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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Thr 462

Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo records concerning Leonide Massine

Overview

Correspondence and contracts documenting the cause and the consequences of the 1942 legal separation of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and its artistic director and choreographer Leonide Massine.

Dates

  • Creation: 1939-1969
  • Creation: Majority of material found in 1942-1954

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English, Russian, and French.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

1.5 linear feet (3 boxes)

The collection consists of the correspondence between the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo's choreographer and artistic director Leonide Massine (1896- 1979) and the director of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and president of Universal Art, Inc Sergei Denham (1896-1970). It includes originals of the letters from Leonide Massine, his attorney Sidney E. Cohn of the firmBoudin, Cohn and Glikstein, and his secretaries to Sergei Denham, to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo executive Alexander Konovaloff, to the company’s attorney Watson Washburn of the firm Perkins, Malone & Washburn to the company’s administrator David Libidins and other company representatives; and carbons of letters as well as handwritten and typed drafts of letters from Sergei Denham and his associates to Leonid Massine and his lawyer. The collection also includes contracts between Leonide Massine and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and other company records.

Biographical / Historical

Sergei Denham (1896-1970) was a Russian-born banker, president of the Universal Art Inc, and general director of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Leonide Massine (1896-1979) was a Russian dancer and choreographer and in 1938-1942 artistic director of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Arrangement

Organized into the following three series :

  1. I. Correspondence
  2. II. Contracts
  3. III. Other company records.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*2003MT-48. Purchased with the Howard Rothschild fund; received: 2003 July 1.

Processing Information

Processed by: Irina Klyagin

Title
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo records concerning Leonide Massine: Guide.
Author
Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00224

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440