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The premiere of Wolpe’s THE MAN FROM MIDIAN inApril 1942 at the National Theater in Washington, D.C.,coincided with Dance Players’ debut as a company. Wolpe’sunorchestrated score was performed in its two-pianoversion by Walter Hendle and Arthur Gold. Loring dancedthe role of Moses. Also on the program that evening wasa revival of Loring’s Harlequin for President, with music byDomenico Scarlatti, and another new ballet, Prairie (cited inthe press, as was The Man from Midian, as a “choreographedpoem”), based on a poem by Carl Sandburg with a score byNorman Dello Joio. Later that same month, The Man fromMidian was danced several times in New York, when DancePlayers made its first appearance there—coincidentallyat the National Theater on West Forty-first Street, in theBroadway theater district.More than musical content differentiates Milhaud’s Moïseand Wolpe’s The Man from Midian. The structure and thechoice of depictions differ as well. Whereas Moïse has twomovements and a coda, the program booklet for The Manfrom Midian (from a 1942 New York performance) simplydivides the ballet into seven scenes: 1) At the Wailing Wall;2) Along the Nile; 3) Pharaoh’s Court; 4) A Work Field inEgypt; 5) The Fields of Midian; 6) On the Way to the RedSea; and 7) The Camp in the Desert. No overture is listed.Wolpe’s published two-piano score, however, is dividedinto two movements, with seventeen scenes or numberspreceded by an overture, that are titled loosely afterLoring’s preliminary dramatic outline from the originalMilhaud collaboration, although Wolpe’s titles for numbers12–14 are not identified as such in that outline. Theindividual numbers in Wolpe’s published two-piano scoreare, for the first movement (after the overture):Eugene Loring’s Dance Players in the 1942 production of The Manfrom Midian. Janet Reed as Miriam, Bobbie Howell as the motherof Moses, and Michael Kidd as Aaron.1. Serfdom—Lamentation(the same title used by Milhaud)2. Mother Conceives [sic] Child3. Pharaoh’s Daughter Bathes in the Nile,Finds the Baby4. Procession5. Pet of the Court—Political Intrigue6. Moses Among the Workers7. Moses Buries the Taskmaster in the Sandand for the second movement (without recommencing thenumbering): 8) Conversation with God; 9) Moses MeetsAaron; 10) March Through the Red Sea; 11) Restlessness; 12)Aaron’s Desperation; 13) Joshua’s Pleading; 14) Bacchanal;15) Return of Moses; 16) Moses Walks Among the People;17) Gathering of the PeopleWolpe subsequently orchestrated the first movement asa concert suite—which could of course be used for danceshould the opportunity arrive—under the title The Man fromMidian, Ballet Suite no. 1, which received its world premierein 1951 at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic(then known as the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New8.559439 22