George Blanchine and Tilly Losch

Just as Bach’s music brings out the best in choreographers, Balanchine’s life and work do so in biographers and critics. Robert Gottlieb – well known American book and magazine editor and, lately, dance reviewer – has written a compact account of the master choreographer’s life: George Balanchine – The Ballet  Maker. In the book’s 216 pages, there’s room too for critical comment.

Gottlieb’s little volume is intentionally less detailed than the “standard” account of the  Balanchine story by Bernard Taper and less complex than the analyses of Balanchine ballets by Arlene Croce (whose book editor Gottlieb was). He began watching Balanchine dance and dancers in his student days and eventually, for a time, served on the board of directors of Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein’s New York City Ballet. Gottlieb captures astutely the qualities of Balanchine’s love interests – many were star dancers. Despite much inside information, he is refreshingly open in admitting that there are things he doesn’t know. He makes few mistakes. One error is about exotic Tilly Losch, senior star of Balanchine’s “Les Ballets” 1933. Gottlieb calls her a dancer of limited technique. In fact, Losch was strong, but ...