Portraits and Observations

  The band was smooching its way through “Somebody Loves Me,” and the crowd on the floor listened to Lamar rasp out the lyrics with transfixed, transfigured faces. “… who can it be oh may-be ba-by may-be it’s you!” Madame Nervitsky danced well, but her body was tense, her hands icy. “J’adore le musique des Negres. It’s so wicked. So vile,” she said, and then, in the same breath, began to whisper rapidly in my ear, “You and your friends must find Russia very expensive. Take my advice, don’t change your dollars. Sell your clothes. That is the way to get rubles. Sell. Anyone will buy. If it can be done discreetly. I am here in the hotel, Room 520. Tell your friends to bring me shoes, stockings, things for close to the skin. Anything,” she said, digging her nails into my sleeve, “tell them I will buy anything. Really,” she sighed, resuming a normal voice and raising it above the shriek of Mignatt’s trumpet, “the Negroes are so delightful.”

  Somewhat set back from the Nevsky Prospekt, there is an arcaded building bearing a marked resemblance to St. Peter’s. This is the Kazin Cathedral, Leningrad’s largest antireligious museum. Inside, in an atmosphere of stained-glass gloom, the management has produced a Grand Guignol indictment against the teachings of the church. Statues and sinister portraits of the Popes follow each other down the galleries like a procession of witches. Everywhere ecclesiastics leer and grimace, make, in captioned cartoons, satyr suggestions to nunlike women, revel in orgies, snub the poor to cavort with the decadent rich. Ad infinitum the museum demonstrates its favorite thesis: that the church, the Roman Catholic in particular, exists solely as a protection to capitalism. One caricature, an enormous oil, depicts Rockefeller, Krupp, Hetty Green, Morgan and Ford plunging ferocious hands into a mountainous welter of coins and blood-soaked war helmets.

  The Kazin Cathedral is popular with children. Understandably so, since the exhibition is liberally sprinkled with horror-comic scenes of brutality and torture. The schoolteachers who herd daily swarms of pupils through the place have difficulty dragging them away from such attractions as The Chamber of the Inquisitors. The Chamber is a real room peopled with the life-sized wax figures of four Inquisitors relishing the agonies of a heretic. The naked victim, chained to a table, is being branded with hot coals by a pair of masked torturers. The coals are electrically lighted. Children, even when pulled away, keep sneaking back for a second look.

  Outside the cathedral, on the many columns supporting its arcades, there is another kind of display. Coarse chalk drawings, the usual men’s room graffiti, scarcely worth mentioning, except that it seems on first thought an odd place to find it; and on second it doesn’t. In a way it belongs.

  Antireligious museums were not among the sightseeing projects their hosts had lined up for the Porgy and Bess cast. Quite the contrary, on Sunday, Christmas Day, the Soviets provided the choice of attending a Catholic Mass or a Baptist service. Eleven members of the company, including Rhoda Boggs, a soprano playing the part of the Strawberry Woman, went to the Baptist Evangelical Church, whose Leningrad parishioners number two thousand. Afterward I saw Miss Boggs sitting alone in the Astoria dining room. She is a round, honey-colored, jolly-faced woman, always carefully groomed, but now her little Sunday best hat was slightly askew, the handkerchief she kept dabbing at her eyes was wet as a washcloth.

  “I’m tore to pieces,” she told me, her breasts heaving. “I’ve been going to church since I can walk, but I never felt Jesus like I felt Jesus today. Oh, child, He was there. He was out in the open. He was plainly written on every face. He was singing with us, and you never heard such beautiful singing. It was old people mostly, and old people can’t sing like that without Jesus helping them along. The pastor, there was a sweet old man, he asked us colored people would we render a spiritual, and they listened so quiet, all those rows and rows and rows of old faces just looking at us, like we were telling them nobody’s alone when Jesus is everywhere on this earth, which is a fact they know already, but it seemed to me like they were glad to hear it. Anybody doubts the presence of Our Savior, he should’ve been there. Well, it came time to go. To say good-bye. And you know what happened? They stood up, the whole congregation. They took out white handkerchiefs and waved them in the air. And they sang, ‘God Be With You Till We Meet Again.’ The tears were just pouring down our faces, them and ours. Oh, child, it churned me up. I can’t keep nothing on my stomach.”

  That evening, with the première less than twenty-four hours away, the windows of the Astoria stayed lighted late. All night footsteps hurried along the corridors, doors slammed and telephones rang, as though a calamity were happening.

  In Suite 415, Ambassador Bohlen and his wife entertained a small group of aides and friends who had just arrived with them by train from Leningrad. The gathering, which included Roye L. Lowry, Second Secretary at the Embassy and one of the two diplomats who had “briefed” the company in Berlin, was exceptionally quiet, since the Bohlens didn’t want their presence in the hotel known until the last possible moment. They concealed themselves so successfully that the next morning Warner Watson, believing the diplomatic contingent were coming by plane, set out for the Leningrad airport with a bouquet for Mrs. Bohlen. Directly below the ambassadorial apartment, in Suite 315, Mrs. Breen was seesawing on a Relaxer Board, while her husband polished the precurtain speech he planned to deliver. It had been suggested to him that he might circumvent the Communist propaganda potential in Porgy and Bess by pointing out that its picture of American Negroes concerned the long ago, not today, and so he added the line, “Porgy and Bess is set in the past. It no more reflects the present than if it were about life under the Czars in Russia.” In Room 223, Leonard Lyons was at his typewriter outlining the opening-night column he intended cabling his newspaper, the New York Post. “On stage were the flags of both nations, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.” he wrote, previewing the event. “The last time an American flag was displayed here was when there were only forty-five states in the union. A representative of the Ministry of Culture phoned to inquire how many states are united now. Yesterday a wardrobe mistress sewed three more stars on the old flag.” The item finished a page. Lyons inserted a new sheet with fresh carbons. Instead of throwing the old carbon in a wastebasket, he took it to the bathroom and flushed it into oblivion. It was safer, he felt, to destroy used carbons, otherwise the Soviets, or perhaps rival correspondents, might ferret them out and decipher what he was writing. And indeed, the hotel was seething with journalistic competitors. The Saturday Evening Post was there in the person of Charles R. Thayer, Ambassador Bohlen’s brother-in-law. Thayer, and C. L. Sulzberger of The New York Times, had arrived with the Bohlen party. The Saturday Review was sending Horace Sutton, Time and Life already had a photographer-reporting team on hand, and Mrs. Richard O’Malley, of AP’s Moscow bureau, was speeding toward Leningrad aboard the crack Red Arrow Express, the same train which had, the night before, brought CBS correspondent Dan Schorr.

  Now, on the second floor, in Room 111, Schorr, a heavyset bachelor in his middle thirties, was simultaneously trying to correct a manuscript, keep a pipe lighted and dictate on the telephone to a stenographer in Moscow. “Okay. Here’s the story. You put in the slugs. Let’s go,” he barked, and began to read from typed pages. “The Porgy and Bess Company comma believed to be the first American theatrical troupe ever to appear in Russia comma will open its Soviet engagement tomorrow night before a selected audience of two thousand two hundred I repeat two two oh oh at Leningrad’s Palace of Culture comma but offstage the Negro actors and singers have already scored a smash hit period The sixty members of the cast comma just by being themselves comma have had a tremendous impact on this comma the second largest city in the Soviet Union … that’s right, isn’t it? It is the second largest?” For twenty minutes more Schorr droned out anecdotes and fact. Long lines of Leningraders had waited all night in the snow to buy tickets at a top-scale of sixty rubles ($15), a price doubled and tripled on the black market. “Hey, what’s a synonym for black market that we can get past the ce
nsors? Okay, make it curb price.” Toward the end, he was saying, “They have given Leningrad a Christmas probably unlike any in history period Until four o’clock this morning they gathered around a Christmas tree dash provided by a solicitous Soviet government dash and sang carols and spirituals period. Yeah, I know I’m overfiling this story. But I got excited. Real excited. You can see it. The impact of one culture on another culture. And by the way, listen, I’m having a helluva time. They’re a great bunch, these Porgy and Bess people. Like living with a circus.”

  On Monday morning, the day of the première, the cast met at Leningrad’s Palace of Culture for a final dress rehearsal with full orchestra. Originally the Soviets had intended housing the production in the attractive Mariinsky theater, but the demand for tickets convinced them they could double their profit by transferring the opera to the huge Palace of Culture. The Palace, a pile of muddy-orange concrete, was slapped together in the thirties. From the outside it is not unlike one of those decaying examples of supermarket architecture along Hollywood and Vine. Several things about the interior suggest a skating rink. Its temperature, for one. But Davy Bey, and the other children in the company, thought it was “a grand place,” especially the vast backstage with its black recesses for hiding, its fly ropes to swing on, and where the tough backstage crew, strong men and stronger women, caressed them, gave them candy sticks and called them “Aluchka,” a term of affection.

  I rode over to the rehearsal in a car shared by two of the Ministry’s interpreters, Miss Lydia and the tall, personable youth named Sascha. Miss Lydia, a woman who enjoys her food, was in a fine state of excitement, as though she were about to sit down to a delicious meal. “We will see it, no? Now we will see this Porgy-Bess,” she said, wiggling on the seat. And then it occurred to me that yes, of course, at last Miss Lydia and her Ministry colleagues would be able to judge for themselves “this Porgy-Bess,” the myth that had for so long consumed their hours and energy. Even Savchenko would be having his first glimpse. Here and there along the route, Miss Lydia happily pointed at street placards advertising the show. Breen’s name, repeated often, was in bigger, bolder type than Gershwin’s, and the name of his absent co-producer, Blevins Davis, was omitted altogether. The day before, Mrs. Gershwin had observed to Warner Watson that in Russia the name Gershwin seemed to be “riding in the rumble seat”; to which Watson had replied, “Look, Lee, it’s got to be Robert’s show this time. He wants it that way. He’s just got to have it.”

  “How do you sit that still?” Miss Lydia inquired of Sascha. “Now we see it. Before the ordinary people.” Sascha was still. He had a seasick, stricken look, and not without reason. That morning Savchenko had thrown Breen into a tailspin by telling him that the production’s theater programs were still at the printer and would not be obtainable for another few days. It was an authentic crisis because the programs contained a synopsis of the opera’s plot, and Breen was afraid that without this guide the audience would have difficulty following the action. Savchenko offered a solution. Why not have one of the Ministry’s translators come before the curtain and, prior to each act, outline the plot? Sascha had been chosen for the task. “How will I handle my feet?” he said, his eyes hypnotized with stage fright. “How will I speak when there is no water in my mouth?” Miss Lydia tried to soothe him. “Think only what an honor! Many important people will be present. You will be noticed. If you were my son, Sascha, I would be very proud.”

  Inside the Palace of Culture’s darkened auditorium, Sascha and Miss Lydia found seats in the fourth row. I sat down behind them, between Savchenko and “Joe” Adamov, both of whom were exploring their mouths with toothpicks. Other Russians, some thirty-odd who had finagled invitations to watch the run-through, were scattered around in the first several rows. Among them were Moscow journalists and photographers who had come to cover the première. The orchestra in the pit, an importation from Moscow’s Stanislavski theater, was winging through the overture with confident ease. The conductor, Alexander Smallens, a Russian-born American who has made rather a life’s work of Porgy and Bess, having maestroed its every incarnation, including the original 1935 production, said the Stanislavski was the sixty-first orchestra under his command and the best of the lot. “Superb musicians, and a joy to work with. They love the score, and they have the tempo, the rhythm. All they need now is a little more the mood.”

  On stage, Breen, wearing a beret, a windbreaker, and a pair of close-fitting frontier pants, motioned the cast into place for the first scene. Flat overhead rehearsal lights shadowed the actors’ faces, drained the color from the scenery and accentuated its wrinkled wornness. The set, a simple functional job, depicts a corner of Catfish Row with its balconied houses and shuttered windows. Presently, responding to a signal from Breen, a soprano leaned over a balcony and began to sing the opening song, “Summertime.” Miss Lydia recognized the melody. She swayed her head and hummed with the music until Savchenko tapped her on the shoulder and growled an admonition that made her shrink in her seat. Midway through the performance, Adamov dug me with his elbow and said, “I speak pretty good English, right? Well I can’t figure what the hell they’re yelling about. All this dialect crap! I think …” But I never heard what he thought, for Savchenko turned round with a look that strangled Adamov. Most of the Russians were as silent as Savchenko could have wished. The rows of profiles, silhouetted in the glow from the stage, remained as severely unmarred by expression as coin engravings. At the end, with the last aria sung, there was a quiet drifting off to the cloakrooms. Savchenko and Miss Lydia, Sascha and two other young men from the Ministry, Igor and Henry, waited together while an attendant brought their coats. I walked over and asked Miss Lydia her opinion of what she’d seen. She bit her lower lip, her eyes darted toward Savchenko, who said firmly, “Interesting. Most interesting.” Miss Lydia nodded, but neither she nor Sascha, Igor nor Henry, would venture a different adjective. “Yes,” they all said, “interesting. Most interesting.”

  The average playing time of Porgy and Bess is approximately two and a half hours, but this final run-through, involving many pauses for corrections, lasted from 10 A.M. until two in the afternoon. The cast, edgy with hunger and anxious to return to the hotel, were annoyed when, after the theater had emptied of Russian spectators, Breen informed them that the rehearsal was not yet over. He wanted to restage the curtain calls.

  As matters stood, and though only the two players in the title roles took individual bows, the pattern of calls already established required six minutes to complete. Not many productions can expect an audience to sustain six minutes of applause. Breen now proposed extending these six minutes indefinitely by contriving what amounted to “a separate little show. Just,” he said, “an impromptu thing. Sort of like an encore.” It consisted of having a drummer beat a bongo while, one at a time, every winking, waving member of the company sashayed across the stage inviting individual applause. Even the stage manager, the wardrobe mistress, the electricians, and naturally the director himself, were set to receive homage from the audience. One had the choice of two conclusions: either Breen was counting on an ovation of volcanic vigor, or he feared the reverse, and so was insuring prolonged applause by staging this “impromptu” extra curtain call. Obviously, under the delicate diplomatic circumstances, no audience would walk out while the performers were still, in a sense, performing.

  Private limousines had been put at the disposal of the leading players. Martha Flowers, who alternates with Ethel Ayler in the role of Bess, and who had been assigned to sing the part that evening, offered me a return ride to the Astoria. I asked if she were nervous about the première. “Me? Uh-uh. I’ve been doing this show two years. The only thing makes me nervous is, maybe I’m ruining my voice for serious work.” Miss Flowers, a young Juilliard graduate, is ambitious to make a reputation as a concert recitalist. She is small and perky. Whether smiling or not, her lips are always pursed downward, as though she’d just tasted a green persimmon. “I’m tired, though. I
sure am that. This kind of climate’s no good for a singer. You’ve really got to watch your throat,” she said, massaging her own. “The other Bess, you know—Ethel, she’s in bed with a bad cold. Got a temperature and everything. So I’ll have to sing the matinée tomorrow and maybe the evening, too. Well, a person could ruin their voice forever, carrying on like that.” She described her schedule between now and curtain time. “I ought to eat something. But first I’ll take a bath. Can you float in your tub? Mine’s so big I can float. I’ll take a nap, too. We start for the theater at six. Maybe six-thirty I’ll be slipping into my costume and pinning that old red flower in my hair. Then I guess I’ll have a long sit.”

  At six-thirty, the hour when Miss Flowers was presumably in her dressing room pinning on a paper rose, Mrs. Breen and Mrs. Gershwin were in the Bohlens’ suite, where they had been asked to have drinks prior to leaving for the Palace of Culture. Breen himself, too busy to accept the Ambassador’s hospitality, had already gone to the theater.