Background
Hurok was born in Pogar, Russian Empire (in present-day Bryansk Oblast, Russia) to Israel Hurok, a hardware dealer, and Naomi Schream.
(Description: 1 volume : 52 p. ; illustrations ; 28 cm. Su...)
Description: 1 volume : 52 p. ; illustrations ; 28 cm. Subjects: Leningradskif?i gosudarstvennyf?i akademicheskif?i teatr opery i baleta imeni S.M. Kirova. Ballet dancing.
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Hurok was born in Pogar, Russian Empire (in present-day Bryansk Oblast, Russia) to Israel Hurok, a hardware dealer, and Naomi Schream.
He had little formal education, but studied English at the Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Although he could not read music, Hurok was a devoted music lover and attended the opera whenever possible.
In 1906, sent by his father on business to nearby Kharkov with 500 rubles, he chose to use the money to finance his emigration to America. He had 3 rubles left when he landed at Ellis Island. After holding various odd jobs in Philadelphia, including bottle washer and streetcar conductor, he moved to New York City, where he peddled hardware.
He first combined his business savvy with his musical passions in 1911, when he persuaded violin virtuoso Efrem Zimbalist to play for a Socialist party function in Brooklyn. In 1913, he organized the Van Hugo Musical Society to provide concert programs for New York labor clubs and workers' groups. In 1914, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
His reputation as an incipient impresario ballooned in 1915, when, after first producing concerts at Madison Square Garden, he booked the huge Hippodrome for a popular-priced "Music for the Masses" Sunday matinee series. Featuring such stars as Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Alma Gluck, Tito Ruffo, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and Eugene Ysaye, Hurok managed to draw an ethnically diverse audience by advertising in foreign-language newspapers; he not only filled the theater's 4, 700 seats but sold 1, 000 on-stage seats. Eventually, "S. Hurok Presents" became a trademark symbolizing his lifelong practice of guaranteeing first-class performers at affordable prices to the broadest audiences.
He spared no expense, as when in 1933 he lost $88, 000 to bring the then unknown Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to America. This was one of several damaging financial setbacks, but despite frequent monumental gambles he usually earned robust sums. For example, he took a spectacular chance in 1957 when, against all warnings, he promoted a tour of the Massed Pipers and Regimental Band of the Scots Guard, but the tour made millions. Hurok was unique in the promotion business because he bankrolled his own programs, rather than depending on outside investors.
By 1966, his mailing list went out to 50, 000 faithful ticket buyers. Nevertheless, although his own career demonstrated that capitalism and the arts could flourish together, he was a strong proponent of government subsidy for the arts. Hurok became renowned for the quality of his bookings, consisting mostly of foreign artists. Dance historians consider him instrumental in making classical dance widely popular in America, beginning with his great coup of the 1920's, the management of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, the artist of whom he had the fondest recollections. A sampling of the terpsichorean sensations presented by this "King of Ballet" includes Isadora Duncan, Argentinita, Vicente Escudero, Mary Wigman, Loie Fuller, Uday Shankar, the Ballet Russe, the Sadler's Wells Ballet, the Royal Ballet (starring Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev), the Kirov Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet (starring Galina Ulanova), the last a masterstroke during the cold war atmosphere of 1959. Folk or ethnic companies such as the Ballet Folklórico de Mexico, the Azuma Kabuki Dancers, and the Moiseyev Dancers were also S. Hurok attractions, as were such homegrown products as the Martha Graham, Katherine Dunham, and Agnes de Mille troupes and Canada's Royal Winnipeg and National Ballet companies.
Hurok – dubbed a "Mahatma of Music" – was also famed for the singers and musicians he sponsored, among them African-American contralto Marian Anderson, whom he discovered in Paris in 1933 and revealed to her native United States as one of its greatest treasures. Other representative musical artists were Fyodor Chaliapin, Rudolf Serkin, the Kolisch String Quartet, the Moscow Cathedral Choir, the German Grand Opera Company, the Vienna Choir Boys, Andrés Segovia, Arthur Rubinstein, Luisa Tettrazzini, Isaac Stern, Mischa Elman, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, Jan Peerce, Pattrice Munsel, Roberta Peters, Pierre Boulez, Sviatoslav Richter, and numerous others, most of them making their American debuts under Hurok's management.
In addition to occasionally producing plays on Broadway, he was active in promoting foreign theatrical troupes, including both the London and Bristol Old Vic companies, the Théâtre de France, the Théâtre National Populaire, the Compagnie Marie Bell, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the Moscow Art Theater, the Comèdie Française, the Habima Players, and the Compagnie Madeleine Renaud-Jean-Louis Barrault, among others. Presentations of S. Hurok-sponsored dance companies on television helped raise that medium's cultural standards. Television honored Hurok in 1966 when CBS-TV produced a 90-minute special devoted to his career, on which a glittering array of Hurok stars appeared. Hurok, a gourmet, bon vivant, and party giver, was an energetic, flamboyant figure.
A relentless talent scout, he was forever in search of new attractions. He had a special predilection for Russians, and was respected by the Soviets for such deeds as convincing the U. S. State Department to stop fingerprinting visiting performers. Unfortunately, his offices were firebombed (causing one death and injuries to thirteen people, including Hurok) in 1972 by zealots angered by his support of Soviet artists while restrictions hampered Soviet Jewish emigration (Hurok was himself Jewish). In 1973, 1, 500 spectators and a star-studded array of Hurok attractions honored this "Barnum of the Arts" at the Metropolitan Opera House.
He died in New York City.
(Description: 1 volume : 52 p. ; illustrations ; 28 cm. Su...)
Quotations: "I don't know exactly what makes box-office. But if people don't want to come, nothing will stop them. "
He often spoke of himself in the third person and his Russian-accented speech was peppered with malapropisms. Bald, pear-shaped, and short, he wore black horn-rimmed spectacles and affected a black cape, a silver-tipped cane, and a soft, black fedora. On formal occasions he wore a "chest salad" of decorations.
David Wayne, who played him in the 1953 film Tonight We Sing (based on one of Hurok's two autobiographies), looked nothing like him. Hurok passionately supported his attractions, appearing nightly to clap loudly and question audience members. He spared no expense to ensure the comfort and promote the happiness of his stars. Hurok appreciated artistic temperament, but he himself was an even-tempered, canny, yet ethical businessman; he often preferred a handshake to a formal contract. Still, his was a cutthroat business, and he accumulated his share of enemies. He carefully differentiated between his own practices as an "impresario" and those of mere "managers. "
He was twice married, once to a Brooklyn woman (date unavailable), the mother of his only child, and once to singer Emma Runitch (1933), from whom he was later separated.