THE NEW RUSSIAN BALLET
The old ballet: arguments _pro_ and _con_--The new movement:
Diaghileff and Fokine; the advent of Diaghileff’s company;
the ballets of Diaghileff’s company; ‘Spectre of the Rose,’
‘Cleopatra,’ _Le Pavillon d’Armide_, ‘Scheherezade’--Nijinsky and
Karsavina--Stravinsky’s ballets: ‘Petrouchka,’ ‘The Fire-Bird,’
etc.; other ballets and arrangements.
I
Gordon Craig very aptly characterized the French ballet as the most
deliciously artificial impertinence that ever turned up its nose at
Nature. Commenting on this Prince Volkhonsky says: ‘Seldom one meets
in a short definition with such an exhausting acknowledgment of the
positive and negative sides of the question. How easy and pleasant it
is to agree with a judgment which is penetrated with such impartiality.
Who will not acknowledge that that powdered Marquise is charming,
and yet who will not acknowledge that that huge pile of false hair
sprinkled with powder is against Nature?’ Magnificent as the old
Russian ballet has been dramatically and acrobatically, yet it failed
to acknowledge the artificialities of its form and the deficiencies
of its phonetic conceptions. It failed to see what Delsarte, Mrs.
Hovey, Isadora Duncan and the partisans of the naturalistic school had
grasped: the call of Nature. Though it banished the powdered Marquise
of the French school from the stage, yet it did not banish the creed
from the ballerina’s toe--the unmusical acting, the spectacular leaps
and pirouettes, the umbrella-like tunics, the acrobatic stunts, the
fossilized forms of the dead ages. In praise of the old ballet Mr.
A. Levinsohn has written in a Russian magazine of the dance: ‘When a
ballerina rises on the tips of her toes (_pointés_), she frees herself
of a natural movement and enters a region of fantastic existence.’
The principal meaning of all the ballet technique in preaching the
toe-dance is to defy the laws of gravity and give the dance the
semblance of a flight, or floating in the air. There is no question
that a few musical phrases require such plastic, particularly in such
compositions as Saint-Saëns’ ‘The Swan,’ or Drigo’s _Papillons_, which
Pavlova has visualized so magnificently. But to apply the same style to
express the romantic, poetic, tragic and other human emotions, to apply
the toe-technique to every form of dancing, is really abnormal. Prince
Volkhonsky, who has contributed so much to the Russian ballet reform,
writes with striking argument and vigor: ‘Movement cannot be an aim in
itself; such a movement would be nonsense. What does a dancer express
when he imitates a spinning-top? What does the ballerina express when
with a fascinating smile she regards caressingly her own toe, as she
toe-dances over the smooth floor? What does her body express, the human
body--the most wonderful instrument of expression on earth--when,
carried away by gymnastic enthusiasm in an acrobatic ecstasy, with
panting chest and terror in her open eyes, she crosses the stage
diagonally, whirling on one toe, while with the other she executes the
famous “thirty-two fouettés”?’ ‘Gymnastics transform themselves into
fantastics,’ exclaims Levinsohn; ‘but I assure you, when in the circus
the man-serpent, all dressed in green scales, puts his legs behind
his shoulder, this is no less fantastic.’ The so-called tunic (the
French _tutu_)--a light short garment of pleated gauze--has, with Mr.
Levinsohn, not only a physical justification from the point of view of
comfort but a logical explanation, an æsthetic sanction; it ‘lends
to the body a seeming stability.’ ‘Do you catch this?’ he continues.
‘The perpendicularity of the human figure in our eyes is, so to speak,
balanced by the horizontality of the skirt; just the principle of the
spinning-top. Now, is it possible to invent a more deplorable formula
for transforming man into a machine? Is it possible to give a more
definite expression to the principle of eliminating one’s “ego”? Is
not art the expression, the manifestation, the blossoming of man? And
what, finally, shall we say from the purely æsthetic point of view
of that exaltation of a costume which by its umbrella-like stiffness
cuts the human body into two? Shall we remain indifferent to the
beauty of folds, to the obedience of the flowing veils, to the plastic
injunctions of the living movement?
‘The theory of mechanisation of the human body could not but lead
to the panegyric of the “flat-toed” ballet slipper. The simple sad
necessity of giving to the ballerina a point of support receives
a philosophico-æsthetic interpretation: this slipper “generalises
the contour of the foot” and “makes the impression of the movement
clearer and more finished.” In the name of all--I won’t say of all
that is sacred--but of all that is beautiful, is it possible to say
such things? You have never admired a foot; you do not know what it
is--a foot that slowly rises from the ground, first with the heel,
then with the sole; you do not know the beauty of supple toes; you
evidently never saw the foot of Botticelli’s “Pallas,” the foot of
Houdon’s “Diana.” If it is so valuable to “generalise” the contour
of the foot by the flat-toed slipper, why not, then, “generalise”
the contour of the hand and give to the ballerinas boxing-gloves?
Art is an exteriorisation of man, a spreading of one’s self outside
the limits of one’s ego, and here we are asked to cut, to shorten,
to hide: a principle which is exactly the contrary of art. It was
also a “generalisation” of the human figure when Niobe was being
metamorphosed into a rock, but it remains till the end of time the
expression of grief; the Greeks have not found a more eloquent myth for
the eternalisation of human sorrow than the return of form into that
which is not formed. They knew that all process of creation goes from
the general to the particular. When the musician shapes the musical
material accessible to everybody into a particular musical melody, he
goes from the general to the particular. When the sculptor takes away
piece by piece from the block of marble, he goes from the general to
the particular. If, out of the shapeless mass of the human family, the
great types could detach themselves and crystallise themselves into
definite characters, it is only thanks to their particularities that
they conquer and receive their universal value. The direction of the
artist is from the shapeless, from the abstract, into the concrete;
the process of art is a process of individualisation. It is easy to
understand, therefore, the instinctive hostility which is provoked in
a man who loves art, by all attempts at “generalisation”: it is the
infiltration into art of that which is not art, it is that which in the
course of centuries has deserved the appellation of “routine.” This
crust of uniformity and impersonality which spreads over art is nothing
but an infiltration of the generalising principle into that which is
and ought to remain the sacred domain of personality. It is the desert
under whose breath fades and withers the beauty of the oasis.
‘No wonder that a reaction should set in against an art which seeks its
justification in such theories; the reaction against the stereotyped
ballet is a direct act of logic--it is the voice of common sense:
it would be impossible that a form of art should live which is in
contradiction to the principle of art. When I say “live,” I do not mean
the right of existence; I take the word in its most real sense: to
live, that is, to possess the elements of development. In the form into
which it has developed the “classical” ballet lacks these elements--it
cannot evolve; as Mr. Svetloff judiciously remarked, if every ballerina
could execute seventy-five instead of “thirty-two fouettés,” it would
be a greater difficulty to overcome, it would not be art developed.
Thus I repeat, when I say that such a form of art as the old ballet
cannot live I am not denying its right to exist, but I am indicating
the absence of elements of development, the atrophy of the principle of
vitality.
‘There is one point of view possible as to the “classical ballet”; it
is the one form in which we see the established forms of old dances.
Who will deny the charm of the minuet, of the gavotte, of the pavane?
But, on the other hand, who ever will dare to say that this is the
final word of plastic art? Miniature painting is a lovely art, is it
not? Yet equally wrong are those who would assert that the miniature
has expressed all that painting is capable of, and those who would
say that miniature is “all right, but it needs enlarging.” And when
we consider the ballet from the only possible point of view, from the
point of view of the crystallised dance, how offensive will appear
to us “gymnastics that transform themselves into fantastics.” On the
other hand, we shall not be astonished when we hear the regrets of some
adherents of the old “dance” in the presence of the “Scythian invasion”
on that same stage where the plastic formulas of the Latin race have
blossomed; only imagine it--where the gavotte and sarabanda used to
reign there now bursts out the tempest of the “Tartar hordes”!’
II
The appearance of Isadora Duncan and her pupils in Russia was truly a
high explosive bomb. Her art startled the Russian dancers and public.
It was the very opposite of what everybody had been accustomed to
see, and what everybody imagined the dance to be. Though the limited
character of her technique decreased the effect, yet the truth of
her principle was what caused the greatest discussion and made the
deepest impression. In the fundamentals of her dance were that freedom,
individuality and relief which the Russian mind had missed in the old
ballet. It was this theoretical argument that made Miss Duncan’s art
such a factor in Russia. Marius Petipa had been an excellent scholar
and academician in his days, but he had grown old and his views had
become obsolete. His genius saw the evolution of the ballet only in the
conventional channels. Among his assistants were a group of talented
young dancers and teachers, some of whom were dissatisfied with the old
order, yet found themselves forced to follow the time-worn rules. One
of the young students of this type was M. Fokine, a very intelligent
student and gifted artist, who was particularly electrified by Miss
Duncan’s art. He saw the shortcomings of Miss Duncan’s school and
realized that here he, with his thorough understanding of the ballet
and its technique, could do much that she had been unable to do.
With all the best will Fokine found himself bound to the old order of
things. But it was at this very juncture that M. Diaghileff, who had
been successfully editing the annual Reviews of the Imperial Ballet,
laid the foundation for a new art magazine on radical principles.
Having been a graduate of the Conservatory of Music of Petrograd and
a connoisseur of the art of dancing, he was just the man to gather
a group of radical dance and music students and artists of every
description around his venture and attempt to accomplish something
radically modern in all the fields of stage art. His efforts found a
quick response among the various artists of the ballet, who already
knew of his work and tendencies. One of them was Fokine, and with him
came many of his talented pupils and friends. Like with every other new
movement this needed crystallization theoretically and practically. For
some reason or other Diaghileff’s magazine failed. But it had already
accomplished its evolutionary task: a group of artists was ready to
join any leaders of revolution who would be worthy of their confidence.
The next move from the revolutionary Diaghileff and his general Fokine
was their unexpected appearance in Paris. Here they had surrounded
themselves with a few genial ballet dancers of Petrograd and Moscow.
The announcement of an appearance of the Russian ballet in Paris,
under the management of Diaghileff and Fokine and with stars like
Nijinsky, Mmes. Fokina, Karsavina and Astafieva, marks the first
revolutionary move in Russian dance history. It was undoubtedly the
phenomenal success that Pavlova and Mordkin had had outside of Russia,
particularly in Paris and London, which actuated and encouraged the
rebels. They argued, ‘If Pavlova and Mordkin had such phenomenal
success as solo dancers, in the old classic style, we are more sure
of a success in real modern ballets.’ And they proved that they had.
Here is what a London critic writes of the appearance of the Diaghileff
company:
‘For the unknown to be successful in London it is always necessary to
create what is called a boom--marvelous clothes or the lack of them;
a terrifying top note; a tame lion; a Star that has been shining with
unparalleled brilliancy in another city. But we were told nothing about
the Russian dancers when they arrived in 1909--some half dozen of them
only--and so we expected nothing. And it is to be feared that some of
us found what we expected. Now, two years later, we are slowly opening
our eyes.
‘There is no need to describe either Karsavina or Pavlova. If there
were, indeed, pen and ink would be incapable of the task, for they both
typify and express the woman of all ages, and ageless.
‘*** For many it was as if they understood life for the first time,
had entered a chamber in the castle Existence which hitherto had been
hidden from them. They gave us thoughts, these Russian magicians, for
which we have been unconsciously seeking and travailing many years.
They gave us knowledge we thought to buy in a huckster’s shop, steal
from a bottle of wine, or find in a bloodless novel or in the crude
stage play of the average theatre, bearing little or no relation to
life. Now here it was, all expressed in dances men and women danced
thousands of years ago: music of face and body, of muscle and brain,
which stirred and sang in our hearts like wind in the trees.
‘The elusive spirit of youth she (Karsavina) most eloquently expresses
in _Les Sylphides_, the music by Chopin, which is described as a
_Rêverie Romantique_. The sex of the dancer, instead of dominating,
disappears. And so, of all the good things the Russian Dancers have
given us, the Spirit of Youth of Tamara Karsavina comes first and
foremost.
‘The men of the Russian Ballet possess the same technical perfection,
the same marvelous grace, as the women. Whether their bodies be as
slim and light as Nijinsky’s and Kosloff’s, or as massive and muscular
as Mordkin’s and Tichomiroff’s, makes no difference: they can be as
graceful, as supple, as tender as a girl, without losing a scrap of
their superb masculinity.’
Among the most conspicuous Russian dancers who followed the
revolutionary call of Diaghileff and Fokine, were Vera Fokina,
Tamara Karsavina, Sophie Feodorova, Seraphime Astafieva, Nijinsky,
and Kosloff. The real drawing cards of the revolutionary group were
Karsavina and Nijinsky, one more genial than the other, the one the
very type of the Russian youthful poetic and passionate girl, the other
that of masculine virility and grace. The leaping of Nijinsky and the
darting of Karsavina will remain as the most effective symbols in the
mind of those who have witnessed their inspiring dances. In _Le Spectre
de la Rose_, danced by Karsavina and Nijinsky, we can best compare
their individualities. ‘Their bodies, flower-like, representing the
spirit of flowers, weave dreams with silent and graceful movements,’
writes a critic. ‘We are altogether removed from the world of flesh
and blood to a kingdom of enchantment.’ Nijinsky and Karsavina are the
two talented exponents of the New Russian Ballet, in the same sense as
Pavlova and Mordkin belong to the Old Ballet.
The question arises in what respect Nijinsky differs from Mordkin and
Karsavina from Pavlova? If we could see illustrative performances by
these four greatest figures of the two Russian schools the difference
would be immediately evident, in spite of their individual traits.
Where Pavlova concentrates attention on her conventional toe-dancing,
Karsavina employs conspicuously the naturalistic steps and strives to
display the plastic lines of her beautiful body. Where Mordkin resorts
to pantomime, Nijinksy finds his expression through the movements of
the dance. However, the difference between the two ballets is not
so clearly cut with the men as with the women dancers. Fokine has
introduced a great deal of the plastic element that has actuated the
partisans of the naturalistic school. We find the acrobatic stunts
of the old ballet almost lacking in the new. You will hardly see
Karsavina, Fokina or Astafieva performing the leg-bending tricks of
the followers of the old school. If they resort to pirouettes and leg
agility, they do so in a different sense than the others.
III
A highly praised dance of Karsavina and Nijinsky is _Le Spectre de
la Rose_ (with music arranged from the compositions of Weber), which
takes place in a summer night in old aristocratic France. The music,
though old-fashioned, is soft and tender. Karsavina represents a young
sentimental girl who has just returned from the ball. She is thinking
of her lover, while raising to her lips a red rose which he gave her at
the ball. Going through a pantomimic scene of her sentimental dreams
Karsavina depicts the romantic prelude of a young girl until Nijinsky,
representing her visionary lover, leaps in. ‘The spirit of the garden
and the song of the night have entered her bedroom, and the wind blows
this rose-spirit to and fro. It is love in human shape: now he hovers
above the sleeping figure, caressing: now he is dancing just in front
of the window. And we dare not breathe lest by so doing the air is
stirred to drive him back into the moving shapes outside. But he rises
on the arms of the wind, he crouches beside the girl. She falls into
his arms and the love dream of a ballroom is realized. The music of the
night has entered the room, languid music like water which these two
spill as they dance to and fro, until, our eyes being opened, we can
see as well as hear music. The miracle is so brief that we scarcely
realize it before it has gone. But they were chords and harmonies,
these two spirit shapes floating on the implacable air: hands and feet,
arms and legs, lips and eyes spilling and spelling each note of music.
The hour has passed. Jealous dawn lays his fingers on the night.... The
girl is in her chair again. The spirit of the rose hovers like love
with trembling wings above her.’
A favorite ballet of the Diaghileff company is _Cléopatre_, arranged
by Fokine to music by Arensky, Taneieff, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glinka,
Glazounoff, and Moussorgsky. The chief characters of this ballet are
Seraphime Astafieva, as Cleopatra, Sophie Feodorova, as Ta-Hor, Vera
Fokina, as a Greek woman, and Nijinsky, as the favorite of Cleopatra.
It has been declared the most popular of all Fokine’s ballets. It
describes the well-known love drama of the great Egyptian queen. The
first scene is laid on the shores of the Nile. There is just visible
the arch of an ancient temple and its entrance with great figures of
stone. The ground on which it stands is flanked by pillars which tower
towards the sky. The waters of the river gleam between these pillars.
The sun is sinking into the hot desert. The first character of the
dance is Ta-Hor, a priestess; the second Amoun, a warrior, her beloved.
She emerges through the dark curtain of the night and meets him in the
silent precincts of the temple. Music quivers from hands and feet, lips
and eyes. We feel an impending danger. The silence is broken with the
sudden appearance of the High Priest. Cleopatra is coming. But Ta-Hor
clings to the lips of Amoun. When the Queen appears the lovers shrink
back into the shadows of the temple. She is a voluptuous beauty. We see
her resting, her limbs tangled in a mass of color, her eyes fixed like
serpent’s, staring into the hot night of the desert while she waits
for what it will bring her. She is tired of the wealth the world has
poured at her feet. There is but one thing that never tires her and is
ever new. Her subtle limbs uncurl from the tangled colors, open like a
rose at a breath of warm wind--to close again with a little shiver of
ecstasy. Love is always new and beautiful. Of love she has never tired,
only of lovers.
Cleopatra finally sees Amoun dancing, and falls madly in love with him.
There are many passionate and dramatic scenes. ‘Like the sea-foam, her
body is tempest-tossed. Her eyes burn into his soul. The music sings
songs of the desert, invocations to the Nile, hymns to the god of
love. Around the royal divan of Cleopatra we see a medley of men and
women, twining and grouping themselves. The music sounds like a gentle
breeze, full of love and enchantment, which longs yet fears to slake
its thirst. We see Egyptian dancers moving slowly and quietly. String
instruments are thrumming like nightingales. We see a whole company
of men and women dancing in the torchlight. The sight of the costumes
pours a spell of the Nile upon us. The stars of the desert and the
passionate music of string instruments, the beautiful girls and the
black virile bodies of the slaves, the waves of light and the distant
wall of soldiers and priests, fill the air with something tragic and
black. We get a glimpse of Cleopatra and Amoun, he standing beside her
couch. The high priest of the temple holds between his hands the sacred
cup filled with the poisonous wine that Amoun must drink. He takes the
cup firmly and looks into her eyes, and smiling he drinks. She smiles,
too. At this moment Amoun drops the cup to the ground. Death lays hands
upon him. His agony is brief. Cleopatra stands waiting. When he falls
his fingers clutch the air. A shiver shakes the Queen’s body. Cleopatra
goes out from the night passing through the vast pillars of the temple
into the dawn of the desert. After her comes Ta-Hor, looking for her
lover. But she finds the dead body. We see her warm brown body shiver
and shrink. She would tear out her heart. A soft wind comes whispering
over the desert bringing with it the red of the rising sun. It is the
end of a ghastly picture.’
Impressive as _Cléopatre_ is in its scenic and pantomimic vigor and
tragic atmosphere, yet it is hardly a ballet in the modern sense.
There is no unity of music, this being altogether a patch-work. It
may sound exceedingly pretty and appropriate occasionally to the
accompaniment of the mute drama, yet it is by no means dance music.
This is an example of the patchy ballet music that the Diaghileff
company is continually trying to employ. Musically less patchy is _Le
Pavillon d’Armide_, with music by Tcherepnin and setting by Benois. But
the theme is old-fashioned and over-perfumed. The story takes place in
mediæval France at the castle of a certain Marquis, a magician. It is
night. Winds blow, rain pours down and thunder rolls. A nobleman is
to meet his sweetheart near the Marquis’ castle and takes refuge from
the bad weather. The Marquis places his _Pavillon d’Armide_ at his
disposal. In the pavilion he sees an old Gobelin tapestry representing
the beautiful Armide, beneath it, a great clock supported by Love and
Time. The nobleman goes to sleep and at midnight sees the figures of
Love and Time step down from the clock. Armide becomes alive. The
nobleman falls in love with her and Armide embraces him. This is the
beginning of an animated dance. It is a fantastic scene, the old
Marquis taking part in the feast. Finally Time triumphs over Love and
they return to their places. It is an interesting short phantasy, a
poem in pantomime.
A ballet which has created the greatest comment and discussion in
its dramatic and scenic beauty is the _Scheherezade_, with music by
Rimsky-Korsakoff. This is a symphonic suite of which Bakst and Fokine
have manufactured a kind of pantomime-ballet. Though the music is
magnificent as an orchestra piece by itself, yet it is a perversion to
employ it to accompany a queer pantomimic drama. Rimsky-Korsakoff had
no idea of a Zobeide played by Karsavina, of her negro lover, danced
by Nijinsky, of Schariar, the Grand Eunuch, and of the Odalisque, who
are the characters of the ballet. This again is a patch-work and not a
dance in its real sense. If it is a dance, it is such that only one
artist or at most two could depict. According to the scenario writers
it draws the story of a Sultan’s harem from ‘The Arabian Nights.’ All
the harem beauties are dancing with their lovers and slaves. Among them
we find the pretty Sultana. The Sultan enters and suspects that Zobeida
has betrayed him. He finds her lover. We see death and passion. It is
picturesque, but the dance is only an incidental affair. _Scheherezade_
without Karsavina’s vivid mimicry and youthful beauty, and Nijinsky’s
agility, would be nothing. In the words of a Russian critic, ‘Nijinsky
makes us understand that a gesture is, as Blake said of a tear,
an intellectual thing. His gestures, by which I do not mean the
technical steps, are different in manner and in spirit from those of
the traditional Italian school. With the conventional gestures of the
academies, which mimic such attitudes as men are supposed naturally to
adopt when they perform certain actions or experience certain emotions,
he will have nothing to do. Nijinsky’s gestures mimic nothing. They are
not the result of a double translation of idea into words, and words
into dumb show. They are the mood itself. His limbs possess a faculty
of speech. Wit is expressed in his Arlequin dance as lucidly as in an
epigram. His genius consists in a singular pliancy of the body to the
spirit.’[C]
[C] S. Hudekoff: ‘History of Dancing’ (in Russian).
If Karsavina had not joined the choreographic revolutionists her
dramatic talent would have had little or no opportunity to express
itself, for the exponents of the old classic ballets are strictly
opposed to display of natural gestures and acting. While she now
exhibits a talent equal to Pavlova’s, in the old ballet she would be
only half of what she is. Although her excellent dramatic sense is
displayed in _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Scheherezade_ and in several of
Stravinsky’s ballets, still we have not had a chance yet to become
enthusiastic over any of her abstract dances. This view we notice also
expressed by many French and English critics. ‘Of her performances at
Covent Garden, all were marked by such rare technique and instructed
grace that it is difficult to put any one before another; but certainly
she never surpassed her achievement in _Le Spectre de la Rose_. Her
dancing caught the very spirit of a maiden’s revery, and nothing could
have been more finely imagined than those transitions from languor
into quick rushes of darting movement, which illustrate the abrupt and
irrational episodes of a troubled dream. She was the very embodiment
of faint desire. We felt, as it were, a breath of perfume, and were
troubled in spite of ourselves. Moreover, the long partnership between
the two performers seemed to have resulted in a very special and
intimate harmony. For the most part they simply floated about the stage
as though borne upon a common current of emotion. There was a marriage,
not only between their bodily movements, but between their spirits,
such as I have never noted in the union of any other dancers.’
Like the ballet _Prince Igor_, music by Borodine, scenario by Fokine,
_Le Carneval_, music from Schumann, Liadoff, Glazounoff, Tcherepnine
and various other sources, are nothing but dances from an opera, dances
taken here and there. Neither is there any unity of theme or style in
these trimmed-up panoramas. The Polovetsi dances of Borodine’s opera
_Prince Igor_ are magnificent examples of savage Tartar art. The music
is the very image of the hot and restless Mongolian temperament, the
very breath of battle lust, the exaltation of victory. Fokine has taken
a scene from the second act of the opera and patched a story together
with some characters of the opera. The dance in the opera itself is
wonderful. But in the ballet form, as arranged by Fokine, it is a
mediocrity.
IV
In the repertoire of Diaghileff’s company there have been, thus far,
only two more or less satisfactory ballets, _Le Pavilion d’Armide_,
by Benois and Tcherepnin, and _Le Spectre de la Rose_ by Weber and
Vaudoyer. But both might be termed choreographic sketches in one scene
rather than ballets. Without Nijinsky and Karsavina even these would
not be very charming. The aristocratic sentimentality and poetic pathos
of the two dance pantomimes are perfectly displayed by these two most
talented artists of the revolutionary group, as their miming and
dancing are characterized by a certain natural softness of movement,
the quality of languor and passion. But it was the music of Igor
Stravinsky, a young Russian composer working in the impressionistic
style, that saved the situation of the new ballet. Stravinsky has
a genius for the ballet, such as perhaps the world has never seen
before. However, he seems to be greatly hampered by lack of proper
conception of what constitutes the modern ballet. It is evident that
he is influenced in his compositions too much by the Diaghileff-Fokine
tendencies, as most of his ballets are built up in the old form of
construction, though the phonetic images and spirit are new. His
music is graphically vivid, as it should be, has a strong rhythm and
inspiring modern spirit. It is the form of construction that he has not
grasped yet fully, except in his _Petrouchka_.
This _Petrouchka_, Stravinsky’s masterpiece, is a Russian burlesque
taken from an old fairy-story of Harlequin in love with the Clown’s
wife. In this ballet the scenes are splendidly arranged by Fokine and
the music is thrilling. The puppet has always exercised a curious
fascination upon the human mind. The animated doll is a fantastic and
yet pathetic symbol of our emotions. _Petrouchka_ is the Russian
counterpart of English ‘Punch and Judy,’ though differing in its more
sentimental character. _Petrouchka_ represents the character of a real
puppet. Stravinsky has woven a dramatic plot around the puppet stage.
‘To take us behind the scenes and show the mingled comedy and tragedy
of the puppet world, was a true and dramatic inspiration’ of the
composer. The scenic effect of _Petrouchka_ is calculated to create a
melancholy feeling in the spectator with its bleak gray background and
dull frigidity. It gives a striking contrast to the barbaric colors of
the crowd on the stage. One has the feeling of opaque leaden skies,
of snow and gay people at a fair. The costumes and scenery designed
by Benois are true to Russian life and strikingly in harmony with
the dance. In every phrase of the music the composer shows himself a
master of the art of writing ballet music. ‘Throughout the four scenes
he displays not only a nice sense of dramatic firmness, but a shrewd
appreciation of character. In the treatment his humorous percept is of
large assistance. In the trumpet dance by which the Blackamoor is first
lured into the fair one’s toils or in the slower _pas de fascination_,
by which the conquest of him is completed, Stravinsky’s sense of the
ludicrous has turned two slender occasions to most diverting account. A
piece of clever orchestration is a passage at the outset of the opening
scene where the composer succeeds not only in reproducing the peculiar
sounds of an old hurdy-gurdy, but weaves the opposition between two
such competing instruments into a most entertaining and harmonious
discord.’
As in all the other Stravinsky ballet compositions, the orchestration
of _Petrouchka_ is realistically true to the action and the characters
of the play. It is full-blooded and modern. It breathes an air of the
unsophisticated joy of a simple people who attend to their affairs
regardless of conventional restrictions. Nijinsky, with his dramatic
flexibility and vigor, makes the play a vivid fairy tale in actuality,
or rather gives life to a dream of a fairy tale. ‘That the ballet
is thereby endowed with meaning, an inwardness, which it might not
otherwise possess, must be accounted as a tribute to the dancer’s
genius,’ writes an English critic.
Another splendid Stravinsky ballet performed by the Diaghileff company
is _L’Oiseau de Feu_. Fokine has arranged the music successfully in
this ballet. Like _Petrouchka_, it is based upon a folk-tale. The
overture of the play indicates that a fantastic story is to follow.
Strange mutterings and unexpected harmonies dispose the hearer to an
atmosphere of another world. The adventurous pantomime opens in a
gloomy forest emanating an air of midnight mysteries. But the music
glows gradually like the magic glow in the forest. One sees the
spectacular Fire Bird floating downward toward the stage. Now dancing
and music melt into one fascinating picture of two dimensions, to which
the brilliant scenic effects add a special spiritual note. Performed by
Karsavina, as the Fire Bird, the ballet is excellent.
But Stravinsky has succeeded less well in his post-impressionistic _Le
Sacre du Printemps_. This consists of two tableaux of ancient pagan
Russia. The first scene is the adoration of the earth; the second, the
adoration of the sun. The music is less spontaneous and less graphic
than that in Stravinsky’s other ballets. But, all in all, Stravinsky
remains the greatest drawing card and the greatest æsthetic factor in
the art of the Russian ballet rebels.
A charming number in the repertoire of the Diaghileff company is
Balakireff’s _Thamar_. Balakireff wrote this as a symphonic poem on
an Oriental theme, but Bakst has manufactured out of it a ballet.
The music is very beautiful and typically Russian. The story is a
thrilling tale of Caucasian life, which takes place at an ancient
castle built in a gorge of romantic mountains. But because it is
an artificial construction, it is less interesting musically and
choreographically than the Stravinsky ballets.
The Russian new ballet has attempted to perform Claude Debussy’s
_L’Après-Midi d’un Faun_, and Richard Strauss’ _La Légende de Joseph_.
In the latter ballet a new Russian dancer, Leonide Miassine, was
introduced in the title rôle. Neither Miassine nor _La Légende de
Joseph_ proved great attractions. Magnificent as Strauss and Debussy
are in their modern compositions otherwise, in ballet music they remain
mediocrities. Their rhythm is so anæmic, their images so hazy and their
episodes so disconnected that not even a Nijinsky or a Karsavina could
put life into them.
In criticising the new Russian ballet of Diaghileff and Fokine,
Prince Volkhonsky writes: ‘Their main defect is that they develop
[the dance] independently from the music; they are a design by
themselves--complicated, interesting, very often pleasing to the eye,
yet independent of the music. And we have already seen when we spoke
of the old codas that the most unpretentious figure, even when banal,
becomes inspiring when it coincides with the musical movement, and, on
the contrary, the most interesting “picturesque” figure loses meaning
when it develops in discord with music. Look at some dance, definite,
exact, that has crystallized itself within well-established limits;
you may look at it even without music. But try to watch a pantomime
without music. In the first place, it will be a design without color,
quite an acceptable form; in the second it will be a body without
skeleton--something unacceptable.’
The Russian new ballet is an interesting proof of the far-reaching
effect that the naturalistic school of dancing indirectly exercised
upon the development of the art of dancing. The efforts of the reform
that Fokine is attempting to achieve are admirable and show the great
possibilities that the revolutionists face in the immediate future.
Their whole drawback has been in their conception of the form and
music. Even Stravinsky has not been able to shake himself loose from
the old pantomimic form. But sooner or later they will see the new
point of view and acknowledge the mistake that every reformer is apt
to make in his first step. The Russians have the technique, the music,
the innate talent and the traditions for all future choreographic
inspiration. The solution lies, to a great extent, in the coöperative
work of their composers, writers, critics, painters, designers,
teachers and dancers.