"_La Légende de Joseph._"
Those who know the kind of attractions that the Russian ballet offers in
so many of its themes could have easily guessed, without previous
enlightenment, what episode in the life of Joseph had been selected for
illustration last week at Drury Lane. But they could never have guessed
that Herr Tiessen, author of a shilling guide to the intentions of the
composer, would attach a transcendental significance to the conduct of
_Potiphar's Wife_. "Through the unknown divine," he informs us, "which
is still new and mysterious to her, an imperious desire awakens in her
to fathom, to possess this world"--the world, that is to say, which
_Joseph's_ imagination creates in the course of an exhibition dance. If
this is so, I can only say that her behaviour is strangely misleading.
The scene opens at a party given by _Potiphar_ in Venice. Venice, of
course, was not _Potiphar's_ home address; and I marvel a little at the
change of _venue_ when I think how much more harmony could have been got
out of an Egyptian setting. But then I remind myself that the Russian
ballet is nothing if not _bizarre_. The long banqueting-table recalls
the canvases of Veronese, but with discordant notes of the Orient and
elsewhere. _Potiphar_ himself, seated on a dais, has the air of an
Assyrian bull. By his side _Mme. Potiphar_ wears breeches ending above
the knee, with white stockings and high clogs.
For the entertainment of the guests there was a dance of nuptial
unveiling and a bout between half-a-dozen Turkish boxers. But it was a
decadent and _blazé_ company, and something more piquant was needed for
their titillation. This was supplied in the shape of an original dance
by the fifteen-year-old _Joseph_, whom my guide describes as "graceful,
wild and pungent." He was introduced in a recumbent posture, and asleep,
on a covered stretcher, and at first I had the clever idea that he was
the customary corpse that appeared at Egyptian feasts to remind the
company of their liability to die. But when he woke up and began to
dance I saw at once that I was wrong.
I now know all about the interpretation of _Joseph's_ dance; but I defy
anyone to say at sight and without a showman's assistance what precisely
he was after. In the Third Figure (according to my guide-book) "there is
in his leaps a feeling of heaviness, as if he were bound to earth, and
he stumbles once or twice as one who has missed his goal;" but how was I
to guess that this signified that his "searching after God" was still
ineffectual? or that when in the Fourth Figure he "leaps with light
feet" this meant that "Joseph has found God"? I don't blame the boy for
not knowing the rule that forbids one art to trespass on the domain of
another; but there is no excuse for Herr Strauss, who must have been
well aware that, for the conveyance of any but the most obvious
emotions, mute dancing can never be a satisfactory substitute for
articulate poetry.
However, _Potiphar's_ guests seemed better instructed than I was, for
they threw off their apathy and took quite an intelligent interest in
_Joseph's_ _pas seul_. Indeed, one young man (the episode escaped me at
the dress rehearsal, but I have it in the guide-book)--one young man,
"sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of
fruit." As for _Potiphar_, it failed to stir the sombre depths of his
abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most
profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance
she sent for _Joseph_ and supplemented his rather exiguous costume with
a gross necklace of jewels, letting her hand linger awhile on his bare
neck. Already, it will be seen, she was intrigued with the "unknown
divine." _Joseph_, on the contrary, received her attentions without
_empressement_.
In the next scene--after a rather woolly and unintelligible
interlude--we see _Joseph_ retiring to his couch in an alcove behind the
place where the banqueting-table had been. You will judge how urgent was
the lady's keenness to probe the mysteries of his divine nature when I
tell you that she could not wait till the morning to pursue her
enquiries, but must needs visit him in his chamber at dead of night, and
wearing the one garment of the hour. At first, still half dreaming, he
mistakes her for an angel (he had already seen one in his sleep), but
subsequently, growing suspicious, he repels her with a dignified
disdain. For I must tell you that, whatever the guide-book may allege
about the loftiness of her designs, the music gave her away. It
reverted, in fact, to the motive of those passages which had already
accompanied and illustrated the nuptial dance, the dance (as Herr
Tiessen calls it) of "burning Love-longing."
At this juncture, _Potiphar_ and his minions break upon the scene. His
wife, after denouncing _Joseph_, is distracted between passion of hatred
and passion of love, and there is some play (reminding one of
_L'Après-midi d'un Faune_) with the purple cloak which _Joseph_ had
discarded. Presently she eludes her dilemma by fainting.
Meanwhile it has been the work of a moment to order up a brazier, a pair
of pincers, a poker, a headsman and an axe. The instruments of torture
waste no time in getting red-hot; and we anticipate the worst. _Joseph_,
however, who has ignored these preparations and maintained an attitude
of superbly indifferent aloofness, suddenly becomes luminous under great
pressure of limelight; and most of the cast, including a ballet of
female dervishes, are abashed to the ground.
Now appears, on the open-work entresol at the back of the stage, an
archangel. The guide-book is in error where it says that he glides
downwards on a shaft of light radiating from a star. As a matter of fact
he walks down the main staircase to the ground floor. Approaching
_Joseph_ he takes him by the hand and "leads him heavenwards" by the
same flight of steps; and we are to understand that, in the opinion of
Herr Strauss, the boy's subsequent career, as recorded in the Hebraic
Scriptures, may be treated as negligible.
I should like, in excuse of my own flippancy, to assume the same
detachment, and to regard this ballet-theme as having practically no
relation whatever to Biblical history, but being just one of many themes
out of Oriental lore, mostly secular, that lend themselves to the drama
of disappointed passion. My only serious protest is against the
hypocrisy which pretends, with regard to _Potiphar's Wife_, to see a
spiritual significance in what is mere vulgar animalism.
I ought, by the way, to have said that, in a spasm of chagrin, she
chokes herself with the pearl necklace which lent the only touch of
superfluity to her night attire, and was carried out--but not up the
main staircase. Thus ends this sordid tragedy that so well illustrates
that quality in Herr Strauss to which my guide refers when he speaks of
his realization of a "poignant longing for divine cheerfulness."