Ida Rubinstein: She Knew What She Wanted

"Ida wanted to dance, so she was entered at the (St. Petersburg) Opera school; Ida wanted to see Greece, so she was sent to Athens with a famous Hellenist." - Philippe Jullian

It is a truism, not to be underestimated, that to get what you want in life, it is very useful to be born to a wealthy family. Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960), though orphaned at an early age, learned this lesson well. By the time Rubintsein was twenty-five and had learned the value of good publicity, she had gotten herself painted by the premier portraitist in Russia, Valentin Serov (1865-1911).
In the fiercely compettive Ballet Russes of Pavlova and Karsavina, Rubinstein fasioned starring roles for herself that demanded no balletic pyrotechnics, as Cleopatra, where she was carried across the stage by slaves. She made her 1909 debut in Paris, dancing with Nijinsky in Scheherazade.

Ida triumphed in the theatre as well, mesmerizing audiences with her miming skills to cover her thick Russian accent. The poet Robert de Montesquioi championed her and it was likely through him that Rubinstein met the American painter Romaine Brooks. She also persuaded Leon Bakst to design a production of Strauss' Salome for her that she performed only a few times. A

nd in 1911 the Archbishop of Paris assured her success in Gabriele D"Annunzio's The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (music by Claude Debussy) at the Paris Opera by forbidding Catholics from attending it. Brooks painted Rubinstein as the masked archer, but the painting's current whereabouts are not known.

"She seemed to me more beautiful when off the stage; like some heraldic bird delicately knit together by the finest of bone-structures giving flexibility to curveless lines." - Romaine Brooks Ida's affair with Romaine lasted for three years, its end coinciding with the beginning of the First World War. For her work in setting up a hospital for wounded soldiers, Rubinstein received the Legion of Honor in 1934. She became a French citizen the next year but, as a Jew, spent the years of World War II on the run, in exile in a series of countries in Europe and Africa. As a producer, Rubinstein commissioned the tour de force, Bolero, from composer Maurice Ravel in 1928.

Tall, exotic, even vulpine in appearance, Rubinstein was able to employ her erotic glamour without it becoming her mistress. Said to live on a diet of champagne and biscuits, she was moody and unpredictable as a sitter, posing a challenge for artists, including Brooks. Openly bisexual at a time when the term was barely understood, Rubinstein lived her life expansively. One thinks of Walt Whitman's joyous declaration (in Leaves of Grass): "I contradict myself...very well, I contradict myself. I am vast...I contain multitudes." Though we encounter her name today, usually in the stories of other lives, the works that were made memorable by Rubinstein's participation are still with us.
For more about Ida Rubinstein, visit http://www.theatrex.net/ida/index.htm

For more about Romaine Brooks, see "A Woman Appeared to Me", posted here 29 October 2008.

1. Valentin Serov - Portrait of Ida Rubinstein, 1910, Russian Museum of St. Petersburg.
2. Georges Barbier - Ida Rubinstein as Zobeide in Scheherazade, 1913, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
3. Leon Bakst - Costume for Ida Rubinstein as Cleopatra, Groningen Museum, Netherlands.
4. Leon Bakst - Design for Ida Rubinstein in Le Martyre de Saint Sebastian, 1911, via Russian Avant Gard.com.
5. Romaine Brooks - The Weeping Venus, c. 1916, Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
6.Romaine Brooks - La France Croissee, 1914, Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
7. Unidentified photographer - Ida Rubinstein in costume for Ravel's Bolero, 1928, from theatrex.net