Now that they have a vast theatre of their own and perform
three ballets every night the old frustrated feeling that used to
tantalise us at the Opera and the Coliseum has vanished. But I have
still a grievance, and that is that the programme is so rarely the
programme that I myself would have arranged. In other words the three
ballets that form it are seldom the Big Three that are nearest my
heart. To be explicit, I want _Petroushka_, and instead I find myself
not knowing where to look while _Scheherazade_ unfolds its appalling
freedoms; I want _Les Sylphides_, and instead am given _Les
Papillons_, which is very lovely but not of an equal loveliness; and I
want _Carnaval_, and instead am offered the perplexities of _The
Fire Bird_. It happened, however, that one night recently the perfect
programme was given--_Carnaval, Les Sylphides_ and _Petroushka_; but
there was not a seat in the house, and I therefore had to stand in
great discomfort, so that half the joy evaporated.
"Meanwhile" (I seem to hear you say) "what of the hairdresser who has
the same name as yourself and plies his trade next door but one? This
story--which so far is a poor enough thing--was surely to have been
about him.
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