Lilian Hochhauser

In conversation with Hilary Condron

Lilian Hochauser: I was born in London, brought up in London and lived in London all my life.

Hillary Condron: So you’ve lived all your life in London. And then when you started your working life you went to work for Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld and that was for Jewish relief, wasn’t it? Charity work?

Lilian Hochauser: Well it was it was an organization called Music for Charities Society. Dr. Schonfeld himself was a very remarkable person and was the saviour of many children during the war bringing them over to do with the Kindertransport and other children and really hundreds of children. And he was a very charismatic person and then…

Hilary Condron: So Victor was also working for him was he?

Lilian Hochauser: Well, in a way he did, because his very early concerts were actually put on at the request of Dr. Schonfeld for this charity. But when I tell you Victor was 22 when he started. By the time we met he was 24 and was working more or less for himself by then. In fact I’ve just got the list of events that we put on from the 1940’s, from the first one which was in ‘45 and until the end of the 20th century there were 1460 events at the Royal Albert Hall alone. It’s quite incredible.

Hilary Condron: And of course one of the first concerts, I believe, was at the Whitehall Theatre that you put on.

Lilian Hochauser: That’s true. Where there was a very famous, well he became very famous.. he was one of the best of British pianists called Solomon. Solomon, at that time he was very, very famous and that was the very first concert of Dr. Schonfeld asked Victor to put on.

Hilary Condron: And then, going on from there. And you were working with amazingly famous musicians of that era [Benno] Moiseiwitsch, Ida Haendel.

Lilian Hochauser: Myra Hess and Adrian Boult and Malcolm Sargent, all the people who were famous in those days.

Hilary Condron: And then that led on to with your connections with Russia the way after.

Lilian Hochauser: Yes, we that really started almost to the day that Stalin died in 1953, and we started working. There was a delegation here of young artists and.. we hadn’t brought them. I mean we just read in the paper that this delegation was here and one of these musicians was a very young violinist called Igor Oistrakh, and of course the name of Oistrakh was very, very exciting to us. We knew that David Oistrakh was the great violinist, his father. And that was where we started to request the possibilities through this organization that had brought them here. And it worked. And the following year we went to Moscow and secured David to come here. And that was the start of our association with the Russians.

Hilary Condron: You had [Emil] Gilels, hadn’t you, come?

Lilian Hochauser: Well, then later, came, of course, Gilels, Rostropovich and of course the great Richter – Sviatoslav Richter. All the great Russian orchestras, the folk dance companies, the Red Army Choir. In fact for 25 years we had a monopoly of all Russian artists. No one brought any. They somehow didn’t know where to go and what to do. But by which time we did.

Hilary Condron: So you cornered the market? You were the point of view – that’s amazing. And so, but then your association with ballet I think, your first thing you did was for Svetlana Beriosova?

Lilian Hochauser: That was in the 1950s. Yes. Early 50s we did what has become known as “ballet for the masses”. I mean that we were the first to do that at the now defunct Empress Hall. In those days it was quite a famous venue. And one of the only venues, and we had this 15-year-old Beriosova and her father [Nicholas Beriozoff], who was also a character dancer. We had L Massine and other well-known, very famous dancers – Danilova, Alexandra Danilova, Freddie Franklin. They would all be very well known. And Beriosova who was 15 at the time and especially Léonide Massine we put on Gaîté Parisienne and other ballets. Oh and of course the great [Alicia] Markova and [Anton] Dolin. Of course they were also involved.

Hilary Condron: And what kind of a program did you put on? Was it strictly the classics? I mean you said Gaite Parisienne, which was Massine.

Lilian Hochauser: It wasn’t I mean. At the Empress Hall there was very little chance of any decent backdrops or scenery and so on so it was basically one act ballets. Really, we didn’t put on any full length ballets.

Hilary Condron: So, 1961 was when you first bought the Kirov Ballet.

Lilian Hochauser: Well in 1960, actually. We brought a group of dancers of all places to the Royal Albert Hall from the Bolshoi. That was in 1960 and in 61 [it] was the Kirov. That was, more or less, their first visit abroad.

Hilary Condron: So I mean that must have been interesting because in Paris obviously Rudolf had defected, Rudolf Nureyev.

Lilian Hochauser: That, of course was , the most extraordinary happening. We knew that they had this extraordinary dancer and we featured him very heavily in the programme and he didn’t need publicity – [he] was one of those people who didn’t need publicity. People, the public seems to know when they’re going to get something very special, and the news travels.

But, of course, we went to the airport and we were very young and we were putting on this marvellous company at the Royal Opera House. And it was very exciting. We went to the airport with smiles and flowers, and were met with gloom and misery and whatever. And of course he’d just jumped the barrier, you see, Rudolf had just jumped the barrier. And they had no idea how to handle it, because they knew that somebody has to be blamed. Under the Soviet regime things didn’t happen. So they knew that all their lives, jobs and whatever was on were on the line. But it so happened that it gave Makarova. Natasha. Natasha Makarova she danced here her first Giselle and she was 18. And while that was in place of – well we had to rearrange repertoire.

And of course, Rudolf then was made into a criminal or [said to be] mad, anything, and they couldn’t say worse things about him. And so, of course, we couldn’t work with him for many, many years. But the Kirov was a huge success, an absolutely huge success. Unforgettable.

Hilary Condron: So after that, when did when did you bring the Bolshoi?

Lilian Hochauser: We, yes, the Bolshoi came in 1963. Another huge success. Again, we brought them to the Royal Opera House and [Maya] Plisetskaya came for the first time. Actually they came, The Bolshoi came for the first time in 1956 but that was a government to government. The Royal Ballet went to Moscow and they came to London as an exchange visit and we were slightly involved in it, but not a great deal. This was the first time they came since 56. [In] 1963 they came at our invitation, and from then on, we brought them every two or three years.

Hilary Condron: Well, it was a bit after that you got a bit of more bother, of course. I think it was 19… was in 1974 when Rostropovich left?

Lilian Hochauser: The point was that Rostropovich was a dear friend and left Russia in 1974. [He] came and stayed with us for a year. His wife [opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya] joined him, and two daughters, and they didn’t forgive us for that. The Russians did not forgive us for taking him in looking after him and they decided to break off all relations with us. Not quite. Well we had a contract – they fulfilled a contract – we had to take the London Philarmonic Orchestra to Russia, which they honoured, if you like, if you can call it that. And then it was the end, as it were. After 25 years. They never spelt it out, but that was what it was. They were very angry about our hosting Rostropovich in London.

And so that is, of course, when we fought back to our old friend Nureyev, and decided that it was time we started working with Rudolf. That, of course, was the start of twelve festivals, Nureyev Festivals as we termed them at the [London] Coliseum. Over the years when we brought companies from all over the world to dance with him. They were nothing short of sensational.

Then Perestroika came along in 1990 or 1989, or thereabouts, and I decided I would immediately go back to Moscow and try to bring three things: Sviatoslav Richter who was a very dear friend of mine and who I wanted very much to come back, [the] Bolshoi Ballet and [the] Kirov Ballet. And succeeded; got them back again.

Hilary Condron: Well I think you were pretty good at handling them. I mean, I think the Russians are quite famous for being a little difficult to handle. You know these artistic temperaments. Well what about Rudolf? I mean you must have had fun and games with Rudi Nureyev in his day.

Lilian Hochauser: Oh dear. He was very difficult indeed! And his English never improved.  Actually, it got more fractured, I think. And, of course, the only time he could talk to you and you could discuss things was when he was at the barre. So what with this  very Russian English and heavy breathing and whatever. It was very difficult too, er .. I used to lose a stone every summer with Rudolf, but he was just the greatest.

It was a long time before I could see Romeo and Juliet, and almost had tears in my eyes not having Rudolf on stage in it you know. But, in general, he was the greatest of all I would say. Definitely. I mean there were some seasons that he [danced] for seven weeks, we had some of our seasons were seven weeks long, with possibly three or four different ballet companies and groups, and so on and so forth. And he would insist on dancing every night. I mean sometimes twice a night because there would be one-act ballets, and he wanted to dance in two of them. I think he cancelled once only.

Hilary Condron: In all those years?

Lilian Hochauser: Well his foot hurt him a bit, you know, but he had enormous stamina in those days enormous stamina, and he was highly intelligent. He was very clever and understood music a great deal and also programming. He knew how to put a good programme together. He was altogether a genius.

Hilary Condron: So did he always outline the programme that he wanted? Or did you work with very closely?

Lilian Hochauser: Yes, he led the way. Yes, I have to say that I tried to argue, sometimes succeeding, but in general he was the one. I had to somehow or other get things together,. sometimes you know with great difficulty. But we did it.