Balanchine Abroad

Barcelona spread out the purple carpet last week for the New York City Ballet. At the airport, young gallants deluged the American chicas with flowers, and tried to make dates. On opening night, sleek limousines brought an elegant throng to the 100-year-old Teatro del Liceo. All in all, the first continental venture of the New York City Ballet, if not entirely an artistic triumph by Spanish standards, was emphatically a social one.*

Spaniards, who have seen little but heeltapping Spanish national dancing since Franco, gave their main applause to George Balanchine's new version of the classic Swan Lake. Oldsters in the audience had a dim memory, at least, of the classic style from the time when Diaghilev's Ballets Russes visited the Spain of Alfonso XIII. But they were more puzzled than pleased by such contemporary psychological pieces as Antony Tudor's Lilac Garden. Balanchine himself noted "a vast difference from the fiery enthusiasm I see at bullfights here."

Barcelona's leading La Vanguardia Espanola praised the company's stars, Maria Tallchief, Nora Kaye, et al., and Choreographer Balanchine, who "does not sacrifice technical virtuosity for theatrical effects." But it concluded that, on the whole, the company's "interpretive rigidity is somewhat disappointing."

Despite the first-night criticisms, Barcelonians were either so socially starved or so curious that the next four performances (of a total of 21) in the 3,600-seat Teatro del Liceo were already sold out. Next step on the company's tour, which will end in August at the Edinburgh Festival: Paris, and a prominent part in next month's international Exposition of the Arts.

* But not completely so back home. Jacob S. Potofsky, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (C.I.O.), no friend of Franco Spain, expressed his protest against the Barcelona engagement by resigning from City Center's board of directors.

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