Circus Polka

Commissioned to create a ballet for elephants by the Ringling Brothers of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the choreographer George Balanchine did not hesitate to ask Stravinsky for the music. “What kind of music?” asked the composer. “A polka.” “For whom?” “Elephants.” “How old?” “Young.” “If they are very young, I’ll do it.” And he did, with the result that The Ballet of the Elephants was first performed in Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1942 by “fifty elephants and fifty beautiful girls.” Stravinsky never saw the ballet but he did once meet one of the elephant ballerinas and, he says, “shook her foot.” The elephants, who apparently respond most readily to waltz tunes, are said to have found Stravinsky’s polka rhythms confusing and, according to an expert observer, “it would have taken very little at any time during the many performances to cause a stampede.” In which case the heavy-footed allusions to Schubert’s Marche Militaire near the end would probably have suited them very well.