Leningrad cheered Porgy and Bess (TIME, Jan. 9), but nobody could predict how Moscow, with its love of grand opera in the grand manner, would take to the jazzy American folk opera about crapshooters along Catfish Row. By opening night last week, it was plain that Muscovites were at least curious to see the first U.S. theatrical troupe ever to visit Russia. Tens of thousands had applied for seats. Immense crowds swarmed around the Stanislavsky Theater hoping to get a spare ticket. A lucky 1,500 Soviet bigwigs, foreign diplomats and Russian first-nighters crammed...
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