DANCER TALKS OF KING LEOPOLD
ROSARIO GUERRERO, WHO MADE HER AMERICAN DEBUT LAST NIGHT, SAYS BELGIAN MONARCH WILL VISIT THIS COUNTRY.
DANCES IN “RED FEATHER”
She Talks Naivelyof Belgian Monarch, His Coming Visit Here to See the St. Louis Exposition, of The Russian and of Love.
The Rose and the Dagger fought a bloodless duel last night at the Lyric Theatre, when Rosario Guerrero, the Spanish Dancer and Parisian toast, made her first American appearance in the pantomime of the same name. The Rose won, and small wonder, since it was worn by Rosario, whose beauty, for a long time rivalled only by that of Otero in the eyes of Parisian dandies, was recently made absolute by the declaration of King Leopold of Belgium, that she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen.
Previously Otero had swayed the heart of the fickle Belgian monarch. But Guerrero met him and he was hers. So much so that with the arrival of his latest charmer in America comes the definite announcement made yesterday that the snowy-haired King of the Belgians will visit the United States to see — why, to see the St. Louis Exposition!
In the pantomime interpolated in the second act of "The Red Feather" a wayfarer who has lost her way seeks shelter in the den of a bandit, who, seeing her costly jewels, plans to murder her. The woman becomes aware of his purpose and, trembling with fear, conceives the idea of using her beauty to win his weapon from him, and so begins the battle of the Rose and the Dagger.
Throwing aside her cloak, Guerrero approaches the bandit and, soothing him with soft looks and light caresses, begins her dance.
The opening bar of the slow, languorous waltz was the signal for every man in the audience to sit up and take notice, for wonderful things had been said and written of Guerrero's dancing and physical display that accompanied it.
Possible Disappointment
But those went to see an undue exhibition of undoubted loveliness must have been disappointed. For, though when Guerrero lifted her satin skirts and the audience and the charmed bandit leaned eagerly forward, they saw a good deal more than the St. Louis Exposition which King Leopold is so anxious to visit, there was nothing suggestive about the dance. Perhaps the man;s slow yielding to the charm of languorous eyes and throbbing flesh, until he offers his dagger for one rose that rests against the dancer's panting bosom, was more brutal than the dance.
But when, maddened with passion and no longer satisfied with the fast wilting rose, he seizes the rose-woman in her arms and, in self defense, she stabs him with his yielded dagger, the audience, though politely interested, was not shocked. But, after all, the person who could shock Broadway might give Thomas Edison cards and spades and put Tesla and Marconi out of business.
In her dressing-room, Guerrero, of the lustrous eye and the luscious figure, received an Evening World reporter and talked with great simplicity of the Belgian King.
"Why, yes he is coming . He told me so," she said with such engaging simplicity that the reporter realized his vague preliminary inquiries about the health of other crowned heads had been a mere waste of time.
"Is he coming to see me or the Exposition? Ah, who can know the secrets of a man's heart? He is such a nice man, King Leopold — yes, he is quite old, but somehow one forgets that. To be sure he has given me many jewels. This pin, for instance." and Guerrero smiled tenderly at the reminiscence and at the pin, a bar of wonderful emeralds and diamonds were many thousand dollars.
The Grand Duke, Too
From King Leopold's gift, the dancer turned to a magnificent pair of solitaire earrings presented to her by the Grand Duke Boris of Russia.
"These," she said "were given to me when I was in Russia. There I dance before all the grand dukes and the Grand Duke Boris, the Czar's cousin, was especially kind to me. That was before I met King Leopold. What is he like? That is what all my friends in Paris ask me. "Tell us about the Grand Duke," they say. "What does the Belgian King say when he talks to you?" They think kings must be different I suppose. But the Grand Duke was merely a great big simple-hearted child and King Leopold is a very nice old man. Why should there be any difference?"
"Men are much alike and women too. Everywhere there is waged the same battle as in the pantomime, the duel of the dagger and the rose — a woman's beauty against the man's — what is the word? I only know how to express what I mean in Spanish. Oh yes, as you say, men don't carry daggers nowadays. There is the rose on one side and on the other — well, yes, diamonds, or — why, sometimes just plain love."
Guerrero said "just plain love" blushingly as a schoolgirl, and the reporter, who had been led to believe that she usually preferred it with diamonds on the side, was touched.
"Does the rose always win? Of yes it does if it is a fresh rose. You know that pantomime was entirely my own idea. I devise all my dances myself!"
The World (New York) newspaper November 18, 1903