Billy the Kid’s short, harrowing life might seem an unlikely inspiration for a classic ballet. But dance impresario Lincoln Kirstein was eager to develop a repertoire that featured American stories, artists and styles. In 1938, Kirstein enlisted up-and-coming choreographer Eugene Loring and respected composer Aaron Copland to tell the Kid’s story in dance. Guided by Walter Noble Burns’ popular, though historically suspect bio The Saga of Billy the Kid, Loring (above, in striped trousers, as Billy) imagined the young outlaw as a wide-eyed boy gone bad. Copland, who had been experimenting with folk music in his compositions, incorporated the familiar strains of such classic cowboy tunes as “Whoope Ti Yi Yo,” “Old Paint” and “The Dying Cowboy” into the score. When Billy the Kid premiered at Chicago’s Civic Opera House in October 1938, the mythical Wild West took center stage, complete with scenes of the unstoppable progress of the pioneers. Billy’s murderous rampage is sparked by his mother’s accidental death in a frontier-town shootout. In reality, the Kid’s mother died of tuberculosis, and his first arrest was for petty theft. But Loring and Copland weren’t writing history. They were giving new life to the mercurial “genius,” as Burns’ Saga described Billy, “painting his name in flaming colours with a six-shooter across the sky.”
Originally published in the December 2012 issue of American History. To subscribe, click here.
