Within the Quota: Ballet Suite

Cole Porter’s only attempt at a serious composition came with the ballet score Within the Quota, when Darius Milhaud suggested Porter as a composer to pair with his La Creation du monde. Both pieces were rapturously received by the Parisian press at the October 1923 premiere at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. Cole Porter later believed the score to be lost. In 1970 the score was discovered at Yale, from which William Bolcom and Richard Rodney Bennett created this two-piano version. The ballet is about an immigrant to New York who encounters a seductive heiress, a tap-dancer, a flapper, a cowboy, and a movie star beauty. Two copies needed for performance.