Music: Step Right Up to the Great Culture-Kultura Bazaar

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Dealings between the superpowers, no matter how innocent, can never be separated from politics, and it would be naive to assume that this agreement will enable Soviet and American artists to pirouette around all political confrontations. Moscow, for instance, shut the door to a Hello, Dolly! troupe after the American bombing of North Viet Nam and kept the Bolshoi Ballet at home after the 1967 Middle East war. Washington retaliated in similar ways after the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Canceling a ballet tour or an orchestra performance is an easy way for both countries to show displeasure, but American diplomats are hopeful that this time around the ballerinas and the piano players will not be pawns in the game between East and West. Both capitals appear committed to make this exchange agreement work, and there is no sign so far of any shift because of the U.S. bombing of Libya two weeks ago.

Far from being an afterthought of the summit, as it seemed to many at the time, it was in fact carefully thought out, the result of 15 months of tough negotiations and 65 meetings in Moscow. On the U.S. side, President Reagan, that old-time actor, was a firm supporter of an accord that he said would create "genuine constituencies for peace." On the Soviet side, there has been what one State Department official terms "a marked change in attitude. They have taken an active, positive role. There is an altogether different attitude." Hermann also detects their keen desire to make the exchange agreement work. "They're bending over backwards," she says.

Within hours after the agreement was signed Nov. 21, American impresarios and museum directors were lining up for their share of cultural caviar. Robert Fitzpatrick, who is arranging Los Angeles' 1987 Arts Festival--which will be much like the one he set up for the 1984 Olympics--was already in Moscow. "I wanted to be the first in the door," he says. Fitzpatrick, whose taste runs to artistic frontiers, immediately placed a bid for the innovative Rustaveli Theater from the Georgian city of Tbilisi. "It's been a generation or two since we've seen any Soviet theater in this country," he says.

Fitzpatrick may have wanted to be first in the door, but Armand Hammer, 87, chairman of Occidental Petroleum and a promoter of Soviet-American relations for more than 60 years, was already inside the room. Several years ago, Hammer had seen a Soviet exhibition of impressionist and postimpressionist paintings in Switzerland. He asked the Minister of Culture if he could borrow it for the U.S. too, but nothing happened until after the summit agreement. Under a deal Hammer and Carter Brown worked out, the National Gallery has already sent 40 impressionist paintings to the U.S.S.R. (Hammer also has loaned the Soviets 127 paintings from his own collection, which includes many old masters.) In return, the Hermitage and Pushkin museums have sent the 41 paintings that are now in Washington.