Sol Hurock

 

 

Another great impresario and agent was Sol Hurok. In his time his name was  as famous as any of the Hollywood studio bosses - Jack Warner, Sam Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer and what have you. Hurok is said to have gone bankrupt more than once but his achievements outweighed his failures many times. He began his successful career with the simple idea of printing billboards in all the various languages of the many New York communities.

He never lost his love and admiration for great artists. I don't think he manipulated them in a pejorative way or bullied them as some agents did and do. There is a story I very much like about him because it took place late in his career with one of the artists I still represent - the great Russian conductor Yuri Simonov.

Simonov was chief conductor of the Boslhoi Theatre from 1970 - 85 and during that golden period when the ensemble included great singers such as Vishnevskaya, Obraztsova, Arkhipova, Atlantov, Masurok and Nesterenko, they toured in the West often tahnks to Sol Hurok. 

Simonov was conducting a performance with the company in Paris and Hurok who had not heard him conduct before gave orders in the interval to upgrade Simonov's room at the Grand Hotel beside the Theatre de l'Opera to a suite. Simonov only discovered this when he returned to the hotel and asked for the key to his room. That was the gesture of a 'Muy grande Senor.'

I met Hurok in hs office twice. The first time, taking the cigar out of his mouth, he groweled 'What's a nice boy like you doing in a business like this?' 

A year later, he was introduced to me again: 'What's a nice boy like you doing in a business like this?'