LEGAL CHAMPION OF THE BALLET

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 159, 2 April 1937, Page 16

LEGAL CHAMPION OF THE BALLET

ALTHOUGH the Russian Ballet sonson has brought to Wellington many interesting personalities from artistic Continental circles, there is an absentee —and one whose absence is to be regretted—from the New Zealand lour. "He is M. Jacques Lidji, comanaging director with Colonel W. De Basil of the Monte Carlo Company, and for many years the friend, loyal supporter and legal adviser of the man who founded the ballet. He travelled with the. company to Australia and on to Auckland, but there he left for the United States to meet Colonel De Basil, who is visiting North America. “He is a lover of the ballet and a friend of all artistes”—This description has been applied to M. Lidji by one who has known him for a decade. A wealthy and successful international lawyer with his headquarters in Paris, M. Lidji became Colonel De Basil s legal adviser eight years ago, and today is his partner in an enterprise that has brought about a revival of the modern European ballet. A cosmopolitan of wide culture and attainment, M. Lidji speaks six languages— English, French, Russian, German. Spanish and Italian—and is as much at home in London, New York and Berlin—not to mention the artistic centres of Eastern Europe—as in his native France.

Roth M. Lidji and Mr. Arnold Haskell, the English critic and authority on the ballet who came to Australia but did not cross the Tasman, are being missed by the members of the touring company. When the ballet has completed its New Zealand visit it will return to Australia and play return seasons in Brisbane (where M. Lidji will rejoin the company), Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, it will probably then go to South America, and after that tour, to Norway and Sweden —round the world on its toes!