her own person the attributes of a great dancer, a great beauty, a great
actress, a great artist, and a great woman. John van Druten, the noted
playwright, sums her up thus: “I can tell you that Tamara Karsavina was
the greatest actress and the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, the
incarnation of Shakespeare’s ‘wightly wanton with a velvet brow, with
two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes,’ and that I wrote sonnets to
her when I was twenty.”
Born in 1885, the daughter of a famous Russian dancer and teacher,
Platon Karsavin, Karsavina, unlike the Ladies of the Maryinsky who have
made Paris their home, was ready for change: that change in ballet that
is sometimes called the Romantic Revolution. She was receptive to new
ideas, and became identified with Fokine and Diaghileff and their
reforms in ballet style.
Diaghileff had to have a _ballerina_ for his company, and it soon became
obvious to both Fokine and Diaghileff that Pavlova would not fit into
their conception of things balletic. The modest, unassuming, charming,
gracious, beautiful and enchanting Karsavina took over the _ballerina_
roles of the Diaghileff Company. It was in 1910 that Karsavina came into
her own with the creation of the title role in _The Firebird_, and a
revival of _Giselle_. Her success was tremendous. The shy, modest Tamara
Karsavina became _La Karsavina_; without the guarantee of her presence
in the cast, Diaghileff was for many years unable to secure a contract
in numerous cities, including London.
All through her career, a career that brought her unheard of success,
adulation, worship, Karsavina remained a sweet, simple, unspoiled lady.
She was not only the toast of Europe for her work with the Diaghileff
Company, but she returned frequently to the Maryinsky, dashing back and
forth between Petrograd and Western Europe. An aversion to sea travel in
wartime prevented her visiting America with the Diaghileff Company on
either of its American tours. She did, however, make a brief American
concert tour in 1925, partnered by Pierre Vladimiroff. Neither the
conditions nor the circumstances of this visit were to her advantage,
and Americans were thus prevented from seeing Karsavina at anything like
her best.
Karsavina has painted her own picture more strikingly than anyone else
can; and has painted it in a book that is a splendid work of art. It is
called _Theatre Street_. Tamara Karsavina’s _Theatre Street_ is a book
and a portrait, a picture of a person and of an era that is, at the same
time, a shining classic of the theatrical dance. But not only does it
tell the story of her own career so strikingly that it would be
presumptuous of me to expand on her career in these pages, but she shows
us pictures of Russian life, of childhood in Russia that take rank with
any ever written.
After the dissolution of a previous Russian marriage, Karsavina, in
1917, married a British diplomat, Henry Bruce, who died in 1950. Her
son, by this marriage, is an actor and director in the British theatre.
Karsavina herself lives quietly and graciously in London, but by no
means inactively. She is a rock of strength to British ballet, through
her interest and inspiration. A great lady as well as a great artist, it
would give me great pleasure to be able to present her across the
American continent in a lecture tour, in the course of which
illuminating dissertation she would elucidate, as no one I have ever
seen or heard, the important and expressive art of mime.
_LYDIA KYASHT_
Classmate of Karsavina at the Imperial School, and born in the same
year, is Lydia Kyasht, who was the first Russian _ballerina_ to become a
permanent fixture in London.
Kyasht’s arrival in the British capital dates back to 1908, the year she
became a leading soloist at the Maryinsky Theatre. There were mixed
motives for her emigration to England. There were, it appears, intrigues
of some sort at the Maryinsky; there was also a substantial monetary
offer from the London music hall, the Empire, where, for years, ballet
was juxtaposed with the rough-and-tumble of music hall comedians, and
where Adeline Genée had reigned as queen of English ballet for a decade.
Kyasht’s Russian salary was approximately thirty-five dollars a month.
The London offer was for approximately two hundred dollars a week.
Her first appearance at the Empire, in Leicester Square, long the home
of such ballet as London had at that time, was under her own name as
Lydia Kyaksht. When the Empire’s manager in dismay inquired: “How _can_
one pronounce a name like that?” he welcomed the suggestion that the
pronunciation would be made easier for British tongues if the second “k”
were dropped. So it became Kyasht, and Kyasht it has remained.
Kyasht was the first Russian dancer to win a following in London, and in
her first appearances there she was partnered by Adolph Bolm, later to
be identified with Diaghileff and still later with ballet development in
the United States.
The Empire ballets were, for the most part, of a very special type of
corn. Kyasht appeared in, among others, a little something called _The
Water Nymph_ and in another something charmingly titled _First Love_,
with my old friend and Anna Pavlova’s long-time partner, Alexandre
Volinine, as her chief support. There was also a whimsy called _The
Reaper’s Dream_, in which Kyasht appeared as the “Spirit of the
Wheatsheaf,” seen and pursued in his dream by a reaper, the while the
_corps de ballet_, costumed as an autumn wheatfield, watched and
wondered.
Most important, however, was Kyasht’s appearance in the first English
presentation, on 18th May, 1911, of Delibes’ _Sylvia_. _Sylvia_, one of
the happiest of French ballets, had had to wait thirty-five years to
reach London, although the music had long been familiar there. Even
then, London saw a version of a full-length, three-act work, which, for
the occasion, had been cut and compressed into a single act. It took
forty-one more years for the uncut, full-length work to be done in
London, with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet production, staged by Frederick
Ashton, at Covent Garden, in the Royal Opera House, on 3rd of September,
1952. The original British Sylvia, Lydia Kyasht, was, by this date, a
member of the teaching staff at the famous Sadler’s Wells School.
Lydia Kyasht remained at the Empire for five years. At the conclusion of
her long engagement, she sailed for New York to appear as the Blue Bird
in a Shubert Winter Garden show, _The Whirl of the World_, with Serge
Litavkin as her partner; Litavkin later committed suicide in London, as
the result of an unhappy love affair (not with Lydia Kyasht).
Kyasht’s American venture brought her neither fame nor glory. In the
first place, a Shubert Winter Garden spectacle, in 1913, was not a
setting for the classical technique of Ballet; then, for better or
worse, Kyasht was stricken ill with typhoid fever, a mischance that
automatically terminated her contract. But before she became ill, still
on the unhappier side, was the Shubertian insistence that Kyasht should
be taught and that she should perfect herself in the 1913 edition of
“swing,” the “Turkey Trot.” Such was the uninformed and uncaring mind of
your average Broadway manager, that he wanted to combine the delicacy of
the “Turkey Trot,” of unhallowed memory, with what he elegantly
characterized as “acrobatic novelties.”
But Kyasht was saved from this humiliation by the serious fever attack
and returned to London, where she made her permanent home and where, for
the most part, she devoted herself to teaching. As a teacher able to
impart that finish and refinement that is so essential a part of a
dancer’s equipment, she has had a marked success.
Today, she is, as I have said, active in the teaching of ballet
department at that splendid academy, the Sadler’s Wells School, about
which I shall have something to say later on.
_LYDIA LOPOKOVA_
The third of the Maryinsky ladies to settle in England, to whom I cannot
fail to pay tribute, is Lydia Lopokova.
Lopokova is the youngest of the three, having been born in 1891. Her
graduation from the Imperial School was so close to the great changes
that took place in Russian ballet, that she had been at the Maryinsky
Theatre only a few months when, as a pupil of Fokine, she was invited to
join the Diaghileff Ballet, at that time at the height of its success in
its second Paris season.
Writing of Lopokova’s early days at the Imperial School, Karsavina says
in _Theatre Street_: “Out of the group of small pupils given now into my
care was little Lopokova. The extreme emphasis she put into her
movements was comic to watch in the tiny child with the face of an
earnest cherub. Whether she danced or talked, her whole frame quivered
with excitement; she bubbled all over. Her personality was manifest from
the first, and very lovable.”
Of her arrival to join the Diaghileff Company in Paris, Karsavina says:
“Young Lopokova danced this season; it was altogether her first season
abroad. As she was stepping out of the railway carriage, emotion
overcame her. She fainted right away on the piles of luggage. It had
been her dream to be in Paris, she told the alarmed Bakst who rendered
first aid; the lovely sight (of the Gare du Nord) was too much for her.
A mere child, she reminded me again of the tiny earnest pupil when, in
the demure costume of _Sylphides_, she ecstatically and swiftly ran on
her toes.”
Lopokova’s rise to high position with the Diaghileff Ballet in England
and Europe was rapid. But she was bored by success. There were new
fields to be conquered, and off she went to New York, in the summer of
1911, to join the first “Russian Ballet” to be seen on Broadway. A
commercial venture hastily rushed into the ill-suited Winter Garden,
with the obvious purpose of getting ahead of the impending Diaghileff
invasion of America, due at a later date. The popular American
vaudeville performer, Gertrude Hoffman, temporarily turned manager,
sparked this “Saison de Ballets Russes.”
Hoffman, in conjunction with a Broadway management, imported nearly a
hundred dancers, with Lydia Lopokova as the foremost; others included
the brothers Kosloff, Theodore and Alexis, who remained permanently in
the United States; my friend, Alexandre Volinine; and Alexander
Bulgakoff. A word about the 1911 “Saison de Ballets Russes” may not be
amiss. The ethics of the entire venture were, to say the least, open to
question. Among the works presented were _Schéhérazade_, _Cléopâtre_,
and _Sylphides_--all taken without permission from the Diaghileff
repertoire, and with no credit (and certainly no cash) given to Michel
Fokine, their creator. All works were restaged from memory by Theodore
Kosloff, and with interpolations by Gertrude Hoffman. The outstanding
success of the whole affair was Lydia Lopokova.
When, after an unsuccessful financial tour outside New York, Lopokova
and Volinine left the company, the “Saison de Ballets Russes” fell to
pieces.
Venturing still farther afield, Lopokova joined Mikhail Mordkin’s
company briefly; then, remaining in America for five years, she toyed
seriously with the legitimate theatre, and made her first appearance as
an actress (in English) with that pioneer group, the Washington Square
Players (from which evolved The Theatre Guild), at the Bandbox Theatre,
in East 57th Street, in New York, and later in a Percy Mackaye piece
called _The Antic_, under the direction of Harrison Grey Fiske.
Then the Diaghileff Ballet came to America; came, moreover, badly in
need of Lopokova; came without Karsavina, without any woman star; came
badly crippled. In New York, and free, was Lydia Lopokova. It was Lydia
Lopokova who was the _ballerina_ of the company through the two American
tours. It was Lydia Lopokova who was the company’s bright and shining
individual success.
She returned to Europe with Diaghileff and was his _ballerina_ from 1917
to 1919, earning for herself in London a popularity second to none. But,
bored again by success, she was suddenly off again to America. This
time, the venture was even less noteworthy, for it was a Shubert musical
comedy--and a rather dismal failure. “I was a flop,” was Lopokova’s
comment, “and thoroughly deserved it.” In 1921, she returned to
Diaghileff, and danced the Lilac Fairy in his tremendous revival of _The
Sleeping Princess_. During the following years, up to the Diaghileff
Ballet’s final season, Lopokova was in and out of the company, appearing
as a guest artist in the later days.
After a short and unhappy marriage with one of Diaghileff’s secretaries
had been dissolved, Lopokova became Mrs. J. Maynard Keynes, the wife of
the brilliant and distinguished English economist, art patron, friend of
ballet and inspirer of the British Arts Council. On Keynes’s elevation
to the peerage, Lopokova, of course, became Lady Keynes.
Invariably quick in wit, impulsive, possessor of a genuine sense of
humor, Lady Keynes remains eager, keen for experiment, restless, impish,
and still puckish, always ready to lend her enthusiastic support to
ventures and ideas in which she believes.
_MARIE RAMBERT_
One of the most potent forces in the development of ballet in England is
Marie Rambert. She was a pioneer in British ballet. She still has much
to give.
Marie Rambert--unlike her London colleagues: Karsavina, Kyasht, and
Lopokova--was not a Maryinsky lady. Born Miriam Rambach, in Poland, she
was a disciple of Emile Jacques Dalcroze, and was recommended to
Diaghileff by her teacher as an instructor in the Dalcroze type of
rhythmic movement. The Russians who made up the Diaghileff Company were
not impressed either by the Dalcroze method or its youthful teacher.
They rebelled against her, taunted her, called her “Rhythmitchika,” and
left her alone. There was one exception, however. That exception was
Vaslav Nijinsky, who was considerably influenced by his studies with
Rambert, an influence that was made apparent in three of his
choreographic works: _Sacre du Printemps_, _Afternoon of a Faun_ (this,
incidentally, the first to show the influence), and _Jeux_.
Despite the attitude of the Russian dancers, it was her contacts with
the Diaghileff Ballet that aroused Rambert’s interest in ballet. She had
had early dancing lessons in the Russian State School in Warsaw; now she
became a pupil of Enrico Cecchetti. In 1920, she established her own
ballet school in the Notting Hill Gate section of London, and it was not
long after that the Ballet Club, a combination of ballet company with
the school, was founded, an organization that became England’s first
permanent ballet company.
Rambert’s influence on ballet in England has been widespread. When,
after the death of Diaghileff, the Camargo Society was formed in London,
along with Ninette de Valois, Lydia Lopokova, J. Maynard Keynes, and
Arnold L. Haskell, Rambert was a prime mover.
In her school and at the Ballet Club, she set herself the task of
developing English dancers for English ballet. From her school have come
very many of the young dancers and, even more important, many of the
young choreographers who are making ballet history today. To mention but
a few: Frederick Ashton, Harold Turner, Antony Tudor, Hugh Laing, Walter
Gore, Frank Staff, William Chappell, among the men; Peggy van Praagh,
Pearl Argyle, Andrée Howard, Diana Could, Sally Gilmour, among the
women.
Rambert is married to that poet of the English theatre, Ashley Dukes.
Twenty-odd years ago they pooled their individual passions--hers for
building dancers, his for building theatres and class-rooms--and built
and remodelled a hall into a simple, little theatre, which they
christened the Mercury, in Ladbroke Road. Its auditorium is as tiny as
its stage. Two leaps will suffice to cross it. The orchestra consisted
of a single pianist. On occasion a gramophone assisted. Everything had
to be simple. Everything had to be inexpensive. The financial
difficulties were enormous. Here the early masterpieces of Ashton and
Tudor were created. Here great work was done, and ballets brought to
life in collaboration between artists in ferment.
I cannot do better than to quote the splendid tribute of my friend,
“Freddy” Ashton, when he says: “Hers is a deeply etched character, a
potent bitter-sweet mixture; she can sting the lazy into activity, make
the rigid mobile and energise the most lethargic.... She has the unique
gift of awakening creative ability in artists. Not only myself, but
Andrée Howard, Antony Tudor, Walter Gore and Frank Staff felt our
impulse for choreography strengthen and become irresistible under her
wise and patient guidance. Even those who were not her pupils or
directly in her care--the designers who worked with her, William
Chappell, Sophie Fedorovitch, Nadia Benois, Hugh Stevenson, to name only
a few--all felt the impact of her singular personality.”
The work Marie Rambert did with the Ballet Club and the Ballet Rambert
in their days at the Mercury Theatre was of incalculable value. The
company continues today but its function is somewhat different.
Originally the Ballet Rambert was a place where young choreographers
could try out their ideas, could make brave and bold experiments. During
my most recent visit to London, in the summer of 1953, I was able to see
some of her more recent work on the larger stage of the Sadler’s Wells
Theatre. I was profoundly impressed. Outstanding among the works I saw
were an unusually fine performance of Fokine’s immortal _Les Sylphides_,
which has been continuously in her repertoire since 1930; _Movimientos_,
a work out of the London Ballet Workshop in 1952, with choreography and
music by the young Michael Charnley, with scenery by Douglas Smith and
costumes by Tom Lingwood; Frederick Ashton’s exquisite _Les Masques_, an
old tale set to a delicate score by Francis Poulenc, with scenery and
costumes by the late and lamented Sophie Fedorovitch; and Walter Gore’s
fine _Winter Night_, to a Rachmaninoff score, with scenery and costumes
by Kenneth Rowell. There was also an unusually excellent production of
_Giselle_, which first entered her repertoire in its full-length form in
1946, with Hugh Stevenson settings and costumes.
While there was a period when Rambert seemed to be less interested in
ballets than in dancers, and the present organization would appear to be
best described as one where young dancers may be tested and proven, yet
Rambert alumnae and alumni are to be found in all the leading British
ballet companies.
In the Coronation Honours List in 1953, Marie Rambert was awarded the
distinction of Companion of the British Empire.
_MIKHAIL MORDKIN_
Although he was under my management for only a brief time, I must, I
feel, make passing reference to Mikhail Mordkin as one of the Russian
_emigré_ artists who have been identified with ballet in America. His
contributions were neither profound nor considerable; but they should be
assessed and evaluated.
Mordkin, born in Russia, in 1881, was a product of the Moscow School,
and eventually became a leading figure and one-time ballet-master of the
Bolshoi Theatre.
So far as America is concerned, I sometimes like to think his greatest
contribution was his masculinity. Before he first arrived here in
support of Anna Pavlova in her initial American appearance, the average
native was inclined to take a very dim view indeed of a male dancer.
Mordkin’s athleticism and obvious virility were noted on every side.
Strange combination of classical dancer, athlete, and clown, Mordkin’s
temperament was such that he experienced difficulty throughout his
career in adjusting himself to conditions and to people. He broke with
the Imperial Ballet; broke with Diaghileff; split with Pavlova. These
make-and-break associations could be extended almost indefinitely.
For the record, I should mention that, following upon his split with
Pavlova, he had a brief American tour with his own company, calling it
the “All Star Imperial Russian Ballet,” and brought as its _ballerina_,
the doyenne of Russian _ballerinas_, Ekaterina Geltzer. Again, in 1928,
he returned to the States, under the management of Simeon Gest, with a
company that included Vera Nemtchinova, Xenia Macletzova, and the
English Hilda Butsova, along with Pierre Vladimiroff.
Mordkin’s successes in Moscow had been considerable, but outside Russia
he always lagged behind the creative procession, largely, I suspect,
because of a stubborn refusal on Mordkin’s part to face up to the fact
that, although the root of ballet is classicism, styles change, the
world moves forward. Ballet is no exception. Mordkin clung too
tenaciously to the faults of the past, as well as to its virtues.
From the ballet school he founded in New York has come a number of
first-rate dancing talents. The later Mordkin Ballet, in 1937-1938, and
1938-1939, left scarcely a mark on the American ballet picture. It
lacked many things, not the least of which was a _ballerina_ equal to
the great classical roles. Its policy, if any, was as dated as Mordkin
himself.
If there was a contribution to ballet in America made by Mordkin, it was
a fortuitous one. Choreographically he composed nothing that will be
remembered. But there was a Mordkin company of sorts, and some of its
members formed the nucleus of what eventually became Ballet Theatre.
On 15th July, 1944, Mikhail Mordkin died at Millbrook, New Jersey.
_VASLAV NIJINSKY_
Nijinsky has become a literature and a legend. The story of his tragic
life has been told and re-told. His feats as a dancer, his experiments
as a choreographer, became a legend, even while he lived.
I regret I never knew him. Those who did know him and with whom I have
discussed him, are, for the large part, idolators. That he was a genius
they are all agreed. They insist he could leap higher, could remain
longer in the air--but there is little point in dwelling on the legend.
It is well-known; and legends are the angel’s food on which we thrive.
Nijinsky’s triumphs came at a time when there were great figures
bursting over the horizon; at a time when there was so little basis for
comparison; at a time when it was extremely difficult for the public to
appraise, because the public had so little basis for comparison.
How separate fact from fiction? It is difficult, if not quite
impossible. It was the time of the “greatests”: Kubelik, the “greatest”
violinist; Mansfield, the “greatest” actor; Irving, the “greatest”
actor; Modjeska, the “greatest” actress; Bernhardt, the “greatest”
actress; Ellen Terry, the “greatest” actress; Duse, the “greatest”
actress.
It is such an easy matter when, prompted by the nostalgic urge, to
contemplate longingly a by-gone “Golden Age.” In music, it is equally
simple: Anton Rubinstein, Franz Liszt, de Pachmann, Geraldine Farrar,
Enrico Caruso ... and so it goes. Each was the “greatest.” Nijinsky has
become a part and parcel of the “greatest” legend.
Jan Kubelik, one of the greatest violinists of his generation, is an
example. When I brought Kubelik for his last American appearance in
1923, I remember a gathering in the foyer of the Brooklyn’s Academy of
Music at one of the concerts he gave there. The younger generation of
violinists were out in force, and a number of them were in earnest
conversation during the interval in the concert.
Their general opinion was that Kubelik had remained away from America
too long; that he was, in fact, slipping. Sol Elman, the father of
Mischa, listened attentively. When the barrage had expended itself, he
spoke.
“My dear friends,” he said, “Kubelik played the Paganini concerto
tonight as splendidly as ever he did. Today you have a different
standard. You have Elman, Heifetz, and the rest. All of you have
developed and grown in artistry, technique, and, above all, in knowledge
and appreciation. The point is: you know more; not that Kubelik plays
less well.”
It is all largely a matter of first impressions and their vividness. It
is the first impressions that color our memories and often form the
basis of our judgments. As time passes, I sometimes wonder how reliable
the first impressions may be.
I am unable to state dogmatically that Nijinsky was the “greatest”
dancer of our time or of all time. On the other hand, there cannot be
the slightest question that he was a very great personality. The quality
of personality is the one that really matters.