"I, personally, can be of no interest to anyone: it is not my life that is interesting, but my work."- Sergei Diaghilev
On May 19th, a year-long celebration of the centenary of Diaghilev's Ballets-Russes began at the Theatre du Chatelat where the company made its Paris debut in 1909.
We should be grateful that Sergei Diaghilev was out of favor with Czar Nicholas of Russia, as that provided the impresario with the impetus to look abroad. His prima ballerina Tamara Karsavina remembered that, after Diaghilev's Ballets-Russes debuted in Paris with the Borodin's Polovetsian Dances, the audience broke the door locks and streamed onto the stage to express their approval. (Karsavina also played the doll in the fitting response to the unruly creativity unleashed by Diaghilev's company.
Diaghilev wasted no time after arriving in Paris, inviting the young composer Igor Stravinsky to join his company and hiring two young conductors, Pierre Monteux and the Swiss Ernest Ansermet. Monteux premiered The Rite of Spring, Petrouchka, and Daphnis et Chloe, before handing the baton to Ernest Ansermet in 1915, who introduced The Three-Cornered Hat, Prokofiev’s Chout and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. 
The Ballet’s first scandal was not the well-known riot at the 1913 debut of The Rite of Spring. Pride of place goes to L’Apres-midi d’un faune in 1912. The hectic suggestiveness of the Faune's pursuit of the Nymphe offended some critics, who found it "indecent", although Odilon Redon and Auguste Rodin were among the ballet's vocal defenders. It is said that when Diaghilev approached Debussy for permission to create a ballet based on his tone poem, the composer responded : “Why?” (You'll notice in the Bakst sketch that begins this article, the characters are those small decorative beings in the bottom right corner.)
When Diaghilev took the Ballet on tour to Spain, in 1916, he was smitten by the possibilities he sensed in flamenco dances and Andalusian folk tales. He was accompanied by the composer Manuel de Falla, who agreed to create ballet music for Pedro de Alarcon’s ribald tale The Three-Cornered Hat. (The delicious plot involves a lascivious magistrate, Don Eugenio who is frustrated in his efforts to seduce the virtuous Senora Frasquita, the miller’s wife.) Back on the train with Diaghilev and de Falla, one morning the impresario awoke
to the shocked discovery of a bald-headed stranger sleeping across from him: during the night de Falla, who customarily wore a very convincing wig, had leaned out the window and it blew away.1. Leon Bakst - Set design for L'Apres-midi d'un faune, 1912, Pompidou Center, Paris.
2. Unidentified photographer - Portrait of Tamara Karsavina, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.3. Jacques-Emile Blanche - Portrait of Igor Stravinsky, 1915, Museum of Muisc, Paris.
4. Valentin Hugo - Nijinsky, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
5. Mikhail Larianov - Set design for Kikimora, 1915, Pompidou Center, Paris.
6. Pablo Picasso - The Corregidor from The Three-Cornered hat, 1919, Musee Picasso, Paris.
2 comments:
Brilliant! Picasso has a great illustration there and I like the others also. Ballet Russe. Is there another dance group whose name conjures up more romance? Hmm. June Taylor Dancers? ha!
Whatever happend to the June Taylor Dancers? The 1930s bandleader Raymond Scott often composed playful numbers on classicla themes and one of them was "Frasquita Serenade." Recently I finally read de Alarcon's comic novel "The Three-Cornered Hat" and recommend it (reissued by Hesperus Press).
Post a Comment