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Dancing the Nation? French Dance Diplomacy in Allied-Occupied Austria, 1945–55

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2019

Alexander Golovlev
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These excerpts from critical reviews covering French dance tours in Vienna, Salzburg, and Innsbruck reflect the scale and variety of French cultural engagement and its growing public visibility in Austria. Out of the four Allied powers, it was France, and not the Soviet Union with its “ballet capital,” that made most use of dance and ballet for nation-branding purposes, both in sabots and on pointe. France's dance diplomacy exported all genres of dance to Austria in order to portray the politically and militarily weakened nation as a rayonnant cultural leader of Europe, whose diversity, supremacy, and grandeur were not undone by 1871 and 1940.

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Articles
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Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 50 , April 2019 , pp. 166 - 183
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Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2019 

“At the end of an evening that had passed in a truly European spirit a Farandole was intoned, an age-old, widespread folk dance. All present were involved in this ring and were swirled through the room in a merry-go-around. They rejoiced over a common bond … overpowering linguistic differences.”

Tiroler Tageszeitung, 17 August 1951Footnote 1

“The guest tour of the Paris Opéra Ballet was more of a social than an artistic event, even if the sum of artistic energies consumed for it rather surpasses what we use to think possible to invest in a ballet production.”

Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 3 (1953)Footnote 2

“The actual closure of the Salzburg Festival was a guest tour of the Ballet of the Paris Opera. Under the leadership of the great choreographer and dancer Serge Lifar, it takes internationally a leading position. For those who are used to the Viennese ballet, this was a tour from another world. Lifar has succeeded in a synthesis between the modern and classic art of dance.”

Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 3 September 1953Footnote 3

These excerpts from critical reviews covering French dance tours in Vienna, Salzburg, and Innsbruck reflect the scale and variety of French cultural engagement and its growing public visibility in Austria. Out of the four Allied powers, it was France, and not the Soviet Union with its “ballet capital,” that made most use of dance and ballet for nation-branding purposes, both in sabots and on pointe. France's dance diplomacy exported all genres of dance to Austria in order to portray the politically and militarily weakened nation as a rayonnant cultural leader of Europe, whose diversity, supremacy, and grandeur were not undone by 1871 and 1940.

Drawing from French and Austrian national histories, international relations, dance studies, history of media, and analysis of discourses on culture and dance, this article examines how French dance representations were built into an increasingly self-aware and coherent strategy of cultural diplomacy and how they were received in the early postwar Austrian public space.Footnote 4 The latter represents a striking example of a competitive environment in which the four Allies undertook significant efforts to conquer the hearts and minds of the inhabitants and to assert their prestige (as France did) in the Musikstadt Vienna and Musikland Austria.Footnote 5 Moving between the perspectives of the diplomats, the dancers and their creations, and public reactions—and shifting the focus from description to ascription while conducting institutional, performance, and discourse analysis—this article investigates the developments observable in contemporary Austrian discourses on dance and explores how imageries of France impacted Austrian society and fueled the ensuing professionalized discussion about music and ballet.Footnote 6

French diplomatie culturelle and Austria: Historiography, Empirical Context, and Problematique

Unlike French musical diplomacy in Germany, the Austrian case, and particularly dance, has not yet been the subject of a published monographic study, a lacuna that needs addressing and has substantial research potential.Footnote 7 In the historiography of France's diplomatie culturelle, dance plays a remarkably subordinate role compared to language, painting, and theater.Footnote 8 Although language and education were key—and contentious—areas, the visual arts, theater, and music found a warm welcome with Austrian audiences.Footnote 9 Historians concur that France made culture a cornerstone of its occupation policies through substantial investment of financial and administrative resources and delegated the Cold War military and defensive standoff to its Anglophone allies, focusing its cultural action on building a new Austrian national identity.Footnote 10 In this context, denazification and democratization were inextricably linked to the assertion of French cultural prestige in Austria and Central Europe, which became particularly important as the neighboring democracies began to show increasing hostility to French cultural presence in their territory.Footnote 11 France tailored its cultural diplomacy into the contradictory liberation-occupation framework of a reborn “paradoxical republic” while maintaining the occupier's pays ami propagandistic ambiguity, which was compounded by recent memories of defeat, Nazi occupation, and widespread collaboration.Footnote 12

With the Moscow Declaration of 1943 and the First and Second Control Agreements of 1945–46, the victorious Allies—the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France—recognized Austria's unity and independence, yet also its share of responsibility for Nazi war crimes.Footnote 13 Austria was divided into four occupation zones: the Soviet one comprising Lower Austria; the Burgenland and the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria (“the east”); the American zone consisting of the remaining Upper Austria, Salzburg, and the Ausseerland in mountainous Styria (“the northwest”); the British administering most of Styria, Carinthia, and the East Tyrol (“the south”); and the French receiving the rest of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg (“the west”). Vienna was equally divided, with the central 1st district administered in turn by all four Allies, thus making a full separation of “Eastern” and “Western” Austria impossible.Footnote 14 Electoral defeats of the Communist Party, harsh economic policies, the Red Army's brutal actions toward Austrian civilians accompanied by apparently wanton detentions, and Stalin's unwillingness to pursue an aggressive course toward (eastern) Austria's inclusion into the Soviet sphere of influence against Marshall Plan aid meant that the country would remain an independent, united, and democratic “Western” nation and thus an important player due to its neutrality and role as an “east-west” bridge.Footnote 15

In culture, Moscow allowed for certain liberalism too. The Soviets were the first to launch cultural offensives in 1945 and carefully constructed a reputation for the “Russians” as a civilized “people of music,” with successful tours of leading Soviet artists and support for the Austrian musical scene largely aimed at non-Communist, middle-class audiences.Footnote 16 The United States overcame the initial rigidity of its “nonfraternization” policy, quickly establishing its preeminence in the media market, enlisting support of local cultural establishment, and, after an unsuccessful policy of promoting highbrow and modernist musics (such as Stravinsky), acquiesced and lent support to the already perceptible dynamics of “coca-colonization” and the victorious conquest of Europe by jazz and American popular culture.Footnote 17 Despite persistent cultural anti-Americanism, the political prestige of the United States rose exponentially. Second in political popularity, Britain supported local initiatives in Graz, such as the reconstruction of opera houses and the establishment of a new festival and also sent a number of its artists, including Malcolm Sargent and the oboist Léon Goossens.Footnote 18

France was quick to act too, with its artists and functionaries coming second only to the Soviets. Cultural diplomats set up a comprehensive network of institutions and representatives, which covered all major Austrian cities and assured a communication line to British and American allies and to Austrian cultural actors. The Division des affaires culturelles and the Institut Français in Vienna—both under Eugène Susini, an academic specializing in German studies whose views largely determined French cultural strategy in Austria—and in Innsbruck—under Maurice Besset, who became a leading figure in the city's postwar cultural life—were seconded by cultural missions, both within and outside the French occupation zone and included posts in Salzburg, Graz-Klagenfurt, and Linz. A bilateral Société France-Autriche, who were called to reinvigorate France's prestige and its declared cultural affinity with the Austrians, fostered further cooperation.Footnote 19

France could claim for itself a symbolic and historic primacy within European academic dance, from the Sun King to nineteenth-century Paris. The subsequent decline of ballet's prestige, its reintroduction into the focus of French public opinion with the Ballets Russes, and the interwar global spread of “Russian” ballet clashed with alternative dance forms and their exponents—most of them originating in the United States and later sent to often difficult terrains—as its cultural ambassadors (who arguably have staged sporadic “returns” to American cultural diplomacy, and beyond, ever since), a phenomenon that further informed issues of cultural expression of identity (national, gender, racial, or sexual) and of the interpretation of stylistic and choreographic choices.Footnote 20 As totalitarianism swept across Europe, dance and ballet were exposed to unprecedented pressures: from the transformation of German Ausdruckstanz, with its often marginalized yet important development in Austria, through the two competing concepts of Russian identity in the Soviet Union and in the democratic West, initially in France and later in George Balanchine's New York City Ballet.Footnote 21 Dance for export became a Cold War—and a global—issue.Footnote 22

The problematic standing of the famed Russo-French choreographer Serge Lifar toward the Germans during the Occupation compromised the Parisian ballet's position after the war, even if his lack of Resistance credentials was not atypical for the French intelligentsia.Footnote 23 The Cold War reinforced the struggle for cultural supremacy between East and West, which, while fraught with difficulties for Communist countries, also revealed the limits of Western success.Footnote 24 Notions of a greater appreciation for and superior care of cultural heritage in the East blended with highbrow anti-Americanism, a strong force throughout Europe.Footnote 25 Thus, scholars of cultural and musical diplomacy have recognized the benefits of interacting with audiences and taking into account their interpretative spaces and power.Footnote 26

The Austrian Context: Politics, Press, and Cultural Discourses

Austria, a small country yet a musical superpower, found itself exposed not only to the vicissitudes of Allied policies but also to an unprecedented density of cultural imports. All the Allies sent ballets or ballet dancers to Austria. The Soviet Union, while never dispatching a full ballet troupe, included a number of renowned solo dancers (e.g., Maia Plisetskaia) in its musical “brigades” and successfully introduced the academicized folk dance school, represented by Russian and Georgian ensembles. Great Britain deployed the full Sadler's Wells Ballet under Ninette de Valois to create a similar significant impact in the public space, whilst American leadership exercised caution when deploying non-European ensembles to Austria, due to fears that they would not garner approving audiences.Footnote 27

The Austrian press experienced a period of Allied and party domination, torn between communism, socialism, and political Catholicism. Yet Austria drew on a long and rich tradition of academic musical criticism developed in Vienna at the time of Guido Adler, Heinrich Schenker, and Eduard Hanslick.Footnote 28 Following a sinuous history of controversies over nationalism(s), modernity(-ies), and the meaning(s) of music, many musicians and musical writers were tainted by links to the Nazi regime.Footnote 29 In the wake of denazification and democratization efforts, musical writings of the postwar years testify to conservative patterns (the “pre-1938” restoration). These writers shared a distinctive socialization as part of a largely continuous establishment, transmitting a high-culture habitus concentrated on a restricted number of authors, hierarchical organization within genres, and performing traditions (e.g., symphony or quartet music).Footnote 30 A strong skepticism toward modernity and cultural nationalism, as well as a retreat from the Greater German mindset, sought to establish a new Austrian identity based on an Austro-centric, yet de facto Germanic, canon.

The Austrian press market was controlled by the economically and politically powerful US administration, which set up and maintained the Wiener Kurier in Vienna and the Salzburger Nachrichten in Salzburg, two conservative papers with the largest circulations in the country.Footnote 31 The Soviet-led Österreichische Zeitung was the least popular Allied press organ, due to its heavy-handed Stalinist style of propaganda and the strong rejection of Soviet Communism by Austrians, while the philo-communist Der Abend maintained a certain degree of independence from the Soviet dictum, appealing to certain cultured audiences by its pronouncedly nonconformist stance.Footnote 32 The British Weltpresse was broadly modeled along American lines, though it was of secondary importance compared with the US-led flagships, and France developed only a marginal press presence.Footnote 33 The all-party organs, Neues Österreich and Wiener Zeitung, carved out a substantial niche within the Viennese readership, their positions being particularly strong in the first postliberation months owing to their de facto monopoly. Likewise, some political parties set up their own outlets, notably the Socialist Arbeiter-Zeitung. In the regions, where one-newspaper domination was characteristic, the French exercised indirect control over the conservative and expectedly Francophile Tiroler Tageszeitung in Innsbruck and the Vorarlberger Nachrichten in Bregenz. However, what is characteristic of the Austrian press is the large degree of continuity in the style and patterns of musical-critical writing across the regional borders and political lines. Education standards of musical criticism were vigorously upheld by both Communists and Catholics, and cultural reporting revealed a degree of consistency in discourse formation from Bregenz over Salzburg to Vienna.

Nonacademic, Non-European, Semiofficial: First French Dancing Advances in Vienna

Dance was initially sidelined by education, exhibitions, and musical tours. The first nonacademic dance groups of Nyota Inyoka and Loïe Fuller performed in Vienna in 1946, receiving scant diplomatic attention.Footnote 34 However, French officials in Austria later developed more pronounced sensitivities for dance's potential in Austria, producing an outpouring of dance-diplomatic enterprises. Folk dance groups staged summertime tours in 1948, 1949, 1951, 1952, and 1953, and created a substantial media echo throughout the country. Finally, academic ballet was deployed in Vienna and at the festivals of Salzburg and Bregenz; the Roland Petit ballet gave a tour in 1948, and the Janine Charrat troupe was dispatched to the French-created Bregenz Festival in 1954. The Paris National Opéra Ballet came to Austria three times—to Vienna in 1950 and 1952 and to Salzburg in 1953—sparking a vibrant discussion on many aspects of the contemporary academic ballet school, the Frenchness or Russianness of the performed dances, the role of choreographer, the individual étoiles, and the music.

The first French troupe to arrive in Austria was, in fact, the Franco-American Fuller Ballet, which was rooted in the traditions of nonacademic American dance that had expressed its discursive agency mostly by opposing the increasingly dominant categories of European dance aesthetics. While securing financial support, they did not receive a public endorsement from highbrow cultural officers.Footnote 35 Nevertheless, critical voices indicate a preparatory information campaign conducted by the French administration.Footnote 36 However, the group did not attain a large degree of public visibility, being viewed as an exotic curiosity by the Viennese (most writers drew attention to the ballet's work with light and colored fabric), who, as yet, did not critically engage with notions of non-Europeanness and femininity.Footnote 37

The second ballet tour was equally nonacademic and non-European and featured a female-led ensemble. The Franco-Southeast Asian troupe of Nyota Inyoka arrived in Vienna in late 1946.Footnote 38 The troupe exemplified the harmonious relationship of the European and the Oriental, at a time when the war in Indochina was starting to challenge the positive image of the French empire. However, the Viennese criticism did not engage in this discourse and showed instead its demanding character by unequivocally calling for higher professional standards of dancers.Footnote 39

These nonclassic preludes to the subsequent parade of first-rate academic companies showed a lack of coherence in the first dancing enterprises to come to Austria. At a time when nonacademic music and dance harvested little attention from cultural diplomats, both ensembles received only moderate support and relatively lukewarm criticism. Their problematic nature, however, exposed potential contradictions within the reified standards of white European academic ballet. Women, non-Europeans, and colonial subjects met the Austrians, who looked for exoticism and entertainment while not outwardly problematizing the French imperial message.

Folk Song and Dance Groups

Despite their initial reticence toward lowbrow culture, French representatives were quick to realize the potential that folk art could have in conveying the vibrancy and regional complexity of their nation. Austria had its own traditions of folk music and dance, where cultural parallels could be established between the French and Austrians. First talks of a folk tour took place in 1946, although the first dancers came to Vienna only two years later during 14 July festivities in 1948 and 1949.Footnote 40 Introduced by a cautious press campaign, artists hailing from Normandy, Franche-Comté, Vendee, and the Basque country were met with warm approval by critics of all political orientations (including Communists).Footnote 41 This encouraged the French administration to continue the folk campaign the following year. An advertisement offensive was launched, and even more regions were included, representing the length and breadth of the Hexagon.Footnote 42 French musical ambassadors carried a message of unity in portraying the diversity of their nation with its ties to the European neighbors. From Corsica to Alsace with its “Alemannic rawness” and the “Jodls” from Limousin, French dance ambassadors thus portrayed the regional diversity and national unity of France, key issues for the Austrian nation-building project where regional identities were to be equally integrated into a new sense of nationhood.Footnote 43

In the 1950s, French folk tours concentrated on western Austria. A guest performance given by a folk group, “Lou Calen” from Marseille, in Innsbruck in August 1951 and in August 1952, received accolades from the Tiroler Tageszeitung.Footnote 44 The largest advance of the French administration in the field, the Austrian tour of the “Capeline de Menton,” another Southern French ensemble of dance and song, took place in June 1952. In Innsbruck, they performed together with native Tyrolean dancers, the superior professional level of the French causing the Tiroler Tageszeitung some embarrassment.Footnote 45 Later successful concerts in Linz confirmed the French position at the heart of the American zone: the Capeline gave a further tour in Innsbruck and Upper Austria (Steyr, Wels, Schallerbach, Gmunden, Bad Ischl, Bad Aussee) in June 1953, while 14 July celebrations were again marked by an Austro-French performance, featuring two groups from the Landes and Arles who received sympathetic criticism.Footnote 46

An orchestrated “people-to-people” dance dialog proved to be an incontestable success by the cultural diplomats, who managed to attract publics that were not necessarily a typical part of the concert-going milieu. Such diplomacy advanced a strikingly clear cultural propagandistic message of commonalities between the Austrian and French peoples that would have been hardly possible under most other circumstances. Regional identities were addressed through the message of local cultural heritage in France and put in the show by joint performances with Austrian folk dancers. Nevertheless, French performers were invariably perceived as an exotic “Other,” which attracted additional interest. Like the Soviets, the French learned that folk dance and songs, with a touch of academic training, offered a secure recipe to score success points with Austrian publics. Folk ensembles—though less concentrated on dance—continued to tour Austria in the following years.

The Ballets de Paris Tour of 1948

The Roland Petit ensemble was the first group chosen to introduce French academic ballet diplomacy. The French administration in Austria was eager to capitalize on the ballet resources that Paris had to offer; as the Opéra Ballet was still being shaken by épuration, Roland Petit's dancers were politically reliable. Discussions of a tour of this ballet had started in mid-1946, but the first actual performance was repeatedly delayed due to financial shortages.Footnote 47 An erstwhile financial tug of war between the ballet impresarios, Susini's Cultural Division (Division des affaires culturelles), and the Federal Theaters (Bundestheater) officials in Vienna was finally resolved with the French administration stepping in and scheduling the troupe's performances for late 1948.Footnote 48

Between 8 and 11 November, the ballet was finally performed on the Volksoper stage.Footnote 49 The program spanned Russian classics (two Tchaikovsky ballets: The Nutcracker and a suite La belle au Bois Dormant), a modern ballet (Les Demoiselles de Nuit, the libretto by Jean Anouilh and music by Jean Françaix), and a sequence (Suite de Danses du Beau Danube by Johann Strauss) in homage to Austria. These programmatic choices reflected the commitment of Roland Petit to academic Franco-Russian tradition; he engaged the famed choreographer Léonide Massine for Suite des Danses du Beau Danube and set a conservative accent with The Nutcracker. Eschewing aesthetically problematic choreography, the Petit Ballet presented a familiar repertoire expected to make an easy entry on Austrian stages, provide the French administration with first practical information on Austrian reactions, and afford cultural-diplomatic capital for future actions.

The public and critical interest proved substantial: all major Viennese newspapers reacted with detailed reviews. The Wiener Kurier issued a laudatory article stressing Petit's mastery of classical ballet and singling out Les demoiselles de la nuit as the most interesting piece of the evening. This appraisal, characteristically, was not wholly complimentary and indeed reflected the conservative nationalist expectations for a Franco-Russian ballet troupe: Massine's choreography of the Dances du beau Danube was accused of transplanting “foreign dance elements” to Viennese music, such as “Russian Cossack dances, combined with motives of old knockabouts from the music halls.”Footnote 50 Furthermore, the suites proved a matter of debate, as the Socialist Arbeiter-Zeitung, while positively assessing dancers’ technique, deplored the lack of consistency behind the apparently disparate dance numbers.Footnote 51

Heavy artillery was fired this time from the Soviet trenches: the Österreichische Zeitung published a lengthy philippic against the Ballet de Paris, predictably discovering signs of bourgeois decadence in its art, to which Tchaikovsky's music could offer but a partial remedy.Footnote 52 Österreichische Zeitung’s effective isolation, however, meant its invective went unheeded. Even Der Abend praised Demoiselles de la nuit, while bemoaning a supposed lack of technical precision with the rendition of Tchaikovsky and criticizing the stylistic incoherence of Beau Danube.Footnote 53

In the discursive climate of the early postwar seasons, when the inter-Allied tensions were starting to emerge and the Austrian press was expected to unconditionally praise their first cultural offensives, many critics (such as the Wiener Tageszeitung, the British-led Weltpresse, and the musically relevant Wiener Zeitung) chose not to highlight the problems they might have noticed. It is instructive to see that a piece on Austrian themes, the Beau Danube, generated the most skepticism as many journalists doubted its appropriateness for an Austrian tour. However, while separate elements of the Roland Petit repertoire could receive relatively cold remarks, the critical scene of Vienna refrained from casting a negative light on the whole guest tour. French cultural diplomats congratulated themselves on this success, which paved ground for the two large-scale tours of the Opéra Ballet in the seasons of 1950 and 1952.Footnote 54

Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris

When the full Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris appeared on the scene of the Viennese Volksoper in March 1950 (in lieu of the State Opera that still lay in ashes), their tour was highlighted as a cultural event of national importance in the public space. Though the country had been already saturated with Allied culture(s), rendering the seduction of musical critics a more difficult task, it was accomplished with the resources of the leading French troupe, which could now count on all of its leading performers and choreographers, including Serge Lifar. Put under the aegis of the high-ranking French dignitaries, the ballet ensemble received the closest public and press attention. All Allied high commissionaires, the Austrian federal chancellor, vice chancellor, and foreign and education ministers received invitations for the premiere, and the musical establishment of Vienna turned out en masse.Footnote 55 The program aired a number of pieces belonging to the stock repertoire of the ballet: César Franck (Passion) was accompanied by Henri Sauguet (Les mirages), André Jolivet (Guignole et Pandore), and Edouard Lalo (Suite en blanc). Whereas radical modernity was excluded, Sauguet, Lalo, and Jolivet represented the—relatively—modern academic French school. However, Lifar's neoclassicist plotless choreography of Suite en blanc and the rooting of Guignole et Pandore in somewhat ruffian popular culture carried some risks because of their departure from the expected nineteenth-century canon.Footnote 56

A choir of appraisal did indeed resound through the Viennese press landscape. The laudatory tradition was again spearheaded by the Wiener Kurier, while the Österreichische Zeitung launched, communisme oblige, a derogatory editorial denouncing the bourgeois art.Footnote 57 Following the standard discursive practice, other organs included only minor critical details within their predominantly panegyric reports. For example, Die Presse found the plot of Les mirages lengthy and saved from languor only by Sauguet's impressionism and noted the ruggedness of some episodes in Guignole et Pandore. Footnote 58 The latter's popular and “coarse” character was judged problematic by the Wiener Zeitung and the Neues Österreich. Footnote 59 The neoclassicist choreography, while mentioned positively by the Arbeiter-Zeitung, was criticized in Neues Österreich and with particular vigor in the Kleines Volksblatt. Footnote 60 This criticism revealed a burgeoning conflict potential in the Viennese public space, in which the potentially divisive decisions of the Opéra Ballet began to court controversy.

In March 1952, the Parisian Opéra Ballet returned to the Volksoper after an official invitation from the Federal Theatres, this time with Serge Lifar entering the scene.Footnote 61 The overall expenditure of this extraordinarily well-documented tour was an estimated three million francs, as the troupe included five étoiles, five prima ballerinas, sixteen dancers, a conductor, and technical personnel.Footnote 62 Organizers on the Austrian side asked for a daily remuneration of 22,000 Austrian schillings, which equaled the median daily income, from ticket sales at the Volksoper.Footnote 63

Lifar's repertoire choice embraced an increased time span, harking back to old masters, yet reiterating his focus on neoclassicism. Courtly baroque culture was represented by Couperin's ballet Les Caprices de Cupidon, the Austrian premiere of this tour.Footnote 64 The nineteenth-century French art was exemplified by the time-proven classic Coppelia by Léo Delibes. Finally, Suite en blanc was again represented in Vienna. Concomitant with a conservative turn, Lifar's neoclassicist credo was again carried by this emblematic piece. Most reviews conserved an unproblematic veneer of welcoming appraisal (such as a short announcement published in the Wiener Kurier and articles in Die Presse, the Wiener Zeitung, and the Salzburger Nachrichten).Footnote 65 This notwithstanding, the Arbeiter-Zeitung criticized Lifar for his excessive conservatism, and the institutional voice of musical profession in Austria, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, apparently came closer to the skeptical mood of the musical establishment in which it openly questioned the artistic value of the Parisian program.Footnote 66

The seeds of controversy, sown in 1950, bore fruit in 1952. Given the necessary respect paid to the leading French ballet, and given France's position in Austria, the musical journalists showed but a lukewarm sympathy for the neoclassicist choreography of Serge Lifar. Characteristically, even politely neutral or positive reviews concentrated on individual dancers, rather than on the ensemble or the choreography. A potential for cultural appropriation of Parisian novelties by the renascent Viennese ballet was largely dismissed. Signs of public success were, nevertheless, present—anecdotally. Payart wrote to Paris that Soviet officials, while declining an official invitation, turned out en masse, having privately bought tickets in the opera booth.Footnote 67 Yet, the Parisian Opéra Ballet failed to fully conquer the discursive space: while its dancers and technical quality were admired and its conservatism elicited sympathies, its academic modernity met with ambiguous reception, outwardly hailed by a number of mainstream critics yet skeptically assessed by numerous other voices.

French Ballet in Salzburg: Romance Advances into Austrian Festival Culture

The two festival participations that marked the presence of French ballet outside Vienna happened at the dusk of the Allied occupation period: the Opéra Ballet guest tour in Salzburg in 1953 and the Ballet Charrat production at the Bregenz Festival the following year.Footnote 68 An extensive French contribution to the Salzburg Festival, resurrected by the American administration as part of an initiative to construct a new democratic, anti-Nazi (and anti-Communist) showcase for Austrian culture, this tour would emerge as a high point of a musical diplomacy that started back in 1946 with the return of a French cultural representative, Jeanne-Baptiste Peyrebère de Guilloutet, and a number of concerts given by French musicians during the regular seasons and at consecutive festivals.Footnote 69 The question of an eventual ballet tour was addressed at the level of the Foreign Ministry in November 1952, and contacts with festival directors and the Opéra Ballet resulted in a confirmation of participation at the festival's closure in 1953.Footnote 70 This enterprise would introduce academic dance to Salzburg, where it had been absent from the programs since 1941.Footnote 71 The repertoire for the festival included Les Caprices de Cupidon, followed by Les Mirages.Footnote 72 An important addendum came with Le Palais de Cristal, showcasing the music of Georges Bizet and the choreography of George Balanchine. Moreover, Albert Aveline, co-choreographer of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, represented the next French generation, particularly in the Romantic parts of the program. Smaller numbers were also featured including L'après-midi d'un faune with music by Claude Debussy.

A large number of Salzburg, Viennese, and provincial newspapers produced reports of these performances. The Salzburger Nachrichten, already acquainted with the Parisians through the Opéra Ballet's Viennese tour of the previous year, duly introduced the ensemble and led the outpouring of eulogies with its two large programmatic articles devoted to the evenings.Footnote 73 What truly constituted the agenda for the Salzburger Nachrichten’s musical column was the question of a permanent ballet component on the festival program and what was considered a long-overdue renaissance of a homegrown Austrian ballet school that could represent the country's music on the European arena.Footnote 74 The Kurier commentary did not differ substantially from that of the Salzburger Nachrichten, offering an introduction and a large laudatory article in the follow-up of the festival.Footnote 75 It drew more attention to experimental premieres shown at the Parisian stage, while reporting on the guest tour contained only a factual discussion of music selection, choreography, and soloists.

The relaxed management of this sensational tour by the Austrian flagships, this time including the Österreichische Musikzeitschrift as well, was followed by some Viennese and most provincial papers, among them Kleine Zeitung (Graz and Klagenfurt) and the Vorarlberger Nachrichten.Footnote 76 The rest of the Austrian press, which showed differing degrees of reserve, did not necessarily share this adulation. The official publication of the Salzburg cultural department stressed the classicism and the technical perfection of dancers: Serge Lifar, whose capability as a performer was assessed with mild skepticism considering his age, received polite praise as choreographer.Footnote 77 In Vienna, the influential Wiener Zeitung straightforwardly consigned the “dusty” classical art of dancing, shown on the stage of Salzburg in its purified form, into the museum.Footnote 78 The apparently frivolous plot of Les Caprices de Cupidon, a fête galante involving couples of different nationalities, came under particular fire from the center-right Kleines Volksblatt, which considered it an inappropriately conventional piece.Footnote 79 Parisian conservatism was found excessive, impeding free development of the French esprit.Footnote 80 Communist publications delivered their salvoes, attacking the presumed divorce of Parisians’ art from the real life.Footnote 81 However, even the most prejudiced critics offered unreserved respect for the soloists and the Opéra Ballet's artistic leadership, which magnified the public outreach of French cultural-propagandistic messages. The press echo of the Ballet tour quickly reached France, and a number of newspapers published reports of a (supposed) conquest made by the Opéra dancers.Footnote 82 Indeed, the prestige gains were considerable, and the Opéra Ballet guest tour marked a watershed in the festival program, ushering in an era of foreign ballet company performances that were to advance to the foreground of festival seasons.

Behind this façade, the picture was more problematic. The neoclassicist choreography of Lifar again found little sympathy in the Austrian musical establishment, not seduced by its declared conservatism; indeed, Lifar's works were criticized as lacking innovation in the Austrian musical discourse. Joseph Kaut, a cultural functionary working at the festival, later wrote that Lifar's choreography was antiquated and that his ensemble rarely made foreign tours, so that when the Ballet came to Austria, it left Salzburg public unsatisfied and disappointed.Footnote 83 An overtly skeptical report published in Süddeutsche Zeitung, circulated later in the historiography, reiterated this depiction of Parisian failure.Footnote 84 This report provides an important basis to question contemporary writers’ objectivity on the real echo of Lifar and his Salzburg reception because the Austrian press was bound by politeness and clearly aware of French sensitivities. Yet the erstwhile public reaction overwhelmingly recognized the leading position of the Opéra Ballet in academic dance and therefore transmitted the intended prestige message of French dance diplomacy. The international fame of grand Parisian ballet was reflected in Viennese criticism even outside the tour seasons, and the contemporary cultural public was exposed to an assertive message of France's excellence in academic dance with temporarily subdued dissenting voices concerning Lifar's artistic decisions.Footnote 85

Bregenz Festival

Another example of French musical engagement in Austria, the Bregenz Festival, resulted from the close collaboration between the French and Vorarlberg authorities, fitting into the pays ami ideology.Footnote 86 Located in a city that had not previously enjoyed a musical scene comparable to that in Vienna or Salzburg, the festival could capitalize on Bregenz's proximity to the Swiss and German boundaries and a potential influx of foreign tourists and currency.Footnote 87 Direct French participation was not numerous, as the French authorities displayed only moderate interest in the festival, which focused predominantly on Austrian music. Only toward the end of the occupation decade was a decision taken to send a prominent ensemble. Characteristically, neither the Lifar nor the Petit troupes were considered owing to the relative novelty and lack of renown of the festival in the conservative French eyes.

The Janine Charrat ballet ensemble, ultimately selected for participation, ranked lower in the pecking order of French cultural diplomacy, yet it still possessed a first-class profile. It ultimately became the most important French cultural-diplomatic enterprise in Vorarlberg. This ballet, first considered as a candidate for 14 July celebrations a year earlier, was then approved for the 1954 festival.Footnote 88 The program aligned with the ongoing conservative trend to present unproblematic and familiar works. Charrat's choreography broadly followed Roland Petit's leadership, producing performances expected to be palatable for Austrian tastes. Equally, the music selection for two festival evenings was remarkably conventional, featuring Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Chopin, Grieg, Wiener, and two modern pieces.Footnote 89 Both the classic repertoires and carefully placed advances into choreographic modernity were acclaimed by the Vorarlberger Nachrichten following the first evening, and the Wiener Kurier published a full-length article on the ballet.Footnote 90 The organizers scaled down the stage, moving it to the sports hall suitable to host the midsized troupe. Their late August performance was applauded by the Vorarlberg critical tribune, which positively evaluated the choreography, singled out the soloist qualities of Charrat and her colleagues, and acknowledged the significant public success of this tour.Footnote 91

As the first substantial French contribution to a festival created by the French administration, the Janine Charrat troupe set the tone for France's cultural grandeur in dance. Bregenz was the last major cultural venue in Austria that had not yet seen a dance guest tour from France. Closing the period of Occupation-time ballet tours, the Charrat ensemble received positive coverage from leading newspapers in the region and Vienna, adding a final brushstroke to the picture of French dance diplomacy. Having taken shape in the public space with the help of pro-French media actors, French dance representations culminated with a group that embodied the desired dynamics and outcomes of ballet diplomacy: academic and unproblematic in choreography balancing classicism and elements of modernity.

Dance from/for France, Dance in/for Austria

As the Allies vied to conquer the sympathies of Vienna's demanding public, rendering the landscape of Austrian cultural life increasingly complex and saturated, France deployed the largest, most varied campaign of dance diplomacy, one that stretched from Vienna to Bregenz. Staging a series of representative performances and two festivals, bolstered by its standing as an occupation power and through the dexterous networking activities of cultural diplomats, French dance advances garnered extensive coverage that assured significant advantages for the country's reputation in Austria, turning from foe to friend. Conceived as an inter pares dialogue, French dance diplomacy significantly contributed to the stated goals of the country's cultural offensive in Austria: to uphold France's cultural prestige and to overcome Germano-centric nationalist isolationism in Austria by creating a niche for France in the symbolic canon of Austrian highbrow and middlebrow habitus.

A number of folk-dance performers deployed during summer tours in Vienna and the western zones put forward a discourse of Austro-French cultural parallels, representing the geographical complexity of the French nation and bringing to Austria the popular Southern French folk songs and dances. Together with the Fuller and Nyota Inyoka ballets, these events constituted a non-European middlebrow element of French dance diplomacy in Austria, in contrast to the predominantly highbrow pitch of France's cultural self-representation. Facilitated by open-air performance settings, folk events provided a contrast to the stringent academicism of the ballet troupes and reached out to wider audiences.

While the mission and the reception patterns of French dance diplomacy were national (or regional) in their character, the origins of its musical and chorographical repertoire, as well as personnel, showed a remarkable degree of transnationality. The works extended the boundaries of French dance, not only to Europe in its wider sense but also to the transatlantic and global space. These different levels of dance representation brought the potential of a multilayered dance reception, which had previously shown only a timid presence in the still strictly regulated register of mainstream critical writings. Gender problématique and colonial subjectivity, little noted by contemporaries, were called upon to represent the French colors despite their potential to subvert conventional narratives, where gender roles had been already compounded by the shifts between female and male étoiles and the changing (and often ambiguous) masculinity of the Ballets Russes and their artistic continuation in France.

Faced with issues at the heart of the choreographic debate, and far from bowing to an occupation power, Austrians showed signs of recognition, surprise, confusion, genuine approval, and skepticism toward French dance culture. Large parts of Serge Lifar's artistic ideology were rejected, and even the Opéra Ballet's conservatism came under critical fire in one of the most conservative landscapes in Europe, where the discursively powerful actors charged themselves with precluding the native ballet from absorbing the results of this choreographic transfer. Acting under the circumstances of French occupation presence, critics had to show caution and dexterity, carrying through their cultural-political agenda masked by polite admiration (except the Soviet Communists).

Thus, French dance diplomacy portrayed a nation with a shiny façade of ballet grandeur and a varied folk culture, yet inadvertently displayed subversive undercurrents in its cultural output. Performances in the Austrian public space, with the limitations and agencies of different cultural actors therein, resulted in outward successes. As Salzburg and Vienna show, however, these were laden with potential conflict in the short and long term (and likely, as I surmise, to be conducive to Austria's later opening to contemporary ballet).Footnote 92 An asset and a challenge, dance thus lent a significant contribution to French cultural diplomacy in the country, its Rezeptionsgeschichte in the land of music, and reemerging Austrian native ballet discourses.

References

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2 “Das Gastspiel des Pariser Opernballetts war mehr ein gesellschaftliches als ein künstlerisches Ereignis, obgleich die Summe künstlerischer Energien die darauf verwendet wurden, manches übersteigt, was man in eine Ballettproduktion zu investieren im Allgemeinen für möglich hält.” Pichler, Gustav, “Österreichische Chronik: Salzburg,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 3 (1953): 100Google Scholar.

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31 Rudolf Tschögl, “Tagespresse, Parteien und alliierte Besatzung: Grundzüge der Presseentwicklung in der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit 1945–1947” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1979). Marion Mittelmaier, “Die Medienpolitik der Besatzungsmächte in Österreich von 1945 bis 1955” (Dipl.-Arb., University of Vienna, 1992). Schönberg, “Die amerikanische Medien- und Informationspolitik in Österreich von 1945 bis 1950.” Rathkolb, “Politische Propaganda der amerikanischen Besatzungsmacht in Österreich 1945 bis 1950.”

32 See Wolfgang Mueller, “Österreichische Zeitung und die Russische Stunde: Die Informationspolitik der sowjetischen Besatzungsmacht in Österreich 1945–1955” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1998); and, Mueller, Die sowjetische Besatzung in Osterreich 1945–1955.

33 The French administration edited the Welt am Montag and cultural journals, Geistiges Frankreich and Wort und Tat, all of which commanded very moderate readership.

34 Loïe Fuller (Mary Louis Fuller) was a Franco-American dancer and the founder of the Fuller ballet troupe, which she directed before her death in 1928.

35 Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE), Archives de l'Occupation française en Allemagne et en Autriche (AOFAA), Autriche, Vienne 323, Telegram to Susini, 19 June 1946.

36 “Das Pariser Fuller-Ballet eingetroffen,” Wiener Kurier, 18 July 1946.

37 “Fuller-Ballet tanzt im ‘Bouquet,’” Wiener Kurier, 20 July 1946. “‘Im ‘Bouquet’: Das Fuller-Ballett,” Weltpresse, 20 July 1946.

38 Undoubtedly, this does raise a question of colonial implications in the ensemble(s) choreography, as suggested by current research. See Lepecki, André, Option Tanz: Performance und die Politik der Bewegung. Aus dem Englsichen von Lilian Astrig Geese (Berlin, 2003), 29Google Scholar, 31.

39 “Indischer Tanzabend Nyota Inyokas,” Wiener Kurier, 19 Nov. 1946, p. 4. “Photo: Nyota Inyoka,” Weltpresse, 6 Nov. 1946, p. 6. “Tanzabend Nyota Inyoka,” Weltpresse, 16 Nov. 1946, p. 6. Even the Soviet Österreichische Zeitung adhered to the narrative of West-East synthesis, choosing not to attack French colonial involvement: Hans Hajas, “Tänze des Fernen Ostens,” Österreichische Zeitung, 17 Nov. 1946, p. 5

40 MAE, AOFAA Autriche, AUT 62, Le Chef de la Division des Affaires Culturelles à Monsieur le Conservateur en Chef du Musée National des Arts et des Traditions Populaires, Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 21 Nov. 1946. MAE, AOFAA Autriche, AUT 62, Représentation folklorique, 13 April 1948. MAE, AOFAA Autriche, Vienne 199, Chronique culturelle du mois de juillet (1948), 70.

41 “Französisches Trachtenfest wird in Wien abgehalten,” Wiener Kurier, 5 July 1948, p. 4. Siegfried Weyr, “Kraft und Charme des Tanzes: Französisches Trachten- und Volkstanzfest im Konzerthaus,” Wiener Kurier, 24 July 1948, p. 4. “Französische Trachten und Volkstänze,” Neues Österreich, 24 July 1948, p. 5. “Französisches Trachtenfest in Wien,” Wiener Zeitung, 25 July 1948, p. 4. “Französische Volkskunst im Wiener Konzerthaus,” Volksstimme, 25 July 1948, p. 6.

42 “Wien sieht Volkstänze Frankreichs: Folkloristische Gruppentänze werden im Konzerthaus gezeigt,” Wiener Kurier, 25 June 1949, p. 4. “Französischer Volkstanzabend,” Weltpresse, 13 July 1949, p. 6.

43 Siegfried Weyr, “Grazie, Lebendigkeit, Bewegung : Französische Volkstänze im Konzerthaus,” Wiener Kurier, 19 July 1949, p. 4. “Französische Volkstänze im Konzerthaus,” Weltpresse, 19 July 1949, p. 6. Orla Barényi, “Französische Volkstänze im Konzerthaus,” Volksstimme, 19 July 1949, p. 4. “Tanzendes, singendes Frankreich,” Arbeiter-Zeitung, 19 July 1949, p. 5. “Französischer Volkstanz in Wien,” Die Presse, 20 July 1949, p. 4. See also Huber, Renate, Identität in Bewegung: Zwischen Zugehörigkeit und Differenz. Vorarlberg 1945–1965 (Innsbruck, 2004)Google Scholar.

44 “Volkstumgruppe Lou Calen, Marseille,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 17 Aug. 1951, p. 5. “Internationaler Volkstanzabend,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 14 Aug. 1952, p. 4.

45 “Rivierazauber im Landhaussaal,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 11 June 1952, p. 8.

46 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, Vienne 183, Monsieur Damien J. Giordani, Chef de la Liaison Française de Linz à Monsieur l'Administrateur Directeur du Cabinet Civil Vienne; Linz, 18 June 1952. MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, Vienne 183, Venue à Linz de Groupe Folklorique “La Capeline de Menton.” Payart to Robert Schuman (Foreign Minister), 12 July 1952. Albert Riester, “Französischer Volkstumsabend,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 19 June 1953, p. 4. MAE, AOFAA Autriche, Vienne 183, Monsieur Damien J. Giordani, Chef de la Liaison Française de Linz à Monsieur l'Administrateur Directeur du Cabinet Civil Vienne. Linz 12 June 1953. “Französische Volkslieder und Volkstänze,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 16 July 1953, p. 4. “Österreichische und französische Trachtengruppen beim französischen Nationalfest,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 18 July 1953, pp. 3, 11.

47 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 323, Telegram to Cherrière and the Cultural Division in Vienna, 11 July 1946.

48 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 61 (also Vienna 193), Susini to Monicault, 6 Oct. 1948.

49 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 61, Division Culturelle—Compte rendu d'activités pour le mois d'Octobre 1948 (28 Oct. 1948).

50 Siegfried Weyr, “Die materialisierte Idee des Tanzes: Das Gastspiel des ‘Ballet de Paris’ in der Volksoper,” Wiener Kurier, 12 Nov. 1948, p. 4.

51 “Das Ballet de Paris,” Arbeiter-Zeitung, 10 Nov. 1948, p. 5.

52 “Gastspiel des ‘Ballets de Paris’ in der Volksoper,” Österreichische Zeitung, 11 Nov. 1948, p. 5.

53 “Französische Tanzkunst,” Der Abend, 9 Nov. 1948, p. 3.

54 The Roland Petit ballet was later repeatedly brought into question concerning the planning of French representations in Vienna and indeed came back in April 1956, the first postoccupation season. See MAE, AOFAA, Autriche (Nantes), 730/PO/1/1127, letter from Embassy to Foreign Minister Piniau, 15 Apr. 1956.

55 MAE, AOFAA Autriche, AUT 193, Note au sujet des représentations données par les Ballets de l'Opéra de Paris les 18 19 et 20 mars 1950.

56 Marie-Astrid Gautier, “Suite en blanc de Serge Lifar: l’œuvre héritière de l'esthétique néoclassique,” ResMusica: musique classique et danse, Feb. 28, 2009, accessed 22 Sept. 2018, http://www.resmusica.com/2009/02/28/luvre-heritiere-de-lesthetique-neoclassique/.

57 Siegfried Weyr, “Tanz als sublimiertes Weltgemälde: Pariser Opernballett trat in der Volksoper auf,” Wiener Kurier, 21 Mar. 1950, p. 4. Heinrich Hayas, “Bemerkungen zum Auftreten des Pariser Opernballetts,” Österreichische Zeitung, 21 Mar. 1950, p. 5.

58 Heinrich Kralik, “Pariser Opernballett in Wien: Gastspiel in der Volksoper,” Die Presse, 21 Mar. 1950, p. 4.

59 Fritzi Beruth, “Grazie aus Paris: Gastspiel des Ballets de l'Opéra de Paris,” Wiener Zeitung, 21 Mar. 1950, p. 3. “Gastspiel des Pariser Opernballetts,” Neues Österreich, 21 Mar. 1950.

60 “Gastspiel des Pariser Opernballetts,” Kleines Volksblatt, 21 Mar. 1950, p. 5.

61 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 193, Entretien au Siège de l'Administration des Théatres Fédéraux, 21 Jan. 1952.

62 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 193, Foreign Ministry to Ambassador Payart, 21 Jan. 1952. MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, AUT 193, Foreign Ministry to Ambassador Payart, 11 Jan. 1952.

63 Entretien au Siège de l'Administration des Théatres Fédéraux, 21 Jan. 1952.

64 Its plot turned around a joyous interplay between couples representing different nationalities, including “Negroes,” in a setting approaching the fêtes galantes.

65 “Pariser Ballettin der Volksoper: Klassischer Tanz an drei Abenden,” Wiener Kurier, 1 Mar. 1952, p. 4. “Ballett der Pariser Staatsoper,” Die Presse, 11 Mar. 1952, p. 4. Joseph Marx, “Musik und Tanz,” Wiener Zeitung, 16 Mar. 1952, p. 4. “Gastspiel des Pariser Opernballetts: Ein historisches Programm in streng klassischem Stil,” Salzburger Nachrichten, 19 Mar. 1952, p. 4.

66 “Französisches Opernballett,” Arbeiter-Zeitung, 12 Mar. 1952, p. 5. “Österreichische Chronik,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift (1952): 100.

67 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, Vienne 193, Ambassador Payart to Foreign Minister Schuman, 3 Apr. 1952.

68 For more detail on Salzburg, see Alexander Golovlev, “Das Pariser Opernballett auf den Salzburger Festspielen von 1953: ein tänzerischer Umbruch in der Festspielgeschichte oder eine misslungene Tanzdiplomatie?,” EUI Working Papers, EUI HEC 2017/01, accessed 22 Sept. 2018, http://hdl.handle.net/1814/48604.

69 Kriechbaumer, Robert, Zwischen Österreich und Großdeutschland. Eine politische Geschichte der Salzburger Festspiele 1933–1944 (Vienna, 2013)Google Scholar. Prossnitz, Gisela and Kriechbaumer, Robert, Salzburger Festspiele 1945–1960. Ihre Geschichte von 1945 bis 1960 (Salzburg, 2007)Google Scholar.

70 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, DGRC 89, Foreign Ministry to Ambassador Payart, 29 Nov. 1952.

71 “Tanz—Das Ballett der Salzburger Festspiele (1–5),” Salzburger Festpisele: Spielplanarchiv 1953, accessed 22 Sept. 2018, http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/archiv/j/1941.

72 See “Ballet du Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris 1,” 2, Spielplanarchiv 1953, accessed 22 Sept. 2018, http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/archivdetail/programid/4042/id/580/j/1953, http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/archivdetail/programid/4043.

73 “Das Programm des Pariser Balletts im Festspielhaus,” Salzburger Nachrichten, 29/30 Aug. 1953, p. 6. “Festliches Salzburg: Pariser Visionen: Das Ballett der Pariser Oper im Festspielhaus—Das erste Programm,” Salzburger Nachrichten, 31 Aug. 1953, p. 8. “Festliches Ballett und choreographische Tragödie: Der zweite Abschluß der Festspiele: Das Ballett der Pariser Staatsoper und Jean Cocteaus ‘Phaedra,’” Salzburger Nachrichten, 2 Sept. 1953, p. 3.

74 See the first systematic discussion on the development of ballet schools in Vienna and the Bundesländer in Österreich tanzt.

75 “Salzburger Festspiele schließen mit Tanz: Am 30. und 31. August gibt das Ballett der Pariser Nationaloper ein Gastspiel,” Wiener Kurier, 27 Aug. 1953, p. 4. Roland Tenschert, “Pariser Ballett in Salzburg,” Wiener Kurier, 31 Aug. 1953, p. 4; “Nachklänge aus Salzburg: auch das zweite Auftreten des Balletts der Pariser Nationaloper ein großer Erfolg,” Wiener Kurier, 2 Sept. 1953, p. 4.

76 The Archiv der Salzburger Festspiele thematic folder for the 1953 festival includes: “Festwochenberichte … aus Salzburg,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 9 (1953): 100. “Ausklang in Salzburg: Landeshauptmann Klaus: Von Glück und Erfolg überstrahlt,” Neue Wiener Tageszeitung, 1 Sept. 1953. “Salzburger Festspiele: Ausklang und Rückblick,” Die Presse, 5 Sept. 1953. “Ballett der Pariser Oper,” Südost-Tagespost (Graz), 1 Sept. 1953. “Pariser Opernballett,” Rieder Volkszeitung, 3 Sept. 1953. “Tänzerischer Ausklang,” Vorarberger Volksblatt (Bregenz), 4 Sept. 1953. “Tänzerischer Ausklang,” Volkszeitung (Klagenfurt), 9 Sept. 1953. “Salzburger Festspiele,” Steyrer Zeitung, 10 Sept. 1953. “Salzburger Festspiele,” Mariazeller Wochenpost, 12 Sept. 1953. “Ballett der Pariser Nationaloper,” Volksbote (Innsbruck), 13 Sept. 1953. “Salzburg: vom Erfolg überstrahlt,” Kleine Zeitung (Graz), 1 Sept. 1953. “Pariserisch getanzter Ausklang,” Kleine Zeitung, 3 Sept. 1953. “Begeisternde Opern—verbesserter ‘Jedermann,’” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 3 Sept. 1953.

77 Salzburger Festspielausklang 1953, Salzburger Kulturbericht (Kulturreferat der Landesregierung), 19 Sept. 1953.

78 Erik Werba, “Ausklang der Salzburger Festpiele,” Wiener Zeitung, 3 Sept. 1953, p. 3.

79 “Salzburger Festspielfinale,” Kleines Volksblatt, 1 Sept. 1953, p. 10.

80 Viktor Reimann, “Das Pariser Ballett,” Die neue Front, 5 Sept. 1953.

81 “Französische Ballettkunst in Salzburg,” Salzburger Tageszeitung, 2 Sept. 1953.

82 “Le Corps de Ballet de l'Opéra à Salzbourg,” Le Monde, 29 Aug. 1953.

83 Kaut, Josef, Festspiele in Salzburg (Salzburg, 1965), 253–54Google Scholar. When Georges Balanchine arrived in Salzburg in 1956 with the New York City ballet, Kaut found his premiere to be the first ballet success of the festival.

84 Herrmann, Walter, 75 Jahre Salzburger Festspiele, Schriftenreihe des Kammerhofmuseums Bad Aussee 16 (Bad Aussee, 1995), 72Google Scholar.

85 “Ballettomania 1953,” Wiener Kurier, 20 Jan. 1953, p. 4.

86 Bösch-Niederer, Annemarie, “Kultureller Aufbruch. Vorarlbergs Musikleben nach 1945,” in Aufbruch in eine neue Zeit. Vorarlberger Almanach zum Jubiläumsjahr 2005, eds. Ulrich Nachbaur and Alois Niederstätter (Bregenz, 2006), 294–95Google Scholar.

87 Huber, Identität, 28–29. Niedermair, Pieter, “Kulturpolitik in Vorarlberg nach 1945,” in Bonjour Autriche: Literatur und Kunst in Tirol und Vorarlberg 1945–1955, eds. Verena Zankl, Sandra Unterweger, and Roger Vorderegger, Edition Brenner-Forum 5 (Innsbruck, 2010), 129–31Google Scholar.

88 MAE, AOFAA, Autriche, Vienne 193, Lettre de Mme Payart, 6 June 1953. “Die berühmte französische Choreographin und Tänzerin Janine Charrat …,” Tiroler Tageszeitung, 4 Mar. 1954, p. 4. Edmund Bär, “Bregenzer Festspiele 1954,” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 23 July 1954, p. 7.

89 Edmund Bär, “Ballettabend Janine Charrat Paris,” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 24 July 1954, p. 8.

90 Oswald Lutz, “Janine Charrat: Demonstration moderner Tanzkunst,” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 30 July 1954, p. 5. “Pariser Tanzkunst am Bodensee: Ballett Janine Charrat bei den Festspielen in Bregenz (Sonderbericht für den ‘Wiener Kurier’),” Wiener Kurier, 30 July 1954, p. 5.

91 “Letzter Ballet-Abend,” Vorarlberger Nachrichten, 10 Aug. 1954, p. 3.

92 Suite en blanc was staged at the Viennese Staatsoper in 2012–14, having by that time conquered a position of a recognized classic of twentieth-century academic ballet. See Spielplanarchiv der Wiener Staatsoper, accessed 22 Sept. 2018, https://archiv.wiener-staatsoper.at/search/work/817/production/1306. Later successes of George Balanchine and William Forsythe might also be suggestive in this direction, although admittedly there is no direct evidence to support that.