Was Cincinnati, in 1910, ready for Maud Allan?

She had shocked Chicago with her “Salome” dance, influenced by the notorious play by Oscar Wilde that had been banned in Britain for decades, and was now on her way to the Queen City. The Cincinnati Post on 5 February 1910 exulted in anticipation:

“Maud Allan, the beautiful English classic dancer, who bears the distinction of being the most exquisite and charming of all exponents of the Greek art, will be seen here in Music Hall next Friday evening in connection with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokovski. Pure in her art, wonderfully beautiful in person and enchantingly graceful, her appearance here will be one of the most widely anticipated events of our season.”

You will note the insistence that the performance would be “pure.” The reporter acknowledged that Maud Allan wore scandalously brief costumes, but almost begged his Cincinnati readers not to make a fuss about it.

This was a trying time for Cincinnati as upstart cities like Chicago and St. Louis had the nerve to grow larger and a hard-earned but fragile reputation as an arts destination was under constant threat of destruction by the uptight nouveau riche of what was still a major manufacturing hub.

Cincinnati had lobbied hard to get a symphony conductor like Leopold Stokowski (as it was later spelled), and Cincinnati was nervous about losing him. And lose him Cincinnati did, in 1912, when he jumped to Philadelphia for a long, long engagement as conductor of their symphony and star of the Walt Disney magnum opus “Fantasia.”

Although the Post described her as English, Maud Allan was born in 1873 as Beulah Maude Durrant in Canada and brought up in San Francisco. She changed her name to distance herself from a brother who was hanged for murdering two women. Originally a Berlin-trained pianist, she shifted her artistic expressions to dance after her brother’s execution in 1898.

Despite little or no formal training in dance, Maud took Europe by storm, with success after success across the ancient capitals of art. She was often compared to Isadora Duncan, which enraged her. The Cincinnati Enquirer enthused:

“She has been the rage in London for two full seasons, and previous to that was equally successful in Vienna, where she made her debut, in Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Munich and other important art centers. All of the art critics agree that nothing more bewitching or entrancingly beautiful has been seen than her dances. Her art is pure and delicate. Her pictures may have been figures come down and brought to life from some Greek vase. She is of the highest and purest type, exquisite in her movements and representing the truest poetry of motion.”

Note, again, that emphasis on purity. The cultural critics of the Queen City worked overtime to insist that there was a difference between obscene nakedness and pure nudity and hoped their audiences would just behave themselves and stop slobbering over the risqué postcards of Miss Allan that flooded the city in advance of her appearance.

The Cincinnati Post published a front-page editorial cartoon showing Music Hall stagehands installing steam heat and a coal stove on stage to keep the beautiful danseuse warm while gyrating about in her abbreviated costumes. The cartoon suggested that most seats should be equipped with shock absorbers or (even in the front rows) binoculars.

In any event, Cincinnati would be spared “Salome.” The Cincinnati Symphony presented Maud in three pieces: Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song,” Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite,” and Rubinstein’s “Valse Caprice.”

Tickets, as they say, sold like hotcakes. The newspapers reported people buying up to 20 seats at a time. Music Hall was packed.

Maud appeared On 11 February 1910. Leopold knocked it out of the park. Cincinnati was titillated but unscandalized, and Maud kept most of her clothes on. The Post reviewer sounded almost disappointed:

“Those who attended the performance in the ‘fear’ that something unusual might occur were disappointed - Miss Allan’s program included the best works in her repertoire, and was given with such attention to stage detail, lighting and correctness of garb as to demand hearty commendation.”

Maud Allan published an autobiography, My Life and Dancing, in 1908. She toured England that year, logging 250 performances. In 1910 she began a tour the United States (including Cincinnati), Australia, Africa, and Asia. In 1915 she starred as 'Demntra’ in the silent film, “The Rug Maker’s Daughter.”

As noted, Leopold decamped for the City of Brotherly Love. Maud spent much of the 1920s embroiled in a retrospectively unnecessary scandal about her sexual orientation. She was a lesbian and suffered for it. As Wikipedia notes:

“From the 1920s on Allan taught dance and she lived with her secretary and lover, Verna Aldrich.”

Maud Allan died in Los Angeles in 1956. She was cremated and her ashes scattered.