16 Danced solo concert, accompanied at the piano by Louis Horst, Sociedad Pro-Arte Musicale, Havana, Cuba 1932 May 1 First performed Tropic, May Day Celebration, Amalgamated Centre, Chicago 1932 Summer Studied with Harald Kreutzberg, Salzburg, Austria 1932 July 6 First performed Lament, Three Humoresques, Vagabond, Morning in Spring, Possessed, and Cuban Rhapsody ( Cuban Night), Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, Capen, Indiana 1932 Oct 5 First performed Gigue and Berceuse, as part of Humoresques 1932 Nov 2 First performed Expanding Universe and Largo, Festival Hall, Agricultural College, Fargo, North Dakota 1933 Jan 16 First performed Variations on Euclid, Loyola Community Theatre, Chicago 1933 Jan 29 Concert of New York premieres of new works, John Golden Theatre, NYC 1933 Feb 25 First performed, in joint recital with Harald Kreutzberg, Promenade and Country Dance, Studebaker Theatre, Chicago 1933 Mar-Apr Toured in joint recitals with Harald Kreutzberg 1933 June 9 (or 16) Choreographed and first performed La Guiablesse, Century of Progress, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago 1933 Dec 9 First performed Rustic Saint's Day, Resurgence, Pendulum, Shadow Dance, My Sorrow Is My Song, Mozart Waltzes, International House, Chicago 1934 Jan-Apr Toured, in joint recitals, with Harald Kreutzberg throughout U.S. (incl. Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, California) 1934 Jan 16 First performed in joint recital with Harald Kreutzberg, Arabian Nights, Shrine Temple, Peoria, Ill. 1934 Feb 4 First performed, in joint recital, with Kreutzberg, Bacchanale, Orchestra Hall, Chicago 1934 May Toured Japan with Kreutzberg 1934 Fall Ballet Director, choreographer, Première Danseuse, Chicago Civic Opera 1934 Nov 30-Dec 14 Choreographed, for company, Gold Standard and Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, Chicago Civic Opera 1935 Apr 14 First performed, in joint recital with Kreutzberg, solo dances Valse Mondaine, Fresh Fields, Night Melody, Body in Sunlight, Studebaker Theatre, Chicago 1935 Aug 18 First performed, in joint recital with Bentley Stone, in Fugitive Visions and Du Bist die Ruh 1935 Fall Ballet Director, choreographer, Première Danseuse, Chicago City Opera ( Mefistofele, Thaïs, Tannhäuser) 1935 Nov 23 Choreographed Love Song, Chicago City Opera 1936 Jan-Mar Toured in joint recitals with Harald Kreutzberg in Toronto and Montreal, and with Bentley Stone and Ruth Page Ballets, in U.S. 1936 Mar 1 & 2 First NYC performances of Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, Love Song, Gold Standard, Adelphi Theatre, NYC 1936 Aug 2 First performed Americans in Paris, with Paul Draper and company, Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, Ohio 1936 Oct 22 First performed with Bentley Stone, Hicks at the Country Fair, Women's Club of Wisconsin 1936 Nov-Dec Ballet Director, choreographer, Première Danseuse, Chicago Civic Opera 1937 Jan 25 First performed Evening in Granada, Liberty Theatre, Fort Sill, Texas 1937 Mar-Apr Toured Scandinavia in solo dance concerts 1937 Dec 18 Co-choreographed, with Bentley Stone, American Pattern, Civic Opera House, Chicago 1938 Jan-Mar Toured, with Bentley Stone, through the Midwest and South 1938 Jan 31 First performed, with Bentley Stone, Gavotte and Buenos Dias, Senorita, Mt Vernon, Iowa 1938 Mar 15 First performed Delirious Delusion, Highland Park, Ill. 1938 Spring With Bentley Stone, named Co-Director, Federal Ballet, Federal Theatre Project, Chicago WPA 1938 Jun 19 Co-Choreographed, with Bentley Stone, Frankie and Johnny, Great Northern Theatre, Chicago 1939 Mar 1? Co-Choreographed, with Bentley Stone, Guns and Castanets, and Scrapbook, Federal Ballet, Great Northern Theatre, Chicago 1939 Nov 14 Co-Choreographed, with Bentley Stone, Zephyr and Flora, Liebestod, Night of the Poor, Saudades; choreographed Three Shakespearean Heroines, Civic Theatre, Chicago 1940 Apr 1 First performed, Catarina; or, The Daughter of the Bandit, Sociedad Pro-Arte Musicale, Havana, Cuba 1940 Apr 15 First performed, American Songbag (Carl Sandburg), Irving Park Woman's Club, Palmer House, Chicago 1941 Mar 30 Choreographed Spanish Dance in Ballet Form and Chopin in our Time, Goodman Theatre, Chicago 1941 May 10 First performed Garçonette, Murat Theatre, Indianapolis 1941 Oct 29 First performed, in joint concert with Bentley Stone, Pavane for a Dead Infanta, Les Incroyables, Polka-Mazurka; choreographed Park Avenue Odalisque, Christian College Auditorium, (?) 1941 Nov 19 Debut, with Bentley Stone, two-month engagement, Rainbow Room, Rockefeller Center, NYC 1942 June-July First performances of dances with words and music 1942 Fall-Winter Ballet Director, choreographer, Chicago Opera 1943 Apr 13 First performed, full-evening solo program Dances with Words and Music, Humphrey-Weidman Studio, NYC 1943-45 Toured U.S. with solo concert Dances with Words and Music 1945 Jan 6 First performance of Frankie and Johnny, by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Music Hall, Kansas City, Mo. 1945 Feb 28 First New York performance of Frankie and Johnny, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, City Center, NYC 1945 Apr 23 Death of Marian Heinly Page 1946 Apr 26 Choreographed The Bells, Chicago University Composers' Series, Chicago 1946 Sept 17 Choreographed Les Petits Riens, Ballet for America, Her Majesty's Theatre, Montreal, Canada 1946 Aug 30 The Bells performed by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Jacob's Pillow Festival, Lee, Mass. 1946 Sept 6 First New York Performance of The Bells, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, City Center, NYC 1946 Dec 13 Choreographed Billy Sunday, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago 1947 July Choreographed L'Histoire du Soldat for League of Composers, NYC, and Society of Contemporary Music, Chicago 1947 Oct 2 Choreographed dances for Broadway musical Music in My Heart, Adelphi Theatre, NYC 1947 Nov 10-22 Page-Stone Ballet tour (North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Chicago) 1948 Mar 2 First New York performance of Billy Sunday, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, City Center, NYC 1948 Aug Artist-in-Residence, with Bentley Stone, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, Mass. 1948 Aug Choreographed, Harlequinade 1948 Nov 8-Dec 13 Page-Stone Ballet tour (Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) 1949 Mar 1 First performance of Love Song by Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, City Center, NYC 1949 Jul 11 First performed Beauty and the Beast (pas de deux), Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburg, Kansas 1949 Oct 29-Nov 11 Page-Stone Ballet tour (similar itinerary to 1948); Dance of the Hours first performed Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1950 May Co-Director and Principal Dancer, Les Ballets Américains, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, France 1951 Jan 27 Choreographed Revenge and Beethoven Sonata, Page-Stone-Camryn Ballet, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago 1951 Mar 30 Choreographed Sylvia Pas de Deux, Eighth Street Theatre, Chicago 1951 May 1 Choreographed Impromptu au Bois, Ballets des Champs-Elysées, Städtische Bühnen, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany 1951 June Toured Greek Islands with T. H. Fisher, Margot Fonteyn, Frederick Ashton, John Craxton 1951 Oct 17 Choreographed Revenge (revised), Ballets des Champs-Elysées 1952 June 22 Choreographed and danced Salome and Herod (pas de deux) with Bentley Stone, Meeker Memorial Amphitheatre, Evansville, Indiana 1953 Apr 30 Choreographed Vilia ( The Merry Widow) for London Festival Ballet, Palace Theatre, Manchester, England 1954 Jan 31 Choreographed Daughter of Herodias ( Salome full length), St Alphonsus Theatre, Chicago 1954 Dec 12 Choreographed El Amor Brujo and Triumph of Chastity, St Alphonsus Theatre, Chicago 1954 Winter Appointed Choreographer and Ballet-Director, Chicago Lyric Opera 1955 Nov 16 First Performance The Merry Widow by Chicago Opera Ballet, Lyric Theatre, Chicago 1955 Dec 26 First New York performance of The Merry Widow, Broadway Theatre 1956 Apr 25 Choreographed Susanna and the Barber, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago 1956 Nov 26-1957 Mar 13 First U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1958 Jan 13-Apr 13 2nd U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1959 Jan 13-Apr 13 3rd U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1959 Jan 13 Choreographed Camille, Columbia, Mo. 1960 Jan 11-Apr 9 4th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1960 Jan 11 Choreographed Carmen (designed by Remisoff), Clark College, Dubuque, Iowa 1961 Jan 9-Mar 26 5th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1961 Jan 9 Choreographed Concertino pour Trois and Die Fledermaus, Rockford, Ill. 1961 Summer Choreographed The Kansas Story 1961 Nov Choreographed The Harvest for Chicago Opera 1962 Jan 8-Mar 17 6th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1962 Jan 8 Carmen (designed by Daydé), performed, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1962 Mar 10 Chicago Opera Ballet, featuring Rudolf Nureyev in his U.S. stage debut, Brooklyn Academy of Music 1963 Jan 6-Mar 17 7th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1963 Jan 6 Choreographed Mephistofela and Pygmalion, Park Ridge, Ill. 1963 Oct 31 Choreographed Combinations, Teachers' College, Chicago 1964 Jan 6-Mar 15 8th U.S. tour Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1965 Jan 12-Mar 20 9th U.S. tour Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet 1965 Jan 12 Choreographed Bullets and Bonbons, Orpheum Theatre, Springfield, Ill. 1965 Nov 12 Choreographed Carmina Burana for Chicago Lyric Opera 1965 Dec 26 Choreographed The Nutcracker, Aire Crown Theatre, McCormick Place, Chicago 1966 Jan 10-Mar 13 10th U.S. tour of Chicago Opera Ballet, renamed Ruth Page's International Ballet 1966 Oct 31 Choreographed La Giarra (The Jar), for Chicago Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera House 1967 Jan 9-Mar 19 11th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's International Ballet 1967 Jan 9 Choreographed Carmina Burana, (new version) Kalamazoo, Mich. 1968 Jan 8-Mar 30 12th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's International Ballet 1968 Jan 8 Choreographed Bolero '68 (later Bolero '69), La Crosse, Wisc. 1969 Jan 13-Mar 30 13th U.S. tour of Ruth Page's International Ballet 1969 Jan 14 Choreographed Romeo and Juliet, Niles, Michigan 1969 Nov Thomas Hart Fisher dies 1970 July Choreographed Alice in the Garden, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, Mass. (later realized as a full-length ballet Alice in Wonderland; Alice through the Looking-glass, premièred 1978 at Arie Crown Theatre, McCormick Place, Chicago) 1971 Founded the Ruth Page Foundation for Dance, Chicago 1971 Oct 11-Nov 22 Toured with “Ruth Page's Invitation to the Dance.”; Content: The vast collection of personal and professional manuscript materials of Ruth Page, American dancer, choreographer, company director, teacher, and writer, is part of an even larger continuing gift of Ruth Page (begun in 1969), to the Dance Collection, Performing Arts Research Center, The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. In addition to costume and set designs, films, photographs, clippings, scrapbooks, posters, music scores, and programs, there are approximately 42,000 individual manuscript items in the collection, arranged in 2,793 folders and 13 notebooks. This guide to the manuscript materials leads off with a “Chronology” of Ruth Page's life through 1971 followed by a narrative “Summary” of her career until 1970 as reflected in the collection; a “Chronology of Dances” choreographed by Ruth Page; a “Series Description” which explains the organization of the collection; a “Folder List” which catalogues chronologically the folders according to Correspondence (C), Manuscripts (M), Notebooks (N), Publicity Material (P), and Business Records (R); and an index of authors and correspondents. The chronological Summary (with its references keyed by folder number) serves as a guide to material on individual dances, performers, and subjects. The Ruth Page Collection is by far the largest manuscript collection centered on the life and career of a single dance artist in the Dance Collection. Concerned primarily with ballet but also with other aspects of dance and related arts, the Ruth Page Collection, which spans more than half a century, provides source materials of undeniable importance for research. Approximately ninety per cent of the manuscript materials in the Ruth Page Collection are correspondence of a personal, professional, or artistic nature. Often, the same letters involve all three aspects of Miss Page's life. Because Ruth Page was almost totally absorbed in performing or in the making of her ballets, her husband Thomas Hart Fisher, a lawyer, handled her business affairs which, for the most part, were artistic affairs as well. Consequently, over 400 folders contain letters written by Mr Fisher during the forty-four years of his marriage to Miss Page. None of Mr Fisher's correspondence related to his legal practice is included. Approximately 200 folders contain letters written by Ruth Page over a period of fifty years. Since Fisher's letters nearly always spoke for himself and his wife, Miss Page's letters are primarily of a personal nature, written most often to her mother, Marian Heinly Page, and Fisher. There are, however, many letters to friends, dancers, and other artists. The letters of Ruth Page (and Thomas Fisher) to designers such as Nicholas Remisoff, Isamu Noguchi, Antoni Clavé, André Delfau, Georges Wakhévitch, Bernard Daydé, Rolf Gerard, and Leonor Fini, and composer/musicians such as Jerome Moross, Lehman Engel, Jacques Ibert, Darius Milhaud, Marius Constant, and Isaac Van Grove, are of particular interest. These letters provide a rare insight into the collaborative process involved in creating a ballet. Also noteworthy is the correspondence with certain dance companies, such as the negotiations for performances of Miss Page's ballets by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and with dancers engaged to perform with Ruth Page's own ballet companies, the Chicago Opera Ballet, later the Ruth Page International Ballet. Included among these dancers are Rudolf Nureyev, Sonia Arova, Henning Kronstam, Kirsten Simone, George Skibine, Marjorie Tallchief, Flemming Flindt, Josette Amiel, Mia Slavenska, and Oleg Briansky. In addition to the Correspondence 1916-70, there are manuscripts of essays, articles, lectures, and scenarios, and also notes, dance notations, and technical notes for concert dances or ballets. Of primary interest are Ruth Page's scenarios, notes, and written dance notations for many of her significant works, Americana and opera-into-ballets, including Frankie and Johnny, Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, An American Pattern, Guns and Castanets, Billy Sunday, Revenge,and Vilia(later The Merry Widow).Of special historical note are two copies of a seventy-one page manuscript of “A Tour of South America with the Pavlova Company,” written by her mother Marian Heinly Page, who accompanied Ruth on that 1918-19 tour. The thirteen notebooks in the collection are also of distinct historical interest. Included are schoolbooks, one with an essay on performances of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes written by Ruth in 1916; early notebooks of dance ideas with class and choreographic notes, including notes on classes with Enrico Cecchetti, Harald Kreutzberg, Luigi Albertieri, and Adolph Bolm, and notes for a dance choreographed for Ruth Page by George Balanchine in 1925; notebooks of notation for early ballets by Ruth Page (e.g., Cinderella, Pavane);and three looseleaf notebooks of typed dance notations for opera ballets, solos, and concert dances for Ruth Page and her partner Bentley Stone and for full ballets—a remarkable record of Miss Page's choreographic output through the 1930s. The publicity materials that follow the notebooks consist chiefly of program notes and pressbooks. Most of the notes in typescript and carbon copies included here are originals of program notes found in other files in the Dance Collection. Nearly forty years of business records reflect the various legal, financial, and managerial aspects of concert touring and the directing of ballet companies which Ruth Page headed since the late 1930s. Included here are contracts, expense records, insurance, tax, and payroll records, tour itineraries, managers' weekly reports, legal documents, and correspondence. Among the most outstanding items are documents related to obtaining the rights to Franz Lehár's music for The Merry Widow;more than a decade (1955-69) of records of the United States tours of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet and International Ballet through Columbia Artists Management; and files from 1962-66 regarding Ruth Page's production of The Nutcrackerfor McCormick Place, the Chicago theater complex.; Content: Summary of Events Covered by the Manuscripts of the Ruth Page Collection 1900-19 There is no correspondence written prior to 1918 in the Ruth Page Collection, but the early events in the life of Ruth Page are represented by other manuscript items in the collection, and by non-manuscript materials catalogued elsewhere in the Dance Collection. Records show that Ruth Marian Page was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 22 1900, the second child (she had one older brother, Lafayette, and one younger brother, Irvine) of Dr Lafayette and Mrs Marian Heinly Page. Numerous photographs of the Page family in the early years of the century testify to middle class respectability, though not to affluence. Ruth was a lovely but serious child, looking very much like her lovely but serious mother. Ruth's inquisitive, perceptive, and even critical mind is reflected in her notebooks from Bible school, ca. 1915-16 (N2) References such as “(N2)” and “(16C1”)” are to folders in the Collection (the last two digits of the year appear before the serial letter C designating Correspondence and the folder number)—see “Series Description” below. For easier reading, first names are used herein for major figures discussed. and the Tudor Hall School for Girls, 1915-16 (N3). Her consuming interest in dance while at Tudor Hall is clearly demonstrated by many essays, including profiles of Serge Oukrainsky, Anna Pavlova and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes when they visited Indianapolis in 1916. It was the legendary Anna Pavlova who drew young Ruth Page from being the “star dancer of Indianapolis” into the larger world of international dance. Pavlova invited fifteen-year-old Ruth to study with her company during the summer of 1915 at the Midway Gardens in Chicago. A scrapbook of photographs records this summer, showing Ruth with members of the company, including Muriel Stuart, Hilda Butsova, Enid Brunova, and Helene Saxova, and includes on-stage photos of Pavlova, taken by amateur photographer Ruth Page. Two years later Pavlova would again influence Ruth's career. Before that second opportunity, Ruth had to finish her last year at Tudor Hall, an enjoyable period for Ruth, since she was not only a bright, intelligent girl, but also a very popular one with her fellow classmates, male and female. Some high points of her high school years are recorded in “My Golden School Days,” a classbook which includes snapshots, dance cards, a report card, programmes, and other memorabilia. The first folder in the collection (16C1) does not contain correspondence, but it includes Ruth Page's diploma from Tudor Hall, dated June 2 1916. In the time between her graduation and her next association with Pavlova, Ruth went to New York to Miss Williams' and Miss McClellan's French School for Girls. Two photographs of the French School appear in the scrapbook. While in New York, the young girl pursued her dance training with the famous Adolph Bolm, a former star of the Diaghilev Company and Pavlova's ex-partner. Bolm's belief in his student's promise would carry her career forward in the following decade, but before that, he encouraged Ruth's second experience with Pavlova. In January 1918, Ruth joined the Pavlova Company for a tour of South America that lasted more than a year. The materials contained in the four folders of 1918 correspondence are concerned with that tour, including Ruth's contract with Pavlova (18C4), letters from Dr Page and his son Lafayette, who were in Europe in World War I (18C2), and letters home from Ruth and her mother (who accompanied Ruth on the tour) to Ruth's school and dancing chum, Eleanor Shaler (18C1). Mrs Page's detailed account of the trip, “A Tour of South America with the Pavlova Company” (M1-2), is a fascinating travelogue, but provides only a few glimpses of the great ballerina and her company in performance. There are, however, glimpses from Ruth herself. Even in adolescence, Ruth's artistic standards were highly developed; she was as critical of her own work as that of others. Remarks written on a program of July 21 1918 (*MGZR-Res) note that Vlasta Maslova (one of the dancers) is “not bad, but no personality—rather insignificant and vaudevillish, but does wonderfulturns,” that Hilda Butsova “has improved a lot,” and that “I am improving a lot—am getting much stronger—the work is by no means easy.” Ivan Clustine, ballet master of the company, had recently choreographed Thaïs,a ballet that was “wonderful for Mme [Pavlova] & a big success, but rotten for the company.” In a letter to Eleanor Shaler written December 15 1918 (18C1), Ruth consoled her friend on the recent death of her mother, and in doing so remembered Mrs Shaler “taking you and me to the opera, trying her level best to explain the plot to you and me and get a little something into our heads, while we spent most of our time giggling and worrying her to death at concerts because we would dance to the music with our hands!” A further insight into Ruth's view of herself comes later in the letter when she asks her friend, who also might have pursued a dancing career: “Are you glad you went to college [Vassar], or do you think you would have rather gone on dancing, and `gone to perdition' with me?” The war in Europe over, Dr Page and Lafayette returned home early in 1919, and Mrs Page and Ruth left the Pavlova company to join them. The six folders of 1919 correspondence give little detail of Ruth's life that year but they do reflect her association with Adolph Bolm (19C1), which culminated in his engaging the nineteen-year-old girl to star in his ballet production of Oscar Wilde's The Birthday of the Infanta,with music by John Alden Carpenter and designs by Robert Edmond Jones. The contract for her appearances as the Infanta at the Chicago Opera in December 1919 is in folder 19C6. 1920-29 From only eleven folders in 1916-19, the correspondence in the twenties increases to 221 folders, primarily due to “the men in Ruth's life,” who noticed not only her appeal as a developing artist, but as a fascinating young woman as well. Ruth's letters record her reactions to the attentions of her “beaux,” but remain chiefly concerned with her dancing, which diversified throughout the decade. Continuing his patronage, Bolm next brought Ruth to London, as première danseuse of his Ballet Intime, appearing at the London Coliseum. Ruth's instant success with the London audiences is reflected in her “fan letters” (20C10), perhaps most poignantly represented by one dated August 12 1920, from one Lillian Kingston, who concludes her praise of Miss Page's performances with “you should not dance so beautifully.” Only six folders contain correspondence from 1921. But the letters from Ruth Page to her parents (21C1) tell us she was still touring as première danseuse of Bolm's company. From Galveston, Texas on March 25, Ruth wrote to her parents of an idea she had for making up dances of her own. “By the way,” she began, “how do you think it would be to dance some of those poems and nursery rhymes of [James Whitcomb] Riley [a personal friend of her parents]. I think something most interesting could be done, if we could get some good music. `Little Orphan Annie'—`The Raggedy Man,' etc.—are any of our Riley books illustrated? Find out for me, will you?” The seeds of dancing to words and music planted in childhood were taking root now, but would not come to real fruition for nearly two decades. In 1922, Ruth Page's career took a turn away from ballet and brought her to the Broadway stage. She was engaged by Sam H. Harris and Hassard Short (22C11-12) to appear as the star dancer of the second version of Irving Berlin's hit show “The Music Box Revue.” Earlier that year, she appeared with Bolm in the first dance film with synchronized sound, Danse Macabre,photographed by the great Francis Bruguière (22C6) and directed by Dudley Murphy (22C44). It was also in 1922 that Ruth began receiving “love letters” from some earnest “beaux,” Bill Murray (22C8), Sviatoslav Roerich (22C9), and John Crane (22C7). Crane was a friend from Ruth's childhood summers spent at Woods Hole, Cape Cod, and Roerich was the exotic painter, son of the even more exotic Nicholas Roerich, who designed Michel Fokine's “Polevetsian Dances” from Prince Igorand Vaslav Nijinsky's controversial production of Le Sacre du Printempsfor Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Murray does not seem to have been too seriously “in the running.” Interestingly, there are two letters in the 1922 correspondence from John Crane to his Harvard friend, Thomas Hart Fisher, a young Chicago lawyer (22C13). The 1923 correspondence folders nearly triple in number over any previous year, mostly due to the full-scale “campaign” for Ruth's hand led by John Crane (23C6-16, 89 letters), Tex Moore, a New York lawyer in the firm of Paul Cravath (23C17), and Sviatoslav Roerich (23C19-31, ca. 150 letters). The volume of letters is accounted for not only by the fervor of her beaux, but by the fact that Ruth was on tour with the road company of “The Music Box Revue” for 1923-24 (23C36), and also by the fact that two of her three most serious suitors were themselves touring Europe. In fact, Svetia (Roerich) and John Crane joined forces at the Hotel de Crillon, Paris, on October 19 1923, and wrote a joint letter to Ruth. In a rather tipsy style that opened with “Our Darling...,” the young men praised the “end of a perfect day,” their “perfect harmony,” and their freedom, and ended with the plea “come over to Paris immediately, we beg you, or otherwise you will miss enjoying freedom with us together.... A basketfull of mingled Kisses to our only one. John and Sviatoslav.” A little more than two weeks after this letter, Ruth wrote to her mother from the Drake Hotel, Chicago, where she was staying while on tour. At the end of a long “note” discussing the show and plans for a New Year's Eve party for the cast in Indianapolis, Ruth turned to the subject of her ardent beaux. “Don't worry about my getting married,” she assured them, “Tex [Moore] or Bill [Murray] or John [there is curiously no mention of “Svetia”] all say I could go on dancing—Bill is out of the question—I like him as a friend—so it's probably between Tex and John. Tex doesn't know a thing about art or dancing but he's sympathetic—of course I don't think either of them would like me to be in a revue and I must say I don't blame them, and I don't know what else there is to do. I can't decide which one I like best. I like John for some things and Tex for others, so there you are—I like my dancing better than any of them.” Although other “beaux” pressed their suit throughout 1924, it was a relative newcomer, Thomas Hart Fisher, introduced to Ruth by John Crane, who competed most seriously with her love of dance. The relationship started off quite formally, with a letter of introduction from Crane, and Tom relates his first impressions of their meeting in a letter to him dated January 3 1924 (24C49): “I called your friend at the Auditorium Hotel and we had tea together at the Russian Tea Room and later we lunched and talked at some length. The night before she left for Milwaukee, December 23, we met at the Bolms', of whom she is a great friend. Adolph Bolm, as you probably have heard from her, is the Russian dancer at the present time ballet master of the Chicago Opera Company. Both he and his wife are devoted to Ruth Page, and I quite share their appreciation of her fine qualities. We talked together at some length there. “It is a rare thing to find a girl of her background who is willing to do the kind of work she is doing, and rarer still to find a girl who is willing to put her work ahead of what most girls regard as the principal pleasures and objects of life. You know how it happens that occasionally one meets a person for whose aims and ideals one has an instantaneous appreciation; and the fact that we had a common meeting ground through our friendship for you made it possible for us to be very frank and I hope we have become good friends.... In every way a very remarkable girl, John, and I am happy to think that she seems to be so genuinely fond of you.” Though only a first impression, it was the sentiments expressed in this letter that fused the lives of Ruth Page and Tom Fisher for the next forty-five years. A year later on February 8 1925, Ruth Marian Page and Thomas Hart Fisher were married in Indianapolis, Indiana. Two weeks later, they were in Paris on their honeymoon, and Ruth, incapable of staying very long or far from dance was, with her new husband, on her way to Monte Carlo, home of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the world's greatest ballet company. Pierre Monteux, the distinguished conductor, who conducted the historic world premières of Petrouchkaand Le Sacre du Printemps,had met Ruth and Tom in Paris and wrote to her February 23 1925, saying he had sent a letter of introduction to Diaghilev for her (25C20). In Monte Carlo, on March 11, Ruth wrote a note herself to Diaghilev, reminding him of his agreement to see her dance the following afternoon at 5:30. She concluded with a belief she would often repeat in moments of frustration through the next fifty years: “Je voudrais vous dire comme je suis enchantée de voir encore une fois votre ballet—nous avons si peu aux Etats-Unis qui est intéressant. Très sincèrement, RUTH PAGE” [I would like to tell you how delighted I am to see your ballet once again—we have so little in the United States that is interesting. Very sincerely, RUTH PAGE].” Two days later she wrote home to Indianapolis telling her mother of her audition for Diaghilev. The impresario arrived an hour late, which disturbed her, since she felt the delay affected her being “warmed up” enough to dance her best. But Enrico Cecchetti, ballet master of the Ballets Russes, with whom she had studied in London in 1920, gave her moral support, and Diaghilev, impressed, accepted her as the first American women in the Ballets Russes. In her detailed description of the company, she mentions Vera Nemchinova, Vincenzo Celli, Chester Hale, Vladimir Dukelsky (later famous in America as Vernon Duke), and “one little English girl—only 14 years old—who makes quite a hit here,” Alicia Markova (25C2). A month later, Ruth was still in Monte Carlo, but Tom returned alone from his honeymoon to resume his law practice in Chicago. In a letter dated April 16, Ruth told Tom about the company routine, which she found interesting but not inspiring for her career. She asked him to tell her more about Bolm's plans to stage Coq d'Orat the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (25C4). A week later, Ruth's relationship with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes eroded. Her fascination with the work of a young choreographer just out of Russia, George Balanchivadze (soon to be Balanchine), prompted her to ask him to choreograph a dance for her. The dance, “Polka Mélancolique,” was immediately recorded by Ruth in her own verbal notation (N6). Balanchivadze had just been engaged to choreograph for the Ballets Russes by Diaghilev, whose reaction to Ruth's action prompted the break. “Diaghilev is still furious—,” she wrote to Tom, “he found out about Balanchine's teaching us a dance and he thinks it was awful of me and that I had a terrible nerve to use his room and his pianist, etc., and he is furious with [Michel] Pavlov. I'm afraid Diag. will be my enemy for life, but I really don't care much—I never would have dreamed that it would have made the slightest difference to him.” With the confidence of youth and self-assurance, she concluded her appraisal of the affair with a sense of humor, characteristic of her normal reaction to any difficult situation. “I haven't been paid by Diaghilev and don't expect to be. I don't think I would ever accept it if they offered it to me. Dukelsky thinks my artistic career is ruined and finished—isn't that amusing! Well—they haven't had such a scandal for a long time” (25C4). The situation resolved itself in the offer from Bolm for Ruth to dance the Queen of Shemàkhan in Coq d'Or,the role Ruth most hungered to dance. Ruth's next letters to her mother and Tom are written en route to Buenos Aires and during her performances at the Teatro Colon where she danced Coq d'Orand the “Ballerina” in Petrouchka,and in a new opera, Lorelei,at a command performance for the Prince of Wales on August 18 (25C2,5). In November, she was back in Chicago dancing in Bolm's Ballets Intime and the newly founded artistic enterprise, the Chicago Allied Arts. Only twelve folders contain materials on the events of 1926, the year which saw Ruth's further appearances with the Chicago Allied Arts, dancing in one of the first complete productions of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire,her first summer as solo dancer and choreographer at the Ravinia Opera nearby, and the premières of her first two “hit dances,” Peter Pan and the Butterfly(February 1 1926) and The Flapper and the Quarterback(December 26), most probably the first “Americana” ballet by a native-born American choreographer. It was also the year which brought the invitation for Ruth Page to appear as the first American solo dancer at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in the first three months of 1927 (26C10). Between January and March 1927, Ruth wrote to Tom constantly, chronicling her successful, if not totally fulfilling, experience at the Metropolitan (27C1-11). But it was Mrs Page, with Ruth in New York, who gave Tom the full story of Ruth's triumphant debut in The Bartered Brideon February 7 (27C17). In April, Ruth was once again with Bolm and the Chicago Allied Arts (27C12-14, 24-25) and in the summer at Ravinia. Her career now taking on its own momentum, Ruth embarked on a full-scale tour of her own, documented in the first of “Business Correspondence” folders (27C24-33), publicity materials (P1), and a letter dated July 23 1927, from a young dancer named Agnes De Mille, asking to be included on one of Ruth's concerts under “professional management” (27C19). The touring and recitals continued into 1928, culminating in Ruth's appearance as Terpsichore in Bolm's choreography of the world première of Stravinsky's Apollon Musagetes,commissioned by the [UNK] Sprague Coolidge Foundation, at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. This ballet was to become world famous when premièred in Paris on June 12 1928, by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with choreography by George Balanchine, an [UNK] anticipated in a letter to Ruth from her friend, Chicago dancer/poet Mark [UNK] (28C23). After another summer at Ravinia, where more dances were choreographed for all-ballet programs, Ruth decided to accept an invitation to appear at the coronation ceremonies of Japan's Emperor Hirohito. [UNK] significant was Adolph Bolm's incredulous reaction to Ruth's decision, which, in letters to Tom, he considered tantamount to outright betrayal (28C27). The time for a break with her mentor must have come, because Ruth sailed for Japan on September 6 1928. She danced with American dancer Edwin Strawbridge in varied programs of solo dances and duets at the Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, throughout October. In November, she was dancing in Peking and from there she began a Grand Tour throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, returning to the United States in the spring of 1929. There is no correspondence recording this extraordinary experience, because Dr and Mrs Page and Tom accompanied Ruth for [UNK] or all of the tour. What documentation there is of the events of this period (as [UNK] as those of 1926-28) are found in the scrapbooks, programs, and photographs catalogued elsewhere in the Dance Collection. There is one notebook of poems (N8 inspired by her exotic surroundings. She returned from her fourth summer at [UNK], and at the end of the year premièred the first version of another Americana ballet, Oak Street Beach,to music by Chicago composer Clarence Loomis. 1930-39 Only six folders contain correspondence for the years 1930-33. From other sources, we know that Ruth went to Russia in March 1930, an event she recorded in an article “Through Propaganda to Art” (M4) and that, in the summer, she choreographed one of her biggest “hits” of the decade Bolero(Iberian Monotone)and, in the fall, Pre-Raphaeliteand Modern Diana. In February 1931, Ruth danced the “Princess” in one of the earliest productions of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat.Her [UNK] summer [UNK] Ravinia was highlighted by her ballet Cinderella,which she commissioned from French composer Marcel Delannoy; the record of the copyright is contained in folder 31C1 and Ruth's choreographic notes are in notebook N9. From February 16-19 1932, Ruth appeared at the Sociedad Pro-Arte Musicale, in Havana, Cuba, at the same time as George Gershwin, to whose music she had made dances as early as 1928. The highly charged relationship of Ruth Page and the brilliant young Japanese-American artist [UNK] Noguchi is manifest in Noguchi's letters to Ruth in closedCorrespondence foldér 32C2. The fruit of their artistic collaboration was Noguchi's “sac” [UNK] for Ruth's avant-garde dance Expanding Universe(M28), which premièred November 2 1932, in the highly unlikely locale of Fargo, North Dakota. Accompanied at the piano by the champion of American modern dance, composer Louis Horst, Ruth presented a full program of her most representative dances to date at the John Golden Theatre in New York on January 29 1933. A month later, she danced with Austrian expressionist dancer Harald Kreutzberg, whom she had met and studied with in Salzburg the previous summer. That summer, Ruth presented, for the Chicago Century of Progress, an all-black (with herself the exception) ballet, La Guilablesse,composed by the black composer William Grant Still six years earlier (26C8), but premièred at the Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, June 16 1933. In July she danced at the Cincinnati Zoological Park in Bolero,conducted by Isaac Van Grove, with whom she would develop an outstanding musical collaboration twenty years later. Notes on most of the dance classes, dances, and creative thoughts of Ruth Page in 1933 and throughout the decade are in notebook N10. Ruth's tours in 1934, mostly with Kreutzberg, are reflected in Business Correspondence folders 34C3-7. The major creative event of the year was the première of Ruth's Americana ballet Hear Ye! Hear Ye!(M29,89-90), the first produced ballet with a score by Aaron Copland (Music Division). Costume designs for this ballet by Nicholas Remisoff are catalogued elsewhere in the Dance Collection. Remisoff shared a long artistic collaboration with Ruth Page from the days of the Chicago Allied Arts until the late 1950s and, in addition to his many letters, hundreds of his designs for Ruth's ballets are in the Dance Collection. Fifteen of the twenty correspondence folders for 1935 are Business Correspondence with Louis H. Bourdon (R1), Theodore Fisher, and M. C. Turner, among others (35C6-20). They concern the extensive touring Ruth engaged in that year, including appearances throughout the West with Harald Kreutzberg in the spring and in the Northeast with Bentley Stone, her partner from the Chicago City Opera Company in the summer (M95 and P6-7). Love Song(M91-92), a full-company work choreographed by Ruth to Schubert waltzes, was premièred at the Chicago Opera on November 23, at the end of a fall tour (M93-94). Amidst more touring with Kreutzberg and Stone (R2) and with her “Ruth Page Ballets” throughout the year (36C6-26), Ruth returned to the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens to première in her ballet to Gershwin's An American in Paris(M96), in which she danced with tap dance virtuoso Paul Draper. In the fall, she returned to the Chicago City Opera to choreograph ballets in operas including Aïda, Lakme,and The Bartered Bride(N11). In numerous letters to Tom, Ruth reported the events of her solo dance tour of Scandinavia and visit to London in the spring of 1937 (37C2-6). Her impressions were formally organized and presented as an article, “A Dancer Glimpses Europe” (M7), which eventually appeared in the New York Times.After more touring in the United States (P8-9), Ruth returned for the winter season of the Chicago Civic Opera where on December 18 1937 she presented her most ambitious Americana ballet to date, American Pattern,represented in the collection by choreographic notes (N13), scenario (M30-31), and costume and prop lists (M96), and by programs, photographs, and designs catalogued elsewhere. Only eight folders of correspondence represent 1938, the year in which Ruth Page and Bentley Stone, as co-directors of the Dance Section of the Chicago Federal Theatre Project of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), presented perhaps their most famous Americana ballet, Frankie and Johnny(M98-99), on June 19 1938 at the Great Northern Theatre. Encouraged by the great success of Frankie and Johnny,Ruth and Bentley planned a socially “relevant,” updated version of Carmen,with music by Jerome Moross, composer of American Patternand Frankie and Johnny(38C6). Guns and Castanets, “Carmen” transported to Civil War Spain (M33-34), premièred on March 1 1939, on a program with “Scrapbook,” a selective retrospective of Ruth's (and some of Bentley's) dances created during that decade. That fall, Ruth and Bentley presented a program of seven new works, solos, and duets at the Civic Theatre, Chicago on November 14 1939. 1940-49 From 103 folders representing the 1930s, the correspondence of the 1940s grew to fill 709 folders, mostly because of the intensified business negotiations of Tom Fisher to have Ruth's ballets, new and old, performed by the famous Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo headed by Serge Denham, and Ruth's correspondence with actual and potential artistic collaborators. None of the ten folders of 1940 correspondence records the South American tour of the Page-Stone Ballet (the first American ballet company to make one) in April, but Ruth's article “Reflections on Dancing in South America” (M9) was published in the New York Times.Ruth also began presenting talks related to her artistic beliefs, such as “Music and Dance” and “Words with Dance” (M8, 10) at meetings of various arts clubs and organizations. On March 30 1941, Ruth created an “off-beat” treatment of the music of Chopin, Chopin in Our Time,which included words to accompany the music and dance, a concept Ruth would explore throughout the decade. For Chopinshe originally considered John La Touche (41C-15) for writing the words, but the collaboration never materialized. Also in March, Lincoln Kirstein, having heard of Ruth and Bentley's success in South America the previous year, wanted Frankie and Johnnyfor the South American tour of his American Ballet Caravan (41C13), but negotiations never succeeded. Another ballet project begun that year by Ruth was a ballet based on the life and sermons of the American evangelist Billy Sunday. She approached Kurt Weill, composer of Three Penny Opera, Mahagonny,and Lady in the Darkto write the music, and he found the idea appealing (41C19-20). Europe was already torn by war, and Ruth corresponded with and received censored news from her friends there, including Kreutzberg and Marie Rambert (41C21). In the fall of 1941, Ruth and Bentley Stone were engaged to appear at the posh Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York (41C59-60). This otherwise pleasant diversion in Ruth's career was interrupted by her most serious marital crisis (41C2-6, 8-11) and the entry of the United States into World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ruth performed almost entirely on her own from 1942-44, since Bentley was drafted early in 1942 (42C20-23, 43C31-34, 44C31-33). During this time Ruth presented various programs of “Dances with Words and Music” to poetry by e. e. cummings, Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, Archibald MacLeish, Carl Sandburg, Li Po, Edna St Vincent Millay, Hilaire Belloc, Langston Hughes, and others, most with original music by Lehman Engel (42C8; 44C20-21). Her extensive tours with this unusual program throughout the United States are documented by numerous letters to Mrs Page (42C1-12; 43C1-12; 44C1-10) and Tom (42C3; 43C13-18; 44C11-12). The most “official” presentation of “Dances with Words and Music” was April 13 1943, at the studio of Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in New York. The volume of correspondence in these three years shows the very prominent involvement of Tom as Ruth's business manager, an increase from six folders of his business correspondence in 1942 to seventeen in 1944. Most important of these letters are those beginning negotiations with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to present Frankie and Johnny(44C39-40). A contract was signed (R12) and Frankie and Johnnywas presented by the Ballet Russe for the first time in New York (amidst scandal and acclaim) on February 28 1945 (45C51-54). Ruth and Bentley (on a brief leave) danced the opening night in the title roles, which were danced thereafter by Frederic Franklin and Ruthanna Boris. With Frankiein the repertoire of the Ballet Russe, Ruth turned her attention to creating her ballet Billy Sundayand to a new idea based on The Bellsby Edgar Allan Poe. Kurt Weill seems to have been too involved in his Broadway projects, so Ruth turned to composers John Cage (45C6-7), Virgil Thomson (45C47), Nicholas Nabokov (45C29-30), and Remi Gassman (45C15-16), finally settling on the last to compose the score. The possibility of Alexander Calder designing the ballet fizzled (C45C8-9) and Paul du Pont, who had designed Frankie and Johnny,was contracted (45C12). For The BellsRuth engaged the great French composer Darius Milhaud (45C25-26), and, for the first time in over a decade, Isamu Noguchi (45C18-19) would design for Ruth, this time with the assistance of Yuji Ito (45C18-19). The Bellswas produced by the Ballet Russe in 1946 (in August at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, Mass. and September 6 at the City Center, New York) and the short-lived company Ballet for America (46C42-43) premièred Ruth's swiftly created Les Petits Riens(M41). But Billy Sundayreceived only a work-in-progress performance by Ruth's own Chicago-based group in December. Meanwhile, complicated negotiations continued between Tom and the Ballet Russe (46C44-49). Billy Sundayfailed to materialize in 1947, but the Page-Stone Ballet went on its first tour in November, appearing in North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Texas, and Chicago (R14-15). On March 2 1948 Billy Sunday(M11) was finally premièred by the Ballet Russe in New York, and Tom immediately commenced negotiations with the Ballet Russe (48C58-64) to revive Love Song,Ruth's 1935 Schubert ballet, with a new musical arrangement by Lucien Cailliet (48C16). Ideas for new ballets were teeming in Ruth's mind. Soirée de Bostonhad a scenario inspired by the Boston patroness of the arts Mrs Jack Gardner (M43), with words by British aesthete Sir Harold Acton (48C12-13) and music by Antal Dorati (48C20-21). Belle Starr,based on the life of the notorious lady of the American West (M42), was another and Ruth corresponded with Jacques Ibert about composing yet another (48C30-31). In August 1948 Ruth and Bentley appeared in their Harlequinade(M47), a “ballet play” with words by Robert Halsband (48C28-29). In November and December, the Page-Stone Chicago Grand Opera Ballet toured the deep South (R16-21; P11a), which Ruth described in letters to Tom (48C4-5). Love Song,Ruth's last ballet for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was premièred on March 1 1949. The relationship between Tom and Ruth and Denham had become increasingly strained, and all of Ruth's ballets were withdrawn from the repertoire before the end of the year (49C58-59). Work on Soirée de Bostoncontinued with Acton (49C6-7) and Dorati (49C17), but the work would never be produced. The Ibert ballet, now called The Triumph of Chastity(49C21-22), would not be produced for nearly six more years. The only new ballet of the year, Beauty and the Beast(M47), to music of Tchiakovsky with designs by Remisoff (49C21-22), was presented in its entirety during the October-November tour of the South (R22). 1950-59 Over 800 folders represent the activities of Ruth Page and Thomas H. Fisher throughout the fifties, the decade in which they secured substantial financial security as a result of Tom's winning a long court case which he had fought almost since the time he and Ruth were married. The details of this case are not represented in the Ruth Page Collection, and it is only referred to tangentially in the correspondence. Therefore, the difficulties which arose some sixteen years later are almost incomprehensible hensible when referred to in Ruth's and Tom's letters in the late sixties. Throughout the fifties, however, Ruth and Tom engaged in ambitious artistic projects, culminating in the founding of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet and the beginning of an entirely new repertoire of Ruth Page ballets. All the events of 1950 are overshadowed by the controversial season of Ruth's and Bentley's company Les Ballets Americains (R25-26, P12) which went to Paris with members of the José Limón Company (Limón, Pauline Lawrence, Betty Jones, Lucas Hoving, and Pauline Koner). The first American ballet company to perform in Europe after World War II, Les Ballets Americains, managed by the French agency Le Bureau de Concerts de Paris (50C79), appeared at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in May (50C95). In her article “Paris Dance Audiences” (M15), Ruth describes the outrage and scandal that greeted their repertoire, which included Frankie and Johnny, The Bells, Billy Sunday, Americans in Paris, The Moor's Pavane,and La Malinche.Paris seemed to be divided into two camps and prominent among the pro-Page and Stone camp was Le Corbusier, who considered Frankie and Johnny “Homeric” and “Rabelaisian” (50C). Ruth Page survived the “scandal of 1950” and returned to Paris the following year to choreograph the first of her innovative operas-into-ballets for Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées. Revenge,based on Verdi's Il Trovatore(M50-52), had designs by the Catalan painter Antoni Clavé (51C20-21), who had created a sensation with his designs for Roland Petit's ballet Carmen.Although he would only design one other ballet for Ruth, Clavé formed an enduring friendship with her and Tom. The Triumph of Chastity(M45-46) was still in progress, and Ruth approached Raoul Dufy to design the ballet (51C28-29) while Ibert continued to work on the score (51C36-37). For the first time, Ruth and Tom decided to indulge themselves, and not only bought a small villa in St Tropez, on the Côte d'Azur, but toured the Greek Islands with the celebrated British ballerina Margot Fonteyn, whom Ruth and Tom had met the previous year, starting yet another enduring friendship (51C33-34). Also on the trip was Frederick Ashton, England's distinguished choreographer (51C12). In 1952 began four years of legal entanglements concerning the subject of Ruth's next opera-into-ballet, The Merry Widow(R31-59; 52C89-90). Triumph of Chastitywas still in progress. Clavé's letters reveal he was designing Ruth's idea for a new ballet based on Rossini's The Barber of Seville(52C8). Another new opera-into-ballet planned was Salome(52C91-92), for which Isaac Van Grove intended to obtain the rights to Richard Strauss's score. Yet another set of negotiations was initiated by Lincoln Kirstein to engage Ruth to stage the highly successful Revengefor his young company, the New York City Ballet (52C25-27). A pas de deux version of the Salomeand the new Beethoven Sonata(M54), of the previous year, were the only new ballets performed that year. Early in 1953, Ruth was in London to choreograph her first version of The Merry Widow,called Vilia(M55-56), for the London Festival Ballet. Ruth's letters to Tom describe her experiences at this time (53C1-7). At the same time, the complex negotiations for rights to this ballet continued (53C77-90). Meanwhile, the Salomeballet, now alternately called Retributionand Daughter of Herodias(M57) was still in progress, as was Barber of Seville,to be called Susanna and the Barber. The full-company version of Salomeor Daughter of Herodiaswas finally premièred on January 31 1954, at the St Alphonsus Theatre, Chicago but the final production of Triumph,with designs by Leonor Fini (54C96), did not première until December 12. Also on that program at the St Alphonsus Theatre was Ruth's version of de Falla's El Amor Brujo(M58) with designs by Georges Wakhévitch (54C27-29), who had also designed Vilia. Among Tom Fisher's many negotiations were plans for productions of Duenna(54C63-68), Kiss Me, Kate(54C69-75), and Lady in the Dark(54C76-85), none of which materialized. What did materialize that year, however, was far more significant. Carol Fox and Lawrence F. Kelly approached Ruth to become resident ballet mistress/choreographer of the new Lyric Theatre, later the Chicago Lyric Opera (54C44-46). In addition, Hassard Short, veteran producer of legendary Broadway shows for three decades, who had engaged Ruth as star dancer of the Music Box Revue, suggested taking Ruth's Merry Widowon a double bill to Broadway (54C20-27, 86-95). The climax of Ruth Page's highly successful first year with the Lyric Theatre was the double-bill presentation of The Merry Widow(starring Alicia Markova with new costumes and scenery by Rolf Gerard [R54]), and Revengeat the Lyric Theatre on November 16 1955, followed by a week's engagement at the Broadway Theatre beginning December 26 (M102-07; R55). Impressed by the success of the Broadway Theatre engagement, Columbia Artists Management approached Ruth and Tom to organize a company to tour the United States, starting in the fall of 1956 and extending into 1957 (56C16-17). This would be the first of twelve tours of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet, which, earlier in the fall season, would dance in opera ballets at the Lyric Theatre (Opera). Though incomplete, the Business Records representing all of these tours are valuable in providing itineraries, salary lists, wage and tax statements, company managers' reports, insurance records, and other materials. The 1956-57 tour starred Bentley Stone, Marjorie Tallchief, and George Skibine (for the first half) and Sonia Arova and Job Sanders (for the second) in The Merry Widowand Revenge.Before the '57 tour concluded, Columbia Artists asked for a 1958 tour. Tom corresponded with ballerina Mia Slavenska (57C20-22) and Oleg Briansky (57C3-4) for that tour (R71-73), which, in addition to Widowand Revenge,would include Triumph of Chastity, Amor Brujo,and Susanna and the Barberin the repertoire. Plans for 1959, the third tour, had to be made in 1958, and Ruth and Tom re-engaged George Skibine and Marjorie Tallchief (58C16-19). Ruth planned to choreograph especially for Tallchief another opera-into-ballet, Camille,for which Isaac Van Grove would arrange Verdi's music from La Traviata.During 1959, Melissa Hayden, ballerina of the New York City Ballet, John Kriza, leading dancer of American Ballet Theatre, and Veronika Mlakar, a Yugoslav ballerina, were contracted for the 1960 tour. Carmen,with designs by Remisoff (59C10), would be the new opera-into-ballet. 1960-69 For the 1961 tour (R91-92), Ruth translated yet another opera (operetta), Die Fledermaus,into ballet. For this ballet and for Concertino pour Trois,an abstract ballet (a departure for her) to a commissioned score by Marius Constant (60C8-10), Ruth engaged French designer André Delfau (60C11), a new collaborator, who would thereafter remain her principal designer. Sonia Arova (60C1-2), Melissa Hayden (61C7), and Maria Tallchief were the ballerinas engaged for the '61 tour. The 1962 tour (R94-97), would include a new production of Carmenwith designs by French designer Bernard Daydé (61C52-58). But in 1961 Ruth created The Kansas Story(61C1-3,59) and first approached Edward G. Lee to create a full-length Nutcrackerfor Chicago's McCormick Place (61C60-61). Perhaps most important to the dance world were the results of Sonia Arova's letters to Ruth and Tom referring to the recent defection of the spectacular Russian dancer, Rudolf Nureyev (61C5-6). On March 10 1962 Rudolf Nureyev made his American stage debut dancing the Don Quixotepas de deux with Sonia Arova in a performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet. Immediately after that triumphant appearance, Ruth and Tom, with Arova's useful information (62C5-8), began negotiations for Nureyev to appear at the Chicago Lyric Opera that fall in Fokine's “Polovetsian Dances” from Prince Igorand in Ruth's own Merry Widow.They were happily successful (62C66-70). Sadly, however, plans for the Nutcrackerproduction had to be postponed indefinitely due to Edward G. Lee's suddenly developing throat cancer. Everything, including Rolf Gerard's designs, would lie dormant until 1965 (62C92-95; R102-38). Ruth's collaboration with André Delfau (62C16-17) and Isaac Van Grove (62C32) resulted in two new ballets for the 1963 tour (R97-101), Pygmalionand Mephistophela.Appearing as guest stars that season would be Danish dancers Henning Kronstam and Kirsten Simone, both of whom Ruth and Tom had been in contact with for several years (62C24-25,28; 63C14-18). Kronstam and Simone returned for the 1964 tour (R129-134; P14), which featured only one new ballet, Combinations,an off-beat abstract ballet with an original score by Van Grove (64C27a-28) and designs by Delfau (ndC4). After a two-year hiatus, Ruth created one more opera-into-ballet, The Chocolate Soldier(also called Bullets and Bonbons,or All's Fair in Love and War)for the 1965 tour (R137-41), which starred Karl Musil from the Vienna Opera Ballet (64C19-20), and Bulgarian-born ballerina, Irina Borowska (64C5-8). Edward G. Lee, who had accepted the idea for Ruth Page's Nutcrackerat McCormick Place, recovered from his bout with cancer and plans resumed as if they had never ceased (65C58-63). The almost frenzied efforts to get the dormant production on for Christmas 1965 are recorded in 65C97-126, 30 folders of correspondence with, among others, dancers (Anton Dolin, Kronstam, and Simone), designer (Rolf Gerard), and costumers (Karinska, Grace Miceli, Eaves, Lawrence Vlady). Almost miraculously, The Nutcracker,choreographed by Ruth Page, premièred on schedule at McCormick Place's Arie Crown Theatre on December 26 1965. In addition to the flood of activity in preparation for Nutcracker,the Lyric Opera announced that Carl Orff's Carmina Buranawould be staged that fall, with choreography by Ruth (65C55-56), and Columbia Artists asked for new ballets for the 1966 tour, and a new “grander” name for the Chicago Opera Ballet (65C44-47). Tom managed to obtain the rights to perform Flemming Flindt's The Lesson(65C5-6, 10-11; R145), but Ruth's letter to Kurt Jooss requesting his anti-war masterpiece The Green Tablecame to nothing (65C17). The 1966 tour (R142-50) was the last under the title of Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet, and featured Josette Amiel as guest artist, in addition to Patricia Klekovic, Kenneth Johnson, Orrin Kayan, Dolores Lipinski, and Larry Long, dancers who almost all had been with Ruth from the beginning of the Columbia Artists tours. (Unfortunately, there are very few letters from these artists probably because most of their performing lives had been spent so close to Ruth.) The first Nutcrackerseason at the Arie Crown had been a sell-out, and thereafter became an annual Christmas event sponsored by the Chicago Tribune.In 1966, Erik Bruhn, Anton Dolin, Josette Amiel, Henning Kronstam, Kristen Simone, and John Gilpin were among the featured artists (66C44-46). Shortly before the end of 1966, events took a turn for the worse, and continued that way until the end of the sixties. Tom's successful law case of former years suddenly developed adverse repercussions, and in order to clear the situation, Tom had to leave Illinois until it had been resolved. Almost simultaneously, Tom's health began to deteriorate mysteriously. On the outside, Columbia Artists began to feel financial pressures which jeoparadized future tours of Ruth's company, now called Ruth Page's International Ballet. There are only twenty-eight correspondence folders for 1967, but the business of the 1967 tour is fully documented by detailed company manager's weekly reports (R151-169). Kronstam, Simone, John Gilpin and Josette Amiel were the featured stars, and Ruth's revised version of Carmina Buranawas the new ballet. Later, in September of that year, Ruth embarked on a series of lecture demonstrations with several of her most reliable dancers. Calling the unit “Ruth Page's Concert Dance Group,” they toured the schools of Chicago (R170-71, 67C18). But the sad and discouraged tone of the correspondence between Ruth (67C1-5) and Tom (67C6-14) prevails. The ultra-modern McCormick Place, a supposedly fire-proof complex, burned to the ground in 1967. The Nutcrackerthat year was performed at the Lyric Opera. The disorder concomitant with Tom's removal from the activities of Ruth and her company is reflected in the sketchy correspondence of 1968 (only fifteen folders) and 1969 (only ten folders). As Tom's health grew worse, he tried to cancel the 1969 tour, for fear it would be a financial disaster without his management (68C12-13). Ruth went to Portugal in May to observe the work of the Gulbenkian Foundation, that possibly might have had funds to bolster her company. Her letters to Tom reflect not only the uncertainty of that possibility, but her distress with the turn their lives had taken (68C1-2). The 1969 tour, the last, was not cancelled (R178-86). The highlight of the tour was Ruth's new Romeo and Julietto the Tchaikovsky overture, one of her most successful ballets. But it was clear that Tom would never recover from his illness. Certain settlements of the court case had been reached, but there were still problems to be resolved (no records relating to these matters exist in the Collection). What hints there are suggest that, at Tom's urging, Ruth began to reorganize certain facets of her life, in preparation for being alone. Among his instructions was the plan to donate to The New York Public Library large portions of the archival materials documenting their life together (thousands of items including letters, photographs, scrapbooks, designs, programs, clippings, films, music scores and posters—69C7), a gift which continues as of this writing in 1980. In November 1969, Thomas H. Fisher died at Whitehall Hospital, Chicago. Letters of condolence to Ruth from friends, including Chicago critic Claudia Cassidy and her husband, William Crawford, and from dance critic Walter Terry, are in the correspondence (69C6). There is no record in the Collection of Ruth Page's reaction to the loss of her husband of forty-five years. In the two folders of 1970 correspondence, there are references to new productions, including Alice in Wonderland(70C1) and new “tours” including the itinerary of a series of lectures entitled “Ruth Page's Invitation to the Dance” 1971 (R187). Yet another decade of materials, 1970-79, now awaits organizing and cataloguing in the Dance Collection to keep the record of this extraordinary career up to date.; Content: Choreography of the dance is by Ruth Page unless otherwise noted. The following abbreviations are used: Chor: choreographed by; lib: libretto by; mus: music composed by; scen: scenery designed by: cos: costumes designed by; perf: first performance, with place and date of production and name(s) of principal dancer(s); RP: Ruth Page; BS: Bentley Stone; NR: Nicholas Remisoff. The Poisoned Flower Mus: Reynaldo Hahn; cos: Ernest de Weerth; perf: NYC, Apollo Theatre, Dec 6 1921, RP Chopin Mazurka Mus: Frédéric Chopin; perf: Poughkeepsie, NY, Vassar College, Apr 29 1922, RP Peter Pan and the Butterfly Mus: Eduard Poldini; cos: NR; perf; Chicago, Goodman Theatre, Feb 1 1926, RP Flapper and the Quarterback Mus: Clarence Loomis; cos: Paul du Pont; perf: Chicago, Eighth Street Theatre, Dec 26 1926, RP and Paul du Pont Creole Dances Also called Bayou Ballads and Negro Dances of New Orleans. Mus: traditional songs; cos: NR; perf: Madison, Wisc., Central High School, Oct 6 1927, RP and Marcia Preble The Snow is Dancing Mus: Claude Debussy; cos: Sviatislav Roerich; perf: NYC, Hampden Theatre, Dec 18 1927, Marcia Preble and Berenice Holmes Barnum and Bailey Also called Circus and Tightrope Walker. Mus: Bedrich Smetana; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, July 12 1928, RP and Ann Sharkey Coquette—1899 Mus: Scott Joplin (“Maple Leaf Rag”); cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, July 12 1928, RP Moonlight Sailing Mus: Zeckwer; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, July 12 1928, Marguerite Stanton and Ann Sharkey Blues Mus: George Gershwin (“Prelude in Blue”); cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, Aug 12 1928, RP The Shadow of Death Mus: Modest Moussorgsky; cos: NR; perf: Tokyo, Imperial Theatre, Oct 1 1928, RP and Edwin Strawbridge Diana Sometimes performed with Modern Diana (12/10/30) under the title Evolution of a Goddess. Mus: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; cos: NR; perf: Tokyo, Imperial Theatre, Oct 16 1928, RP Ballet Scaffolding Mus: Sergei Prokofiev; cos: NR; perf: Tokyo, Imperial Theatre, Oct 21 1928, RP Japanese Print Mus: original themes, arr. by Walter Goodell; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, Aug 15 1929; RP. 1st NY perf: Guild Theatre, Nov 17 1929, RP Oak Street Beach Original title: Sun Worshippers. Mus: Clarence Loomis; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, Aug 15 1929, RP, Edwin Strawbridge, and group Two Balinese Rhapsodies In two parts: Part I—Religious dance; Part II—Pleasure dance. Mus: original themes, arr. by Louis Horst; cos: authentic; perf: Chicago, Chicago Woman's Club, Nov 1, 1929, RP. 1st NY perf: Guild Theatre, Nov 17 1929, RP St Louis Blues Mus: W. C. Handy; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Chicago Woman's Club, Nov. 1 1929, RP and dancers. 1st NY perf: Guild Theatre, Nov 17 1929, RP and dancers Etude op 10 No 3 Mus: Frédéric Chopin; perf: NY, Guild Theatre, Dec 8 1929, RP Iberian Monotone Also called Bolero. Mus: Maurice Ravel; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, Aug 31 1930, RP, Blake Scott, and Ravinia Opera Ballet Garçonette Mus: Francis Poulenc; cos: NR; perf: Nashville, Tenn., Dec 10 1930, RP Incantation Sometimes called Witch's Incantation. Mus: Isaac Albéniz; cos: NR; perf: Nashville, Tenn., Dec 10 1930, RP. 1st NY perf: Booth Theatre, Jan 1 1932, RP Modern Diana Mus: Paul Hindemith; cos: NR; perf: Nashville, Tenn., Dec 10 1930, RP. Pre-Raphaelite Mus: Federico Mompou; cos: NR; perf: Nashville, Tenn., Dec 10 1930, RP Humoresques In five parts: Giddy girl; Spanish girl; Patriotic girl (Patriotic finale); Gigue; Berceuse. Cos: NR. Sometimes performed as Three Humoresques or in solo extracts. Giddy girl: 1st perf as a solo, with music by Jacques Ibert, Lewisburg, Ky., Jan 12 1931, RP. Three Humoresques (Giddy girl, Spanish girl, Patriotic finale, all with music by Alfredo Casella) perf: Bloomington, Ind., Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, July 6 1932, RP. Humoresques (with Gigue and Berceuse added to first three) perf: Wilmette, Ill., Oct 5 1932, RP. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Cinderella Mus: Marcel Delannoy; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Ravinia Park, Aug 30 1931, RP and dancers Pavane Mus: Maurice Ravel (“Pavane pour une infante défunte”); cos: NR; perf: NY, Booth Theatre, Dec 31 1931, RP and group La Valse Also called Waltz and Choreographic Waltz. Mus: Maurice Ravel (“La valse”); cos: NR; perf: NY, Booth Theatre, Dec 31 1931, RP and group Tropic Mus: Cyril Scott; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Amalgamated Centre, May 1 1932, RP. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Cuban Night Mus: Ernesto Lecuona y Casado; cos: NR; perf: Bloomington, Ind., Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, July 6 1932, RP Lament Mus: Alexander Tcherepnine; cos: NR; perf: Bloomington, Ind., Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, July 6 1932; RP. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Possessed Mus: Heitor Villa-Lobos; cos: NR; perf: Bloomington, Ind., Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, July 6 1932, RP Vagabond Mus: Ralph Vaughan Williams; cos: NR; perf: Bloomington, Ind., Capen Auditorium, State Normal University, July 6 1932, RP Largo Mus: Leonardo Vinci; cos: NR; perf: Fargo, North Dakota, Festival Hall, Nov 2 1932, RP. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Expanding Universe Mus: Robert Wolf; cos: Isamu Noguchi; perf: Fargo, North Dakota, Nov 2 1932. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Variations on Euclid Mus: Federico Mompou; cos: Pavel Tchelitchew; perf: Chicago, Loyola Community Theatre, Loyola University, Jan 16 1933, RP. 1st NY perf: John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Morning in Spring Mus: Ralph Vaughan Williams; cos: NR; perf: NY, John Golden Theatre, Jan 29 1933, RP Country Dance Chor: Harald Kreutzberg and RP; mus: Friedrich Wilckens. perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Feb 25 1933, Harald Kreutzberg and RP Promenade Chor: Harald Kreutzberg and RP; Mus: Francis Poulenc; perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Feb 25 1933, Harald Kreutzberg and RP La Guiablesse Chor & lib: RP; mus: William Grant Still; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Auditorium Theatre, June 16 1933, RP and ensemble Jungle Mus: Cyril Scott; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Mozart Waltzes Mus: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP My Sorrow Is My Song Mus: Darius Milhaud; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Pendulum Mus: Federico Mompou; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Resurgence Mus: Zoltán Kodály; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Rustic Saint's Day In two parts: Villanella (religious processional); Gagliarda (carnival). Mus: Ottorino Respighi; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Shadow Dance—Homage to Taglioni Mus: Felix Mendelssohn; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Songs Mus: George Gershwin, arr. by Robert Wolf; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, International House, Dec 9 1933, RP Arabian Nights Chor: Harald Kreutzberg and RP; mus: Erik Satie; cos: NR; perf: Peoria, Ill., Shrine Temple, Jan 16 1934, Harald Kreutzberg and RP Bacchanale Chor: Harald Kreutzberg and RP; mus: Friedrich Wilckens; perf: Chicago, Orchestra Hall, Feb 4 1934, Harald Kreutzberg and RP Gold Standard Mus: Jacques Ibert; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Opera House, Nov 30 1934, Chicago Opera Ballet. 1st NY perf: Adelphi Theatre, Mar 1 1936, Chicago Opera Ballet Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Mus: Aaron Copland; lib: RP & NR; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Opera House, Nov 30 1934. 1st NY perf: Adelphi Theatre, Mar 1 1936, Chicago Opera Ballet Body in Sunlight Mus: Robert Wolf; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Apr 14 1935, RP Fresh Fields Mus: Béla Bartók; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Apr 14 1935, RP Night Melody Mus: Claude Debussy; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Apr 14 1935, RP Valse Mondaine Mus: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco; perf: Chicago, Studebaker Theatre, Apr 14 1935, RP Fugitive Visions Mus: Sergei Prokofiev; cos: NR; perf: Carmel, NY, Aug 18 1935, RP Love Song Mus: Franz Schubert; scen & cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Opera House, Nov 23 1935, Chicago Opera Ballet. 1st NY perf: Adelphi Theatre, Mar 1 1936. Revised: NY City Center, Mar 1 1949, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo An American in Paris Mus: George Gershwin; scen & cos: NR; perf: Cincinnati, Ohio, Aug 2 1936, Cincinnati Opera Company, under title: Americans in Paris. 1st Paris perf: with new scen & cos by NR: Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, May 8 1950, Les Ballets Américains Hicks at the Country Fair Chor: RP and BS; mus: Igor Stravinsky; lib, scen & cos: NR; perf: Wisconsin, Woman's Club of Wisconsin, Oct 22 1936, RP and BS American Pattern Chor: RP and BS; mus: Jerome Moross; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Opera House, Dec 18 1937, Chicago City Opera Company Buenos Días Señorita Chor: RP and BS; mus: Heitor Villa-Lobos; cos: NR; perf: Mt Vernon, Iowa, Jan 31 1938, RP and BS Gavotte Chor: RP and BS; mus: Johann Sebastian Bach; cos: NR; perf: Mt Vernon, Iowa, Jan 31 1938, RP and BS Delirious Delusion Mus: Federico Mompou; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Rogers Park Woman's Club, May 20 1938, RP The Story of a Heart Mus: Alfredo Casella; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, May 21 1938, RP, BS, and Walter Camryn Frankie and Johnny Chor: RP & BS; mus: Jerome Moross; lib: Michael Blandford & Jerome Moross; scen & cos: Paul Du Pont; perf: Chicago Great Northern Theatre, June 19 1938. Revived: NYC, City Center, Feb 28 1945, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Revived: Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, May 8 1950, Les Ballets Américains Guns and Castanets Chor: RP and BS; mus: Georges Bizet, selected and adapted by Jerome Moross for small orchestra; songs from the poems of Federico García Lorca, tr A. L. Lloyd; lib: RP, after the novel by Prosper Mérimée; scen: Clive Rickabaugh; cos: John Pratt. perf: Chicago, Great Northern Theatre, Feb 1 1939, Page-Stone Ballet Liebestod Chor: RP and BS; mus: Richard Wagner; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, Nov 14 1939, RP and BS Night of the Poor Chor: RP and BS; mus: Claude Debussy; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, Nov. 14 1939, RP and BS Saudades Chor: RP and BS; mus: Heitor Villa-Lobos; cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, Nov 14 1939, RP and BS Three Shakespearean Heroines In three parts: Juliet; Lady Macbeth; Katherine, the Shrew; Mus: Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt (Juliet), Friedrich Wilckens (Lady Macbeth), & Ludwig von Beethoven, arr. by David Schienfield (Katherine); cos: Paul Du Pont. perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, Nov 14, 1939, RP Zephyr and Flora Mus: Franz Liszt; perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, Nov 14 1939, RP and BS Songs of Carl Sandburg Mus: Carl Sandburg recordings; cos: John Pratt; perf: Chicago, Apr 15 1940, RP Catarina; or, The Daughter of the Bandit Mus: Riccardo Drigo; cos: NR; perf: Havana, Cuba, Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical, May 1 1940, RP Spanish Dance in Ballet Form Mus: Isaac Albéniz; cos: John Pratt; perf: Chicago, Goodman Theatre, Mar 30 1941, RP Garçonette Mus: Trench; cos: Quill Monroe; perf: Murat, Ind., May 10 1941, RP Les Incroyables Chor: RP and BS; mus: Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari; cos: Quill Monroe; perf: Oct 29 1941, RP and BS. 1st NY perf: Rainbow Room, Nov 19 1941, RP and BS Park Avenue Odalisque Mus: Enrique Granados y Campra; cos: NR; perf: Oct 29 1941, RP. 1st NY perf: Rainbow Room, Nov 19 1941, RP Dances with Words and Music Collective title for a group of solo dances to poetry and music created and performed by RP between 1942 and 1945. The dances most frequently performed under this title were: Anyone (e. e. cummings), Cambridge Ladies (cummings), Hist-wist (cummings), Nocturne (Archibald MacLeish), Recuerdo (Millay), Eros in Time of War (Mark Turbyfill), A Fairly Sad Tale (Dorothy Parker), On Being a Woman (Parker), Unfortunate Coincidence (Parker), The Sadness of the Moon (Baudelaire), Lucy Lake (Ogden Nash), Two Chinese Poems, The Little Peach (Eugene Field), and I'll Go to Santiago (Garcia Lorca). The program was given its 1st NY perf: Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theatre, Apr 13 1943, RP, with music by Lehman Engel. Other dances with words and music included: The Seven Spiritual Ages of Mrs Marmaduke Moore (Nash), Rebecca, Who Slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably (Hilaire Belloc), Death in Harlem (Langston Hughes), and Lament for the Death of a Spanish Bullfighter (Lorca) Death in Harlem Sometimes performed as part of Dances with Words and Music (4/13/43). Mus: Joe Garland (“In the Mood”), arr. by Lehman Engel; words: Langston Hughes; cos: NR; perf: Apr 16 1944, RP Les Petits Riens Mus: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; scen & cos: Robert Davison; perf: Montreal, Her Majesty's Theatre, Sept 17 1946, Ballet for America (Company). The Bells Mus: Darius Milhaud; lib: based on Edgar Allan Poe; scen & cos: Isamu Noguchi; perf: Chicago, Lyric Theater, Apr 26 1946; Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. 1st NY perf: Sept 6 1946, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Billy Sunday Chor & lib: RP; mus: Remi Gassman; lib: based on a series of Billy Sunday's sermons on temptation; perf: Chicago, University of Chicago, Dec 13 1946, Chicago Opera Ballet. 1st NY perf: New York City Center, Mar 2 1948, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; [UNK]: Herbert Andrews; cos: Paul Du Pont Harlequinade Chor: RP and BS; mus: Alfredo Casella; cos: Paul du Pont; lib: RP, arr. by Robert Halsband; perf: Maysville, Ky., Nov 9 1948, RP and BS Beauty and the Beast Mus: Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, arr. [UNK] Friedrich Wilckens; cos: NR; perf, as a pas de deux: Pittsburg, Kansas, Kansas State Teachers College, July 11 1949, RP and BS. 1st perf for full company: Milwaukee, Wisc., Pabst Theatre, Oct 29 1949, Chicago Grand Opera Ballet Dance of the Hours Mus: Amilcare Ponchielli (La Gioconda); cos: NR; perf: Milwaukee, Wisc., Pabst Theatre, Oct 29 1949, Chicago Grand Opera Ballet Beethoven Sonata Mus: Ludwig von Beethoven (Sonata no. 8 in C minor, Opus 13); cos: NR; perf: Chicago, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago, Jan 27 1951, Page-Stone-Camryn Ballet Impromptu Au Bois Mus: Jacques Ibert; scen & cos: Georges Wakhévitch; perf: Germany, Freiburg im Breisgau, Städtische Bühnen, May 1 1951, Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées. 1st London perf: Cambridge Theatre, Aug 2 1951, Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées. 1st Paris perf: Théâtre de l'Empire, Oct 8 1951, Les Ballets des Champs-Élysées Revenge Mus: Giuseppe Verdi (from Il Trovatore) arr. by Isaac Van Grove; lib: RP & NR; scen & cos: Antoni Clavé; perf: Paris, Théâtre de l'Empire, Oct 17 1951, Ballets des Champs-Élysées. First U.S. perf: Chicago, Nov 26 1955, RP Ballets. 1st NY perf: Broadway Theatre, Dec 20 1955, RP Ballets Daughter of Herodias Also called Retribution. Mus: Richard Strauss (from Salome, adapted by Isaac Van Grove); lib: based on Oscar Wilde's Salome; cos: NR; perf, as pas de deux entitled Salome and Herod: Evansville, Ind., Mesker Memorial Amphitheatre, June 22 1952, RP and BS. 1st company perf: Chicago, St Alphonsus Theatre, Jan 31 1954, RP, BS, and Chicago Ballet Company The Merry Widow Original title: Vilia. Mus: Franz Lehar (The Merry Widow) arr. by Isaac Van Grove; perf: Manchester, England; Palace Theatre, Apr 30 1953, London Festival Ballet; scen & cos: Georges Wakhévitch; under title: Vilia. 1st U.S. perf: Chicago, Lyric Theatre, Nov 16 1955, Chicago Opera Ballet; scen & cos: Rolf Gérard; under title: The Merry Widow El Amor Brujo Mus: Manuel de Falla (El Amor Brujo); scen & cos: Georges Wakhévitch; perf: Chicago, St Alphonsus Theatre, Dec 12 1954, Ballet Guild of Chicago Triumph of Chastity Mus: Jacques Ibert; cos: Leonor Fini; perf: Chicago, St Alphonsus Theatre, Dec 12 1954, Ballet Guild of Chicago Susanna and the Barber Mus: Gioacchino Rossini (The Barber of Seville) arr. by Isaac Van Grove; scen & cos: Antoni Clavé; lib: Isaac Van Grove & Ira Wallach; perf: Chicago, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago, Apr 25 1956, Chicago Opera Ballet Camille Mus: Giuseppe Verdi; lib: Alexandre Dumas; cos: José C. Basarté; perf: Columbia, Missouri, Jan 13 1959, Chicago Opera Ballet. 1st NY perf: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mar 10 1962, Chicago Opera Ballet The Last Judgment Mus: Jerome Moross; scen & cos: Tom Keogh; never produced Carmen Mus: Georges Bizet, arr. by Isaac Van Grove; scen & cos: NR; perf: Dubuque, Iowa, Clark College, Jan 11 1960, RP's Chicago Opera Ballet. New production, with scen & cos: Bernard Daydé, perf: Kalamazoo, Mich., Jan 8 1962. 3rd production, scen & cos: André Delfau, perf: Chicago, Civic Theatre, May 12 1972, Dance Theatre of Harlem. 1st NY perf: Uris Theatre, Mar 2 1976, Dance Theatre of Harlem; mus: Georges Bizet, with musical arr. by Coleridge Taylor Perkinson & electronic sequence by Tania Leon; cos & lighting projections: André Delfau Concertino pour Trois Mus: Marius Constant; cos: André Delfau; perf; Rockford, Ill., Jan 9 1961 Die Fledermaus Mus: Johann Strauss, Jr, arr. by Isaac Van Grove; scene & cos: André Delfau; perf: Rockford, Ill., Coronado Theatre, Jan 9 1961, Chicago Opera Ballet Mephistofela Mus: Charles Gounod, Arrigo Boito, Hector Berlioz, arr. by Isaac Van Grove; lib: Heinrich Heine; cos: André Delfau; perf: Park Ridge, Ill., Jan 6 1963. 1st Chicago perf: Opera House, Mar 17 1963, Chicago Opera Ballet Pygmalion Mus: Franz von Suppé; cos: André Delfau; perf: Park Ridge, Ill., Jan 6 1963, Chicago Opera Ballet Combinations Mus: Isaac Van Grove; cos: André Delfau; perf: Chicago, Teachers College North, Oct 31 1963, Ballet Guild of Chicago Bullets and Bonbons Also known as All's Fair in Love and War. Mus: Johann Strauss; scen: André Delfau, perf: Springfield, Ill., Orpheum Theatre, Jan 12 1965, Chicago Opera Ballet Carmina Burana Mus: Carl Orff; scen: House of Sormani, Milan; cos: Casa d'Arte Cerrstelli, Florence, after designs of Emmanuel Luzzati; perf: Chicago, Opera House, Nov 12 1965; Harald Kreutzberg with the Chicago Opera Ballet and Lyric Opera of Chicago. New production, with designs by André Delfau, perf: Kalamazoo, Mich., Jan 9 1967, RP's International Ballet The Nutcracker Chor: RP (Prince's variation after Lev Ivanov); mus: Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky; lib: Marius Petipa after Dumas's Casse Noisette; scen: Sam Leve; cos: Rolf Gerard; perf: Chicago, Arie Crown Theater, Dec 26 1965, RP's International Ballet with Kirsten Simone and Henning Kronstam The Jar Mus: Alfredo Casella; scen & cos: Renato Guttuso; lib: Alfredo Casella after Luigi Pirandello; perf: Chicago, Opera House, Oct 31 1966, Chicago Opera Ballet Bolero '69 Originally known as Bolero '68. Mus: Maurice Ravel (Bolero); scen: André Delfau; perf: LaCrosse, Wisc., Jan 8 1968, RP's International Ballet Romeo and Juliet Mus: Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (Romeo and Juliet—fantasy, overture); cos: André Delfau; perf: Niles, Mich., Jan 14 1969, RP's International Ballet Alice in the Garden perf: Lee, Mass., Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Aug 25 1970, dancers from the Jacob's Pillow School of the Dance Catulli Carmina Mus: Carl Orff; scen & cos: André Delfau; perf: Pittsburgh, Heinz Hall, Nov 9 1973, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre; Acquisition: Gift of Ruth Page
Physical Description: Extent: 2793 folders ca. 42,000 items, 13 notebooks
Type of Resource: Text
Identifiers: Other local Identifier: (S) *MGZMD 16; NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b12178115; MSS Unit ID: 19658; Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 262e8ce0-b75d-013a-57ac-0242ac110003

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