|TAMAR" is another pleasant little ballet of barbarity, in which
Karsavina, as one of those avid, fatal heroines, in the interpretation
of whose serpentine passions she is always fine, lures lovers to her
high tower, and, in the manner of the Chinese Empress, makes death
the penalty of an hour of her love. The execution is summary, the
unfortunate lover being hurled out of the window by muscular members of
Tamar's suite. In "Tamar" Adolph Bolm, who was I think the first Russian
male dancer to appear in England, makes a magnificent entrance. Miss
Pamela Colman Smith's drawing gives a very vivid impression of the
effect produced by the first appearance on the scene of the Lover and
his companions. Here is a very good example of the amazing influence
that the color and shape of mere garments can have on the imagination.
Those silent, black-coated, black-hatted men, their faces muffled in
concealing scarfs, seem to have come from far, from very far. I feel
that their horses below are in a sweat, that they have been riding
furiously at the summons of a force which their fresh and ardent youth
could not resist!
[Illustration: 0064]
Poor frenzied man! What is his secret? Why has he come here to see love
through a veil of blood--blood which is his own?