CHAPTER 13

Andre Eglevsky Ballet
During my years with Harkness, I found time not only to commute to Tucson on a regular basis but also to involve myself in other exciting ventures, like the Eglevsky Ballet company.

Andre Eglevsky was one of the greatest ballet stars of the 40s and 50s. Generally considered the best danseur noble of that time, he was known for his multiple pirouettes, spinning up to nine or ten from a single preparation. This is considered de rigueur for top male dancers these days but at that time it was practically unheard of and a marvel. During my own performance peak I could sometimes manage four, and that was only on a rare, good day.

I saw Eglevsky dance around 1952 at the City Center on 55th Street. That was New York City Ballet’s stomping ground before the State Theater in Lincoln Center was built and became their home. Being a poor student, I could only afford a seat in the highest balcony. He also appeared for a few weeks as a featured attraction on the Roxy stage, dancing the Grand Pas de Deux from “Don Quixote” with Mellissa Hayden. They were mixed in with other specialty acts, the Roxyettes and their male escorts, and a first run movie, four times a day. This was where I worked busily on the candy stand in the rotunda but managed to run in to watch as often as I could. Around that time I also saw him dance in the Charlie Chaplin film, “Limelight”

After his retirement he founded and directed his own company, The Eglevsky Ballet, based in Long Island, NY. His company gave performance experience to many of the soon to be star dancers of leading companies.

He invited me to play Dr. Coppelius in a tour he was doing of a full-length “Coppelia”. I was delighted to do this and having already staged the entire ballet in Tucson as well as danced the role, I knew it well. I took several of the Harkness trainees along with me to dance the Mazurka and Csardas in “Coppelia”.
In Eglevsky’s company I wore the same costume my old friend Misha Katcharoff had worn when he danced it with the Ballet Russe many, many years earlier.

It was a sumptuous production. First of all the orchestra was led by none other than Claude Monteux, son of the famous conductor, Pierre Monteux. That was top quality. The sets and costumes were from the old Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production.

Dancing the leading roles were Marianna Tcherkassky, a soloist with American Ballet Theater and Fernando Bujones, already a principal star of ABT. George de la Pena, later to become another star at ABT and to play Nijinsky in the Herbert Ross film “Nijinsky”, was in the corps. Eglevsky himself played the Burgomeister. I was in good company.

We toured by bus all over New York State, usually on week-ends when I was free from Harkness.

I even had a regular fan in the audience. A lady, possibly in her 70s, followed the company from city to city just to watch me and to sign her autograph book, over and over again. She never saw me without the make-up, so being made up to look like Dr. Coppelius who is supposed to be quite old, she probably thought I was actually her own age.

Eglevsky was a very generous man and extremely mischievous - playing jokes on dancers backstage just as he did as a youngster, according to stories in the books I had read about him.

Not too long after that he died of a heart attack in of all places, Woolworth’s department store in Elmira, NY - just across the street from where I had my first dance studio.
 

              Copyright © 2006-2008 Richard Holden