The San Francisco Symphony demonstrated that making a program is an art in itself. On April 18, we saw and heard the SFS’ excellent sound conducted by the amazing Karina Canellakis. Karina Canellakis, conductor
She comes on stage, promptly takes her place, and puts all her energy into conducting. She has a very physical style. One can remember that the sound is a real, physical thing when watching her bringing the orchestra forward with her arms upward, pulling them in. She has a great interaction with the musicians. Everyone levitates a bit off the stage floor; Ms Canellakis has a positive presence even during tragic music.

Richard Strauss, composer, 1864-1949

The opening piece, Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Opus 20 (1889) sounded wonderful. Those of us who do not find Don Juan to be a hero, still find the music made to accompany his triumphs outstanding. The Don Juan music was one of the symphonic poems Strauss created in the 1880s. The music represents Don Juan as an adventurer like the jovial Three Musketeers, a swashbuckling, devil-may-care kind of a guy. The music provides expressive moments when one could imagine him with a beloved and then turning to another. Only for a moment did I think, “Gee, here’s this wonderful woman conductor making Don Juan attractive through the music.” Then, the music ends the way it had to end: a father avenges the death of one of the women. Terrific music about a cheerful serial rapist. True to the spirit of another era.

Maurice Ravel, composer, 1875-1937

The Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand, by Maurice Ravel, is an extraordinary achievement even for a master like Ravel. However, it is a great work and not an oddity. It challenges the pianist’s and orchestra’s technique. It is beautiful, wholly original, and, I think has depths that one cannot anticipate while being mesmerized by the pianist’s one hand. The story behind this work is touching although the pianist and composer did not create a great friendship to match the great music. An Austrian family, Paul Wittgenstein was the brother of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Paul had begun a successful career as a pianist. Then, in World War I, he lost his right hand. it took a very long time to rehabilitate his injuries. Major composers wrote music for him: Hindemith, Korngold, Prokofiev, Britten, Strauss. it is Ravel’s that has lasted.

Cedric Tiberghien, pianist

The pianist, Cedric Tiberghien, was brilliant and met every challenge without looking like he was climbing a mountain of difficult technique. Listen but also see this music; it is very special, gorgeous, and moving.

Richard Strauss returned to the program with Death and Transfiguration, Opus 24. It was written 1888-1889. It was meant to be a symphonic poem, but there is no relation to a literary work. It is as though Strauss had a libretto running through his mind. He imagined a man who was very ill and in bed. While asleep he imagines or remembers moments of his life. He has a fever and pains. He was an artist. Strauss wrote,”the fruit of his path through life appears to him, the idea, the Ideal which is has tried to realize, to represent in his art, but which he has been unable to perfect because it was not for any human being to perfect it.” The moment of death comes, the music pictures his “soul leaves the body, in order to find perfected in the most glorious force in the eternal cosmos that which he could not fulfill here on earth.” This listener fought the subject, the title, the music from its beginning. Then, without knowing why, this listener wept. A great composer can do that.

The program ended with La Valse, by Ravel. it is a glamorous waltz at the beginning. Before the Great War, Ravel was fascinated by the Viennese waltz. He had plans for music saluting Johann Strauss II. The War changed everything including the waltz. It had been enjoyed in times of plenty; everyone in party dresses, the men smoking cigars, the women being elegantly flirty. Then, a generation of young men – French, English, German, all of Europe – were dead. They were missing legs, wearing terrible injuries, mentally different than before. La Valse presents all of this. Toward the end it goes faster and faster. I imagine an enormous chandelier suddenly crashing to the floor.

As  his audience continued to applaud after his second encore, Ray Chen shouted out “You make me feel like a rock star!” That is exactly right; the full to the rafters audience could not let him go. From Tartini to Chick Corea, this virtuoso violinist swept away his audience by his fantastic playing.

Violinist Ray Chen as pictured on his album, SOLACE, 2020, featuring selections from Bach’s Partitas and Sonatas.

Giuseppe Tartini composer-violinist (1692-1779)

His program began with Giuseppe Tartini’s Violin Sonata in G Major, Devil’s Trill (1713). There are four movements in this remarkable sonata. After each movement, there were moments for audience members to open their eyes very wide as though they realized they were hearing exceptionally difficult music as though it were easy. The piece, arranged by Fritz Kreisler, was an extraordinary accomplishment presenting four different moods. Starting with a Larghetto affettuoso, slowly emotional; an Allegro energico picked up the excitement; the third movement, Grave, checked the energetic happiness; and then closed with Allegro assai. The performer smiled. He had knocked our socks off and this was only the first selection.

Chen’s pianist partner is Julio Elizalde. He has played with Chen for a long time. He played his debut SF Symphony Great Performers Series with Chen, 2019. Elizalde has performed in great halls around the world. He performs as a soloist, collaborator, curator, and educator. He earned his BA degree with honors at the SF Conservatory and his master of music and doctor of musical arts from Juilliard. He wears many hats and receives many awards in the world of music.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Composer (1770-1827)

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Opus 30, no. 2 (1802) was so different from the Tartini Sonata one could imagine them from different planets. They are from different centuries. The world had changed and music changed; Beethoven’s influence made sure of that. The opening movement, Allegro con brio, is suspenseful, taut, and occasionally breaks into dramatic rests. There are moments that seem cheerful and other times that hold a simmering anger or anxiety. This sonata was written as Beethoven realized his deafness was taking away so much. The  second movement, Adagio cantabile, had a tenderness to it but it could not be sustained. The music set up its own protest at conditions that could not change. Beethoven’s Scherzo: Allegro was playful, a little jokey, with a new conversation between the piano and violin. There is irony that steels the wit. The Finale: Allegro-Presto recalls the explosive energy of the first movement. Beethoven will not let it explode. He knows how to ride the wind and thrills us with the Presto. 

During the intermission, thinking about this unsettling music led me to wonder what I could have expected. There is no reason to search for a musical pigeon hole. The Sonata was stirring and in its rough beauty could be dangerous, but a danger to keep.

Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer (1685-1750)

Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major for Solo Violin, BWV 1006 changed the mood of the music as well as the look of the stage. Before the concert began, I saw the piano on the stage.  There was no one onstage and no thing other than the piano. My eyes were full of the piano, its shape and color. It is such a beautiful thing, sitting there on center stage, I felt that I could spend time just looking at it. A piano is powerful. It looked at ease, occupying its space. It shaped all the space around it. It also looked like it was waiting for the moment when it would spring like a beautiful beast jumping into action, letting its power take charge.

When Ray Chen entered that space with his violin, everything was different. Here was a man with a violin. Alone, he and his violin filled the entire hall with the visual art of the physical presence of the artist and violin and the movement he makes to release the music. The sound is physical and has a spiritual life as well. He recorded his album, SOLACE, as the world was changed by the COVID pandemic. We were at a standstill. Chen wrote that it “became a time of self-reflection, and a renewed appreciation of the power of music….Bach’s music, in particular, written so far ahead of its time, reminds us of an important message: that humanity struggles onward despite the odds.”

So often Bach’s great work is described as ordered, geometric, balanced. All of that is true, but Chen hears the character of the music. The parts of this partita express sadness, loneliness, joy. Two movements of the Partita No. 3 in E Major, are included in the collection of movements from Sonatas and Partitas in SOLACE. The first movement, Preludio, is a waterfall of music. There are endless fast 16th notes challenging the violinist to rise above the Niagra Falls of Bach’s thrills. Chen takes it on, dashing in and through the churning waves. The other part that is on SOLACE is the third movement, the joyful, though polite, Gavotte and Rondeau. Five of the six movements really are about movements. Bach knew he was following the ideas in the dances: minuets, bourres, gavottes. How wonderful that this great composer-musician indeed had room for the dances in his heart.

La Ronde des lutins, Opus 25, by Antonio Bazzini is a fantastic piece which Izthak Perlman often includes in his encores. It made me happy that Chen had it in his program. The title means Dance of the Goblins, though it also has a more formal name, Scherzo Fantastique. Even I, a non-violinist, can tell how difficult this piece is. Bazzini was successful as a touring virtuoso. He also spent five years as a soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. He was president of the Concert Society in his home city, Brescia, and became the director of the Milan Conservatory, 1882. He wrote six string quartets and two quintets. Three of his students went on to compose operas: Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria rusticana), Alfredo Catalani (La Wally), Giacomo Puccini, too, although Puccini moved to another professor, Amilcare Ponchielli (La gioconda). In short, Bazzini was successful, well known, and a significant personage in Europe in the 19thc., and still, La Ronde des lutins is his calling card, his home run in the bottom of the 9th inning. James M. Keller describes from the musician’s view what Bazzini did to make it available for performance only to the greatest technicians: “ricochet bowing, left-hand pizzicatos, alternate fingerings, runs of double-stopped thirds and tenths, double -stopped trills, and double harmonics.” Hats off to Bazzini and Alpha violinists. I credit the Goblins.

Antonin Dvorak, Composer (1841-1904)

There is more! Ray Chen let us hear him play music from different centuries and styles. Next up is Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor, Opus 72. Early in his career, 1877, a set of Slavonic dances brought positive notice and some cash to him. He wrote another set in 1886; this one was the second dance. It comes from delightful folk tradition that may have originated in Ukraine, probably in the 1500s. This music was arranged by Fritz Kreisler (as was Tartini’s Devil Trill). While Dvorak wrote it in Allegretto grazioso, Kreisler changed it to Andanate grazioso Quasi Allegretto. It gives the Slavonic Dance more weight and seriousness in addition to the dancers’ delight.

Chick Corea, musician-composer (1941-2021)

Chick Corea’s Spain (arranged by Julio Elizalde & Ray Chen), written in 1971, is one of his most popular compositions. It begins by quoting Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, a beautiful work that is nostalgic and innovative. Once that introduction is completed, Corea morphs into a samba, and the samba lives in its rhythm and controlled passion. It a major piece of contemporary music especially in Corea’s musical world of jazz, jazz fusion, and his collaborative work with Herbie Hancock, Bobby McFerrin, and classical music of Mozart and Bartok. Spain has been recorded by many musicians of many singular styles: Tito Puente, James Galway, Bela Fleck, ukelele artist Jake Shimabukaro, Blood Sweat & Tears, Manhattan Transfer. It has a life of its own; it is universal music. Chick Corea turned Spain into a piano concerto and performed it with the London Philharmonic in the 1990s.

This was an amazing, grand concert which brought the voices of six composers into the listeners’ heads and hearts. Ray Chen and Julio Elizalde knew that the audience was ready and greedy for encores. There were three encores: A Evaristo Carriego, by Eduardo Rovira (arr. Chen & Elizalde), Czardas, by Vittorio Monti (arr. Chen & Elizalde), and Estrellita, by Manuel Ponce (arr.by Heifetz). The high energy of the concert continued into the encores. The lovely tune, Estrellita, was a calming choice when the musicians decided to say good-night.

RAY CHEN’S COMING TOURS include La Jolla, CA, tonight, March 28th; following that you can find this incredible artist in Storrs, CT, and Amherst, MA. Check the planes and train schedules. Do not miss an opportunity to hear and see this performance.

Beginning in 1996, THE LIVELY FOUNDATION, has celebrated Women’s History Month with concerts of dance and music. The dances were about real, historical women as well as ideas about women: Harriet Tubman, leader for the underground rail road and secret agent for the US in the Civil War; Clara Schumann, composer and acclaimed pianist; Tina Turner, singer, dancer, star. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, Sabbath Morning at Sea, inspired music by Elgar, and another dance by Leslie Friedman which drew gasps and applause.

Heroic, Beloved was the first concert saluting Women’s History Month, the first anywhere. After a few seasons, Leslie received calls from several other dance organizations wanting to know where and how we got our grants for these events. Leslie did not tell them because there were no grants. Lively carried it on with help from donations from individuals and the audiences’ appreciation and enthusiasm.

Heroic, Beloved was presented annually in San Francisco and more cities including other states: University of Kentucky, Lexington; University of Toledo; the Regional Women of Achievement Awards, Lakeland Community Center/Cleveland; Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA; Eastern Kentucky University; University of Northern Iowa; University of Eastern Tennessee.

Choreography and dancing by Leslie Friedman when on tour. In home seasons among the featured dancers were Patricia Broz, Evangeline Maynard, Steve Ortiz, Megan Williams, and Nemesio Paredes, Guest Artist, choreographer and famed Flamenco master.

Lively Foundation Artistic Director Leslie Friedman

The  program came about when Leslie looked at her repertoire and noticed that women were frequently subjects. She began the series of programs with a fund-raiser for breast cancer. A dear friend from history graduate school, Gloria Guth, came to the concert with her support group. At future performances, we were proud to welcome Rev. Amos Brown, San Francisco Supervisor, head of the Bay Area NAACP, and Rev. of the Third Baptist Church.

Keep Heroic, Beloved in your thoughts this month and always. There are so many gifted women, famous or not, who deserve our thanks.

The virtuoso pianist and composer, Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), created the mysterious Piano Concerto in C major, Opus 39 (1904). It is an enormous work. It runs for 75 minutes. It is fabulously difficult for the piano soloist, but it is right up Igor Levit’s alley. Levit expressed his affinity for Busoni, pianist, composer, editor, writer, philosopher, analyst, transcriber of music: Busoni’s “idea of empowering individuality is something that strongly resonates with me.”*  The musician-composer was more than a performer. He was recognized in his lifetime as more than a virtuoso who toured Europe and the US. He was looking into music through the eyes of a free thinker approaching atonal, microtonal and the future of electronic music.

Ferruccio Busoni, composer, pianist, transcriber, theorist (1866-1924). This picture is from 1913.

There is no argument about the difficulty of this concerto. In a string of comments I found online I read this: “it is difficult even to play badly.” And this: Only a master pianist can handle it “in a convincing way.” Igor Levit was certainly convincing. He performed it as though he not only knew the Concerto in C major, but had listened to Busoni’s thoughts while the Concerto in C major was being discovered by its composer. Levit, however, does not try to imitate any composer. He knows that he is the one playing it which means, in the moment, he is recreating it.

The SFS was totally up to this challenge. Esa-Pekka Salonen showed no shyness in approaching the grand and strange music. He was at ease, in control, and the orchestra played as though empowered and revved up for the experience. The musicians were totally in place and correct while sky diving into the music.

There is no program, narrative, or message. It is difficult to describe what happens. I have now read a lot of writing about it, but no one has given me a statement of what this concerto does.

it is written in five movements. So much music happens in each one; the third movement alone has four movements. The sound is huge, the design is gigantic, and yet Busoni demonstrates his respect for traditions on which the world of music plays. The movements are:

Prologo e Introito, Allegro, dolce e solenne- / Pezzo giocoso. Vivacemente, ma senza fretta-/ Pezzo serioso- Introductio. Andante sostenuto/Prima pars. Andante, quasi dadagio/Altera pars. sommesamente/Ultima pars. a tempo/ All’Italiana,. Tarantella. Vivace, in un tempo-/ Cantico: Largamente

The fifth movement, Cantico: Largamente, is written for a male chorus, a “choir invisible.” The SFS Chorus members were in the loft but hidden by a curtain that looked like an off-white muslin drape hanging from the ceiling and reaching out like a concave sail. Their song comes from Adam Oehlenschlager (1779-1850), a Danish poet and playwright.  He wrote his “dramatic fairy tale,” Aladdin, in 1805 and translated it into German, in 1808. Busoni knew this work and for a while considered making it into an opera. In the end, he kept this song, although he also prepared a version of the Concerto in C major without it.  The concerto is seldom performed, but new productions keep the choir. It begins: “Raise up your hearts to the eternal force;/sense the closeness of Allah, behold his deeds!” The male chorus, directed by Guest Director, Jenny Wong,  performed beautifully. It was a great achievement.

Igor Levit, pianist

What was it like to hear the Concerto in C major? It was the musical equivalent of the Yosemite Falls at the height of the water’s power. It was strange, inclusive of many different styles and techniques of playing the piano as well as the other instruments. The concerto quotes or alludes to the styles of other classical composers: Brahms, Wagner, Berlioz, Liszt. In the third movement, Busoni offers an homage to Chopin, also a famed pianist who composed his jewels for the piano. The Concerto in C major was wacko and a Wonder. There was a moment when I saw Levit playing so fast that both hands playing at the same time created a blur. His technical prowess allowed him to create and communicate what was going on in this uplifting, crushing, celebratory dynamo of a concerto. When can I see and hear it again?

*Levit quotes appear in “Limitless Perspectives: Pianist Igor Levit,” by Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim, in the SF Symphony program book.

There is no point to searching for the best adjective. “Herbert Blomstedt” says it all. The extraordinary conductor brought us a program of two Czech composers. One is well known and loved, Antonin Dvorak, the other,  Jan Vaclav Vorisek, barely known but deserving love. The matinee performance, February 12, 2023, indeed was a love fest. The audience felt profound admiration and affection for Maestro Blomstedt, but that was not all. The SFS matched their Conductor Laureate’s direction as though they were made of one essence. Herbert Blomstedt conducted what must be the internal truth of the music. The music was played perfectly, according to the brilliant conductor’s insights and precise, forceful leadership. This was perfection in sound so it was never rigid. Every moment was full of life.

Herbert Blomstedt conducting at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, 2015

Maestro Blomstedt selected Jan Vaclav Vorisek’s Symphony in D major, Opus 23 (1823). This year is that symphony’s 200th birthday. While the fine program comments noted the influence of Mozart in the Andante which could be a funeral march, and Beethoven and Schubert’s influence in the Finale, for this listener, it was all new. Vorisek’s opening is an Allegro con Brio, delightfully brisk. The Andante features graceful, tranquil woodwind performances, and the Scherzo offers the unusual 9/8 rhythm. The Finale energetically returns to Allegro con Brio with one brief salute to Beethoven’s 5th symphony. It was a wonderful introduction to an individualistic creation of fine and truly original music. Sadly, Jan Vaclav Vorisek, born in Bohemia, 1791, died in Vienna, 1825, age 34. This symphony was  not published in his life; it did not appear until 1957. We are fortunate that Herbert Blomstedt’s vast musical knowledge has led him to champion this mostly unknown treasure.

Herbert Blomstedt, Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, 1985-1995, now Conductor Laureate of SFS and other world leading orchestras – see below for details

Although a Dvorak devotee, I think I somehow missed hearing his Symphony No.8 in G Major, Opus 88 in person. Lucky me to hear it first as conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. He will perform it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, March 9, 11, 12. If you missed it in San Francisco. There really is not anything better for you to do than hear it live with Blomstedt conducting.

Antonin Dvorak (born in Bohemia, 1841; died in Prague, 1904)

Descriptions of this Symphony often mention the mood changes. It is beautifully sunny and feeling optimistic and then a minor key gradually takes the happiness down a peg or two. A bird like flute passage appears and dismisses any sad notes or memories. Dvorak loved nature and loved life. One cannot get away from that. Loving life means one has met the dark shadows of illness, betrayal, and death, yet one still goes on for the next bird song, the next absolute beauty. Dvorak would not compose a symphony so limited that the cruel truth is totally eliminated. Our life is  more than one aspect. This shining Symphony No. 8 encompasses our life in the round. His Adagio, the second movement, includes the ambivalent moods: will I be sad or happy about this world? It is strange and unfair, but it is my world. The movement finds its equilibrium; we balance. Balance can be peaceful and peace need not be boring. The third movement, Scherzo, combines the elegance of a waltz with the sense of the country which is lovely but sometimes raw. And then, we are rewarded. Dvorak plays for us and dances with us. It is something completely different which also, as we dance with him, seems to have been written specifically for me and you may think specifically for you and every individual in Davies Symphony Hall will know it is specifically for Antonin to be able to dance with us in person, in his country town. Dvorak gives us Nature’s own music as surrounding us, racing through us, as presented to us by the Conductor for all time signatures, Herbert Blomstedt.

ABOUT HERBERT BLOMSTEDT: He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, July 11, 1927. He is now 95 years old. His parents, originally from Sweden, moved back there when Herbert was 2 years old. He began to study music in Sweden and later at the Juiliard School, New York. He led important orchestras from a young age. Music Director/or Principal Conductor of the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, 1954-1962; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, 1962-1977; Swedish Radio Symphony, 1977-1982; Chief Conductor of the Dresdner Staatskapelle, 1975-1985. Throughout these years he made many recordings including the works of Richard Strauss, and the complete Symphonies of Beethoven and Schubert. In addition, he led his orchestras on international tours. He does not waste time in histrionic gestures. His conducting is an example of “anything more than the truth would be too much,” as stated by Robert Frost.

He became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, 1985-1995. He led the SFS on regular tours of Europe and Asia and won numerous award winning recordings for London/Decca. These included 2 Grammy awards, a Gramaphon award, and the Grand Prix du Disque plus awards from Belgium, Germany, and Japan.  When he ceased being the San Francisco Symphony’s full time leader, he became Principal Conductor with North German Radio Symphony, 1996-1998, and Principal Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, 1996-2005. He is currently conductor Laureate of SFS, Honorary Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden.  HERBERT BLOMSTEDT will perform a program of Mozart with Emanuel Ax, in Philadelphia, PA, March 3-5. There are limited tickets for each concert. The availability ranges fro 26-30 tickets. Hop on a plane. You will be so happy to be there.

MOSCOW, 1985: BEGINNING OF TRANSITION

The phone rang at 5 a.m. It was 1985; spam calls had not been invented. I picked up the receiver. The caller said he was at the American Embassy in London, is this Leslie Friedman? Yes. He called to find out if I would be willing to travel to Russia to perform. I sat up. Yes. Are you sure you could do this? YES. He asked a few more questions which I do not remember. I interrupted him and said, “Russia is the Mecca of ballet. Of course I want to do it. When do I go?” The caller told me there were other posts that would like to have me come to perform and perhaps to teach. The caller was in charge of planning the presentation of American specialists like engineers and artists. He knew about my 1983-1984 work in India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Tunisia from reports sent to him by US diplomats in those places. The caller, Cal,* said that he would get back to me with the details of other posts and travel dates.

Cal called again. Hungary, Romania, and Spain invited me. None” of them had co-sponsored an American artist before this. There had been no cultural exchange with the USSR for 14 years. I would perform for an all-Russian audience of officials and artists. This was completely new. He did not have to tell me, but he did, that Russia, with its great ballet tradition might not know what to make of me, if they came at all.

Long lines of travelers were waiting to show their passports at the Moscow airport when I arrived, March 13. My papers accepted, I heard someone nearby ask if I were Leslie. It was the Cultural Attaché from the Embassy. I was ready to leave the airport, but first my suitcases needed to be searched and then kept for further inspection. My companion asked if I needed anything in the suitcases. Definitely: fluids and a case for contact lenses. Ted* said the Embassy kept supplies on hand; we could go there.

We got the needed items and looked into a ballroom. It was full of people sitting on folding chairs. I remember only men sitting there, looking half or entirely asleep. Their jackets hung over the backs of chairs; their heads rested on their hands draped over the chair in front of them. I asked Ted who they were. He said they were journalists awaiting news of who would be the new leader of the USSR. Chernenko had died a day and a half before. His death and funeral could have called off my program.

Ted said the sleepy writers knew that eventually Secretary of State George Schultz would appear and make the announcement. He asked me if I was ready to go. I asked him if we could stay. “How long do you want to wait?” he asked. “I would like to hear the announcement.” “You mean you’re interested?” “Yes, this is history, and I am here. If we can stay, let’s stay.” We waited. Nothing happened. Then, George Schultz appeared. The room was suddenly alert, chairs filled, jackets back on, all eyes turned toward Secretary Schultz. He said that he had “had a good meeting with Russian leaders. The new person heading their government will be Mikhail Gorbachev. I have met him. He is someone we can work with.” Secretary Schultz smiled. He beamed positive vibes.

Ted said, “Now I can take you to your hotel.” It was very cold outside. Ice and snow were on the sidewalks. Ted escorted me to my room. It was very small. Bunk beds. The window would not close. The shower had only cold water. Ted had said that Paul Newman had stayed in this hotel. I thought, definitely not in this room. I worried about icy muscles before dancing. The next morning, Ted arrived to drive me to the ambassador’s residence, Spaso House. He told me that visiting artists would normally perform at the residence for an American audience. I met the ambassador’s wife. Donna Hartman, a tall, beautiful, blonde lady, told me that I could do my stretches on the floor of their dining room. Mostly, I remember how good the carpet felt. She got down on the floor and did stretches with me. She asked about my hotel room. I told the truth. I said maybe I could move to another room. She invited me to stay there in their home with Ambassador Hartman and herself. I feel my eyes pop as I remember that moment. I slept in the Vice-President’s room in a wonderful, warm bed.

Before the program, I was introduced to Valukin, the artistic director of GITIS. I was scheduled to do a performance and lecture there the next day. GITIS is Russia’s crown jewel of the theater arts, revered for training choreographers, ballet dancers and folk ensembles. Valukin himself had trained there and became a star of the Bolshoi. After my presentation at GITIS, Valukin asked me to return to teach. A First for an American dancer.

Friendship House, a grand, pre-1917 relic, was to be my performance venue. It is the stage for foreign artists. I changed in a small room with a drapery for a door. Ted surprised me by walking in. There was barely room for one person, me, and one person’s stuff, my costumes and notes. Ted had decided there were things I needed to know and a few minutes before my performance was the best time to inform me. He said that one of their great ballerinas, Olga Lepeshinskaya, a Bolshoi star in the 1930s and ’40s, would introduce me, but there was no guarantee that she would show up. The invitees included artists, art administrators, the symphony orchestra, dancers from the Ballet, ballet students, Russian officials. He added that it would be an all-Russian audience; no Americans except the ambassador and Mrs. Hartman. The Russians might not want to come, and they might be told not to come. I told him that this is not what I need to hear at this time. He emphasized that it was important. I told him, “Please leave. Get out of my dressing room.” As I remember this, I feel nervous; his messages were so distracting. At the time, however, I was calm. Especially once he left.

Mme. Lepeshinskaya was onstage introducing me in Russian. It was a moment when everything was in harmony. The dancing went well. When I ended, the audience stood, applauded, even cheered. Mme. Lepeshinskaya praised me in loving comments. She looked into my eyes, held my hand, and told the audience they should follow my example, expanding ballet and expression to bring Russian Ballet into the present. That’s what the translator told me. Praise from a Prima; what a gift.

When I went backstage to the reception room, Valukin picked me up and swirled me around in the air. He was elated. He said I had “done what he had hoped for: showing that a dancer–an American!–could dance beautifully in this new dance.”

Ted accompanied me that night to the Embassy doctor. The unfinished wood floor had left an impression on me. I had many splinters in legs, feet, body. They hurt, but I was too happy to notice the doctor’s needles.

Then, I took the train to Leningrad for performances and meetings with Kirov ballerinas. I stayed in Consul General Charles Magee’s residence. After my Russian program was over, the Consul General told me that my program was so successful it was a significant element in getting a new cultural exchange agreement.

–Leslie Friedman

This article appeared in the Institute for Historical Studies publication, Vol.42, No. 3, Winter 2023. It appears here with permission of the Editor, Maria Sakovich.

*Name changed for publication. ^As Leslie has noted, GITIS, State Institute for Theatre Arts, is Russia’s preeminent training for theatrical arts. Since its founding in 1878 the school has expanded greatly and lived through various changes in name. GITIS is the longest-lived appellation and was incorporated into the 1991 change in status: “Russian Academy of Theater Arts-GITIS.”

Leslie is a modern dancer. “My early training was ballet with Mme. Victoria Cassan, an Englishwoman who was a soloist in Anna Pavlova’s company. Much later, I was offered a scholarship at the Alvin Ailey school and a place in the Martha Graham school’s professional training program. My choreography is musical and expressive. That means that some ballet people think it is modern dance and modern/ contemporary people think it is too balletic.” Editor’s Notes