Music: Ballet in Chicago

When Ruth Page was a 12-year-old in Indianapolis she saw Anna Pavlowa dance. Then & there she determined to wear fancy costumes and spin on her toes some day. Three years later Ruth Page was touring in Pavlowa’s own company.

When Chicago reorganized its opera last year Ruth Page’s ambition was to build up a ballet which, free from stuffy traditions, would provide as good entertainment as the operas themselves. Directors had so much faith in Dancer Ruth Page that they broke all opera precedent. Beginning last week they allotted her Friday evenings for ballet and ballet alone.

On the opening bill there were two world premieres for which Ruth Page did all the choreography and danced the leading roles. For Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, a courtroom parody, she wrote her own scenario, had it approved by her lawyer-husband, Thomas Hart Fisher. Composer Aaron Copland wrote smart, satiric music but attention was more on the stage, set as a grim grey courtroom. A cabaret dancer (Ruth Page), a jealous chorus girl and a maniac are all accused of killing Page’s dancing partner (Bentley Stone). While masked jurors look on stupidly, the crime is three times re-enacted as different witnesses saw it. Revolver shots ring out from the orchestra. The jury believes any story. The pompous judge makes no decision, pounds his hammer for the next case on the docket.

Lighter and more amusing was Gold Standard, done to music by Jacques Ibert, with settings by Nicolas Remisoff who designed a park with blue trees and pink water. Ruth Page was an alluring young heroine in leg-of-mutton sleeves and a big straw hat. She danced away fleetly with an elderly merchant because his hind pockets bulged with gold. But at the end she was back with her young lover, whirling in a mad cancan. Chicagoans left the opera house marveling at what Dancer Page had accomplished with a comparatively new troupe, marveling at the courage and energy it required to attempt to emancipate opera ballet. After the performance Dancer Page took her first recreation in weeks, went to a champagne supper which Harold Fowler McCormick gave for Paul Drennan Cravath, chairman of the Metropolitan Opera, who traveled from Manhattan to see Ruth Page’s ballets.