Signboards outside Manhattan's dingy Metropolitan Opera House still advertised "The greatest in Russian Ballet." But of Ballet Theatre's 45 dancers on display inside, 31 were American-born—and only three were Russian.
In the days of the great impresario Diaghilev, ballet had artists like Picasso and Matisse to do the sets, composers like Stravinsky and Ravel to do the music. Now dancers, designers and choreographers had made-in-the-U.S. stamped all over them, had borrowed as heavily from Broadway as Broadway has from them (Oklahoma!, Carousel, etc.). Last week, with ballet's fall season under way, Manhattan audiences...
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