Petrouchka

Since then Diaghilev's production of Petrouchka has become distinctly worn and shabby--which is not surprising, seeing how many years it has been in the repertoire. The ballet has lost its charm for me and I feel sad when I go to see it, for des ans l'irreparable outrage seems to have told on everything. Many items have disappeared entirely, as, for instance, the merry-go-round on which children used to have rides and the windmills whose multi-coloured, crossed sails waved in the air. The gingerbread and sweetmeat stalls are gone too and the outside steps leading into the huge balagan, where the people crowded together, waiting for admittance to the performance. The small table with its enormous steaming samovar where tea was sold is hardly noticeable nowadays. All these things were there in 1911 and they gladdened my eyes, for I had tried to reproduce the picture of our St. Petersburg Butter Week Fair in full detail.

But I was still more grieved by the disorder which in the later productions, reigned on the stage. For the original production every figure had been individually thought out by me. I used to watch carefully during the rehearsals to see that every walker-on fulfilled the part that had been given him. The mixture of various characteristic elements gave the illusion of life. The "people of good society" showed elegant manners, the military men looked like real soldiers and officers of the time of Nicolas I, street-hawkers seemed really to be offering their goods, the peasant men and women looked like real mouzhiks and babas. I allowed nobody to "improvise" or over-act. Later these instructions were forgotten and improvisation and dilettantism reigned on the stage. People walked about aimlessly from corner to corner, without knowing who they were and what they were to do, trying to cover their "emptiness" by affected gesticulation. I was particularly irritated by the "drunks." In the original production I had insisted that only three tipsy fellows--one of them playing an accordion--should from time to time become noticeable against the background of the more or less "decent and orderly" crowed. Nowadays everybody seems to be drunk and the impression is quite false, for although people did drink in Russia, still, the street had its own rules and regulations, its own conception of good behaviour and decency, and it is only thus that the digression from these rules could seem amusing and typical.

Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet by Alexandre Benois. 1941. Page 335-6..

About Nijinsky

It was a great misfortune that Diaghilev, who had fully realised his friend's [Nijinsky's] significance and value as an artist, should have over-estimated his intellect. Diaghilev imagined that he could make that fantastic being, who did not belong to this world and who understood nothing of life, into an active creator.

Reminiscences of the Russian Ballet by Alexandre Benois. 1941. Page 290.

August Bournonville

August Bournonville, through his own religious principals, his public behavior, his ballets and his demands upon his dancers, strove for a new ballet era on the socioeconomic level. He wanted ballet to be respected. He wanted dancers to be given the same treatment as that accorded a doctor or a minister. He did not want the male dancer to be looked upon as "half-man". And he fought ceaselessly for better financial conditions for all in the theater. In other lands, actors, singers and dancers were considered something less than first-class citizens. But thanks in great part to Bournonville, such attitudes did not prevail in Denmark.

The King's Ballet Master: a biography of Denmark's August Bournonville by Walter Terry. 1979. Page 55-6.

Danish "style"

This link between dance and drama underlies an understanding of and appreciation for the art of Bournonville. A century after his death, "Bournonville" means to most dancers outside of Denmark a "style", a special way of moving, of executing the steps of classical ballet. This viewpoint has originated because non-Danish ballet repertories present his work primarily in excerpt, in divertissements, such as the popular pas de deux from Flower Festival in Genzano, a pas de trois from La Ventana, the tarantella from Napoli and other extracted dances. But these are only fragments of Bournonville. Even if they are delicious divertissements when taken out of context, they are not what Bournonville ballet is all about. The mimed antics of two street vendors in Napoli are as important to the ballet as the flashing tarantella, but if these hawkers are not played by consummate actor-dancers, the whole scene fails.

The King's Ballet Master: a biography of Denmark's August Bournonville by Walter Terry. 1979. Page 34.

Imperial Russia

What kind of place was Imperial Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century? What were her vital statistics, identifying features, ideas, and ideals? Here was a land mass stretching 2,905 miles (4,675 kilometers) north to south and 6,669 miles (10,732 kilometers) west to east, with a latititude form the Artic wastes to the mountain ranges in the south and longitude from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. In 1900 the population of Russia was over 150 million, 10 percent of whom lived in cities, 1.5 million living in St. Petersburg. By 1913, however, the population had increased to over 174 million, with the two metropolitan populations almost doubling in size, while Russia's railroads had expanded from a mere 15 1/2 miles (25 kilometers) in 1840 to over 236,000 miles (380.000 kilometers) -- demographic and technological developments which help to explain the major economic, social, and cultural changes which St. Petersburg and Moscow, especially, witnessed during the Silver Age. On the other hand, even as late as 1913 land was still owned largely by the gentry, and in st. Petersburg alone there were 25,000 homeless. If, in 1913, Russians reportedly consumed over 39,000,000 pounds (18 million kilos) of potatoes and could have read 26,629 books published in Russian, and if Moscow alone boasted 163 bookstores, poverty, disease, and undernourishment were rampant and only half the total population was literate. True, recent decades had seen urgent reforms or, at least, efforts to introduce palpable change, such as the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 (two years before the emancipation of the slaves in the United States), the assassination Of Alexander II by anarchists in 1881, and the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1904.

On the other hand, Russia of the early twentieth century was still a predominantly rural and agricultural power and, at least outwardly, maintained a patriarchal, hierarchical order with the Tsar of all the Russias at the apex of the social pyramid and the peasants at the base. Russian noblemen still lived most of the year in France or Italy and the Orthodox Church continued to mark the calendar with numerous feasts and saints' days. Hawkers and vendors plied their trades as they had done for centuries, markets and bazaars abounded, and coachmen still egged on their horses.

Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age: 1900-1920 by John E. Bowlt. 2008. Pages 33-4.

Diaghilev's collection

"There was a persistent rumor that Lifar had no right to the ownership of the Library [ Diaghilev's], but when, much later, I helped to catalogue the remnants of the Kochno Collection I came across documents showing that Lifar had indeed bought the collection as he had always maintained. " Alexandre Schouvaloff.

A Feast of Wonders: Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes edited by John E. Bowlt, Zelfira Tregulova and Nathalie Rosticher Giordano. 2009. Page 99.

Chekhov speaking to Gorky about teachers

He [Chekhov] suddenly fell silent, coughed, glanced sideways at me, and smiled his gentle, kind smile which was always so irresistibly attractive and evoked especial and keen attention to his words.

"You find it boring, listening to my fantasies? But I like talking about this. If you knew how much the Russian village needs a good, intelligent, educated teacher! Here in Russia he needs to be given certain special conditions, and this should be done as soon as possible if we realize that without broad popular education the state will collapse like a house built of badly baked bricks! A teacher needs to be an actor, an artist, passionately devoted to his work, but in Russia he's a laborer, a badly educated man who goes to teach village children with the same enthusiasm with which he would go into penal exile. He is hungry, ignorant, frightened of losing his daily bread. Yet, he ought to be the most important man in the village, able to answer any questions the villagers put to him; so that they recognize in him a force worthy of attention and respect, and no one dares to shout at him, humiliate him as now everyone does: the village constable, the rich shopkeeper, the village priest, the local police superintendent, the local school patron, the village elder, and the official with the title of school inspector, who does not concern himself with improving school education but only with scrupulous adherence to district circulars. Is it not folly to pay a mere pittance to a man who is called upon to educate the people--you understand?--educate the people! It should not be permitted that such a man is obliged to dress in tatters, shiver from cold in damp, drafty schools, breathe in the fumes from a broken-down stove, develop laryngitis, rheumatism and tuberculosis at the age of thirty. It's a shame on all of us! Our teacher lives for eight or nine months of the year like a hermit; he has no one to talk to; he becomes dull from loneliness, lacking books and entertainment. And if he sends for his colleagues, he's accused of unreliability--a stupid word used by the crafty to frighten fools! It's all revolting--the abuse of a man who is doing enormous and terribly important work. You know, when I see a teacher, I feel embarrassed by his timidity, his shabby clothes; I have the feeling that I am somehow guilty of the fact that he is so poor--honestly."

Anton Chekhov and His Times compiled by Andrei Turkov. 1995. Page 151-2.

Stanislavisky on Trigorin and Nina

With almost childish pleasure he visited the dirty dressing rooms. He loved not only the footlights, but the backstage of the theater as well. The performance pleased him, but he criticized some of the performers, including my role as Trigorin.

"You act splendidly," he said, "only that's not my character. I didn't write that."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He has checkered trousers and shoes with worn soles."

That was all he said in reply to my repeated questions.

"Checkered trousers, mind, and he smokes a cigar like this," he rather clumsily illustrated his words. I was able to get nothing more from him. His comments were always graphic and brief. They were striking and memorable, like charades with which you continued to wrestle until you had solved them.

This particular charade I resolved only six years later, when we staged our second production of The Seagull.

Indeed, why had I chose to play Trigorin as a dandy, in white trousers and shoes bain de mer? [beach shoes] Was it because women fell in love with him? Was such dress typical of the Russian writer? It was not, of course, the checkered trousers, worn shoes, and cigar that mattered. Nina Zarechnaya, her head full of the pleasant but empty little stories of Trigorin, falls in love not with him, but with her own girl's dream. In this lies the tragedy of the wounded seagull. In this cruel irony lies the harshness of life. The first love of a provincial girl notices neither the checkered trousers, nor the worn shoes, nor the foul-smelling cigar. This travesty of life is recognized when it is too late, when a life has been broken, the sacrifices made, and love has turned into a habit. New illusions are needed in order to be able to continue living, and Nina looks for them in faith.

Anton Chekhov and His Times compiled by Andrei Turkov. 1995. Page 96-7.

The importance of Monte Carlo to Diaghilev

The Monte Carlo contract arrived in time to give him some welcome security. There were only three performances a week; the programme served as a repetition generale for Paris and gave the artists time in which to rest. Monte Carlo was also the resort of the rich and influential from all countries, a perfect centre for the personal word-of-mouth propaganda of which Diaghilev was a master, sounding out on occasions the barber or the maitre d'hotel. In addition Monte Carlo came to fulfil a far more important function; it was essential to Diaghilev's method of creation from 1911 to his death.

Diaghilev created through others. He prided himself on being 'a collector of geniuses'. He would visit art exhibitions and concerts, meet poets and musicians, contacting those whom he thought useful to his work. He relied on his flair in the first place, but a ballet could not be produced by snap decisions. The various artists must meet together in a relaxed atmosphere, they must talk, produce ideas, tear them to pieces and think again. His painters were easel-artists and they had to get to know the nature of ballet; the composer and the choreographer, with the aid of a piano, had to learn to speak the same language. Monte Carlo was the ideal centre for such work. Every season artists flocked there, often as his guests, and many a ballet was conceived in the Hotel de Paris, at a supper table presided over by Diaghilev. It was his Versailles. On one occasion at a premiere in the Monte Carlo Opera House, he told the present writer, 'If the theatre burned down tonight, a large part of the world's creative artists would be wiped out.' And it was true.

Ballet Russe: the Age of Diaghilev by Arnold L Haskell. 1968. Page 71-2.

Gorky's memories of Chekhov

"The Russian is a strange creature!" he [Chekhov] said once. "He lets everything through, like a sieve. In his youth he avidly fills his soul with everything that comes his way, and then, after thirty, all that remains is some gray waste. In order to live a good, humane life one needs to work! Work with love, with faith. But that's something we are unable to do. Having built two or three fine houses, the architect becomes a card player, plays for the rest of his life, or else spends it sitting backstage in the theater.

Anton Chekhov and His Times compiled by Andrei Turkov. 1995. Page 159.

Nina from The Seagull

Now I know, I understand, Kostya, that in our work... acting or writing... what matters is not fame, not glory, not what I used to dream about, it's how to endure, to bear my cross, and have faith. I have faith and it all doesn't hurt me so much, and when I think of my calling I'm not afraid of life.

"The Sea Gull" from Best Plays by Chekhov. 1956, Page 67.

Trepleff in The Seagull

Students had come to be considered a dubious and dangerous body of young men who could not even be allowed to meet in small groups in each others' rooms, still less to have any kind of societies or clubs. Even in 1914 H W Williams wrote of them: "The students are held to their book-learning, their minds are fed on abstractions, they are artificially held aloof from the normal process of life that creates its own forms and build strong characters. It is no wonder that students in this position become absorbed in abstract politics, or when bitter experience has shown the futility of politics, are oppressed by the sheer emptiness of life, grow reckless, live morally and materially from hand to mouth, and in large numbers find refuge in suicide."

Chekhov and His Russia: a sociological study by W H Bruford. 1947. Page 147-8.

Hilarion

The role of Hilarion, which is all mime, is the one most frequently miscast, for, whether by accident or design, it is usually allotted to the most undersized male solo dancer in the company. Under these circumstances, Hilarion becomes an insignificant weakling, a nonentity. But surely the rivalry between Loys and Hilarion is the age-old contest between brain and brawn.

In the Middle Ages, when the forests were often infested with wolves and wild boars, the post of gamekeeper was hardly a sinecure. It would certainly not have been given to a weakling. On the contrary, I suggest that Hilarion is a sturdily built man of obvious peasant stock, in the late twenties or early thirties. His features would be weather-beaten from long hours in the open.

Since Albrecht is handsome, it is probable that the authors, in inventing Hilarion as a rejected lover who becomes a vindictive rival, would conceive him as being less favoured. Clearly he is a man of passionate nature and quick temper, as is proved by the development of the action. In this connection it is of interest to note that these qualities were once symbolised by his red beard, invariably worn in pre-1914 productions of Giselle, and which therefore may not unfairly be considered traditional.

One last point, a gamekeeper would enjoy a certain esteem in a hard-working peasant community. A man of this type would not fail to appeal strongly to the average village lass. That Giselle is made to reject his advances is, I submit, another indication of her variation from type.

The Ballet Called Giselle by Cyril W. Beaumount. 1987 [1945]. Page 81-2.

Giselle over time

It is difficult to estimate to what extent Giselle, as presented to-day, differs from the ballet as originally produced. The reader has only to examine the synopsis to see that several episodes have completely disappeared. I recall an illuminating remark made by the late Michel Fokine, when, about to leave England, he addressed his company after the premiere of a new ballet he had just produced in London. He urged them to remember everything he had taught them, for, without the constant supervision of the choreographer, there were few ballets which did not lose ten per cent. of their value after a week or two; while, in six months' time, he added with a smile, he might be hard put to it to recognise his own composition. Judge, then, what may happen to a ballet produced a century ago, and subjected to the frailty of human recollection, to the editing and adaptation by numerous choreographers, and to the demands of successive ballerine of widely divergent technical abilities!

The Ballet Called Giselle by Cyril W. Beaumount. 1987 [1945]. Page 26.

Nijinsky

Meanwhile Diaghilev had been making determined efforts to get Nijinsky released from internment in Europe, and finally, through the intervention of the King Of Spain he was allowed to join us in America. When I first met him in April, at the Metropolitan Opera House, he was quiet and reserved, obviously somewhat dazed by the strain of all he had gone through. But when I saw him dance, I was astounded at the way his whole personality became transformed on stage. He had an instinctive effortless control of his body; every gesture expressed the most tender and complex emotions. His movements were never broken off abruptly, but merged one into another to give a fluid continuity to his performance. Although I had identified myself with Petrouchka, I soon realized that the role came more naturally to Nijinsky. The nuances of his performances -- the jumps, the turns, the tilt of his head -- all combined to form a poignant representation of a puppet-like but recognizably human figure. The duality thus apparent in his dancing derived from his ability to invest his movements with an indefinable quality of self-revelation. Technically his dancing was incomparable. I remember seeing him in the Blue Bird pas de deux in The Sleeping Beauty. To convey the quivering motion of the bird's wings he fluttered his hands at such a dazzling speed that they seemed to have exactly the pulsating action of hummingbirds. I learned later that he had done this by doubling the rate of his wrist movements. His performance in Le Spectre de la Rose was unrivalled in its elevation, rhythmic precision and delicacy. In this romantic pas de deux, based on a poem by Theophile Gautier, he was the quintessence of the vision of the rose, the image of every young girl's dream. Dancing to Weber's beautiful 'Invitation to the Dance' he transformed himself into an ethereal creature, transporting the audience in imagination into the realm of lyric poetry. After seeing Nijinsky dance, I realized I had seen a genius.

My Life in Ballet by Leonide Massine. 1968. Pages 86-7.

Ashton

The story is told that Ashton had once advertised for a new housekeeper, and when he was interviewing applicants, he said to one woman who seemed a promising candidate that he didn't really mind how well she cleaned and cooked, 'but I have to be loved'. Love is clearly the subject of most of his ballets, however lightly treated, and it is important to him to be loved not only by those around him, but by the dancers he works with and the public he works for. As Maude Lloyd said, "He made a friend of you when he worked with you, drew it out of you, even leaned on you.' In a similar vein, Suzanna Raymond of the Royal Ballet observed that the warmth of human feeling in his ballets reflects Ashton's friendly relationship with his dancers. There can be no doubt in Ashton's mind of the love of the dancers of the Royal Ballet when he goes in to rehearse one of his ballets, nor that of the audience when he takes a call after a performance.

Frederick Ashton and His Ballets by David Vaughan. 1977. Page 403.

Movement looks slower and weaker on the stage

One of the peaks of anxiety in choreography is that moment when the studio-born dance is transferred to the stage. Immediately space works magical and often appalling differences. Distance has weakened almost everything about the dance. Dynamics are not so strong, personalities are dimmer, timing looks slower; and so, with the essential vitality lessened, it now seems too long. In only one respect is it clearer--in its over-all design, because the eye can now see the whole in one glance without shifting from point to point, which is inevitable in the studio. Also, there is a seeming illogicality in the fact that detail is much more apparent at a distance. One would think that small movements and inaccuracies would be easier to see at close range. Not so, in practice. For instance, lack of precision in ensemble movements, overlooked in a studio, stands out on a stage embarrassingly. In fact, it screams for correction.

The obvious remedy for all this is to remember to compensate for the expected changes in the studio--what looks there a little too fast, too big, too aggressive in general will probably be about right.

The Art of Making Dances by Doris Humphry. 1959. Pages161-2.

Of Pushkin's young widow

Ekaterina Karamzina to her son Andrei, Petersburg, March 3, 1837: You were right to think that Mrs. Pushkin would become an object of solicitude for me, I have been to see her every day, at first with a feeling of deep pity for her great pain, but then, alas, with the conviction that although she is overwhelmed by it all for the moment, it will be neither long nor deep. It is painful but true to say so: The great, good Pushkin ought to have had a wife who understood him better and was more in harmony with him.... She is in the countryside with one of her brothers, passed through Moscow, where her father-in-law, poor old man, has been living since he lost his wife. Well, passed through without getting in touch, without asking about him, without sending the children to see him.... Poor, poor Pushkin, victim of the frivolity, rashness, and thoughtless behavior of the young and beautiful wife who seems to have risked his life for a few hours of flirting. Don't think I'm exaggerating. I don't mean to blame her, you don't blame children for the unwitting harm they do.

Pushkin's Button by Serena Vitale. 1999. Page 314.

After the duel... as Pushkin lay dying

Other friends rushed to the house when they heard the news and left very late: Zhukovsky, Vielgorsky,, Prince Meshchersky, Valuev, Turgenev. But none of them was allowed to see the patient. Spassky stayed with Pushkin. In a quiet moment the poet told him that the number 6 had always been bad luck for him: “His misfortune began in 1836, when he turned 36 and his wife was 24 (2 + 4 = 6); in the sixth chapter of Eugene Onegin there was a kind of presage of his own death, and so on. In other words, as he lay dying Pushkin himself thought of the sad parallel between him and Lenski.”


Pushkin’s Button by Serena Vitale. 1999. Page 281.

Ivan Nagy on partnering

By dancing with a galaxy of ballerinas, Nagy's own versatility and sensitivity are kept ever on the alert, for one Swan Queen is not like another. Partnering each ballerina is a wholly different task even if the role and probably the actual steps are the same. "Everyone hears music differently," says Ivan. "And each one phrases music completely different. I may hear a note on the violin and want to take a breath and make that the peak of the phrase, but someone else will hear another note. No two dancers are alike. It is absolutely unbelievable that the same piece of music sounds so different to each individual. Then, ballerinas can have not only different personal styles but different national styles. Margot is of the English school and she structures her performance on that style. Makarova will tell me that in Russia she held her arms here and I must place her there. And even if every step is exactly the same for two ballerinas, the way they do it is different and I must support each ballerina in her school, her personal style, and with her musical phrasing. Finally, everyone has a different body and each must think, 'What is best for me?' and so I must adapt to that. I must know from beginning to end of a ballet what they are going to do and what they expect of me. For each, I learn her way down to the last nuance and when I dance with others I mustn't forget which is which."

Great Male Dancers of the Ballet by Walter Terry. 1978. Page 146.

Hurok restores Lifar's reputation

I happen to know certain facts about Lifar's behavior during the Occupation of France, facts I did not know at the time of the publication of my earlier book, Impresario. Certain statements I made in that book concerning Serge Lifar were made on the basis of such information as I had at the time, which I believed was reliable. I have subsequently learned that it was not correct, and I have also subsequently had additional, quite different, and reliably documented information which makes me wish to acknowledge that an error of judgment was expressed on the basis of inconclusive evidence. Lifar may not have been a hero; very possibly, and quite probably, he may have been indiscreet; but it is now obvious to any fair-minded person that there has been a good deal of malicious gossip spread about him.

Lifar was restored to his post at the head of the Paris Opera Ballet by M. Georges Hirsch, Administrator, Director of the French National Lyric Theatres, himself a war-hero with a distinguished record. The dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet threatened to strike unless Lifar was so restored; the stage-hands, with definite indications of communist inspiration, to strike if he was. Hirsch had the courage of his convictions. I have found that Lifar did not take the Paris Opera Ballet to Berlin during the Occupation, as has been alleged in this country, although the Germans wanted it badly; and I happen to know numerous other French companies did go. I also have learned that it was Serge Lifar who prevented the Paris Opera Ballet from going. I happen to know that Lifar did fly in a German plane to Kieff, his birth-place; as I happen to know that he did not show Hitler through the Paris Opera itself, as one widely-spread rumor has had it. As a matter of fact, stories to the effect that he did both these things have been widely circulated. I happen to have learned that Lifar made a tremendous effort to save that splendid gentleman, Rene Blum, but was unable to prevail against Blum's patriotic but unfortunately stupid determination to remain in Paris. I also happen to know that Lifar was personally active in saving many Jews and also other liberals from deportation. Moreover, I know that, as has always been characteristic of Lifar, because he was one who had, he helped from his own pocket those who had not.

S. Hurok Presents: A Memoir of the Dance World by S. Hurok. 1953. Page 215-6.

Diaghilev

He did not paint, and with the exception of several (very talented) articles, he did not write; he had no interest either in architecture or sculpture; he had been completely disillusioned in his attempts at musical composition and he had dropped his singing. In other words Seriozha Diahilev did not practise in any sphere of art but nevertheless all his activities in these fields bore the stamp of a creative mind! I am convinced that notwithstanding all the work done by those representatives of Russian art (in literature, painting, music and the theatre) who took part in the exhibitions arranged by Mir Iskusstva; notwithstanding the work of those who later applied their talents to the enterprise which has now taken its place in history under the name of Les Spectacles Russes de Serge de Diaghilev; I am, I repeat, convinced that these ventures would never have taken shape had Diaghilev not take charge of them and been at their head. He brought his amazing energy to these many talents which themselves were lacking in only one thing - a creative will. It was only from the moment that this amazing man begun to want something that things began to happen, to take form and shape.

Memoirs [volume 2] by Alexandre Benois. 1964. Page 81.

Benois discovers Tchaikovsky

I attended neither the dress rehearsal nor the opening night and I saw The Sleeping Beauty for the first time only at its second or third performance. I remember that it was a matinee during the Christmas holidays which gave Dima Filosofov and me the opportunity of seeing it. I remember too that it was Dima who dragged me there as he had heard at home that the ballet was not so bad after all. I must admit that my first impression was, if not a revelation, nevertheless that of having attended a grandiose banquet. What I had seen and heard seemed to be 'worthy of attention'. With some of the music I had a kind of foretaste that it might be very much to my liking. I simply did not dare believe what was growing in the very depths of my heart. I very much wanted to see The Sleeping Beauty again as soon as possible and particularly to listen again to the music.

After this I did not miss a single performance and even managed to see it four times in the last week before Lent, when there were matinees as well as evening performances.

. . . .

This admiration for The Sleeping Beauty directed my interest, which had somewhat cooled, back to the ballet. It infected my friends, and we gradually became real ballet fans. So was created the main prerequisite for our joint activities several years later in a sphere which brought us world-wide success. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that, had it not been for my enthusiasm for The Sleeping Beauty (and before that for Coppelia, Giselle and The Pharaoh's Daughter with Zucchi), and had I not infected my friends with it, there would have been no Ballets Russes and none of the balletomania which their success evoked.

Memoirs [volume 2] by Alexandre Benois. 1964. Pages 59-61.

Memory of Giselle

In the same year that I discovered Coppelia I also learnt to know Giselle. This ballet, which has lately become a favourite of the whole world, was pushed into the background at the time. It was shown very seldom and ballerinas tried to avoid appearing in the main part. I saw Giselle quite by accident at a matinee in 1885. The star part was danced by no great star but by a bony, clumsy, ugly and rather tall ballerina, who was however quite a good technician. The audience was not enthusiastic, the auditorium was half empty, and the performance was probably merely a manoeuvre to satisfy a respected but not attractive dancer. The decor was old and faded, the costumes haphazard. I wandered into the theatre alone, not out of curiosity but because of nothing better to do. The spectacle, however, proved to be one of great significance for me; in fact it so overwhelmed me that from that day I became a propagandist for Giselle. Later, in conversations with theatre managers, I insisted that it should be repeated, and when young Anna Pavlova appeared on the scene my dream was to see her in that part. At last I managed to persuade Diaghilev that the ballet should be included in the second season of our performances in Paris (with my decors and costumes) and with Pavlova. Actually it all happened quite differently. We did put on Giselle, but Pavlova, lured by a more favourable offer, refused to dance at the last moment and Karsavina took her place. However neither we nor the ballet suffered from this exchange. The success of Giselle with Karsavina was indisputable, and through this triumph this charming work of French romanticism, almost forgotten in its native land, became so fashionable that every famous ballerina became keen to include it in her repertoire.

Memoirs [volume 1] by Alexandre Benois. 1960. Pages140-141.

The Tale of a Manor

She told him that while he had been mad he had saved her life. He had aroused her from death, she continued, and protected her. But that was not enough for her; she wished for himself.

When she kissed him he felt that a healing balm was poured into his sick soul, but he had not yet dared to believe that it was love which impelled her. But her anger and her tears left him no room for doubt. He was loved, poor monster.

. . . .

Ingrid had remained silent. She was weary after a heavy task, but she was also quiet as one who had carried it out in the best way. She knew that she had victory in her hands.

Hede at last broke silence. "I promise you that I will endure," he said.

"Thank you," she replied.

Nothing more was said just then.

Hede felt he could not tell her how he loved her. It could not be said in words, but had to be shown every day and every hour as long as life lasted.

The Tale of a Manor by Selma Lagerloff. 1923. Pages 170-172.

Designing for ballet

Design for ballet has changed in a way very like the accompanying music, although partly for different reasons. An economic factor affecting the issue is that music, generally speaking, is an essential, but ballet can be danced in the simplest costumes with no decor. Sometimes this is a positive advantage; Balanchine’s ballets, for instance, often look best in practice clothes (tights and leotard or singlet). At the other extreme has been what seemed a contest between designers to achieve the most grandiose naturalistic setting for a classic revival. In general, however, the tendency has been towards simplicity and solidity. Martha Graham pioneered the use of sculpture in the designing of ballets and this has proved remarkably successful. Screens, cut-outs, projections, scaffolding and other objects have become more common; realistic painted backcloths less so. Texture, colour and shape are the qualities that matter. The aim is to provide an environment for the dance rather than a moving picture. Sometimes they are imaginative to an almost outrageous degree, but in general the clothes dancers wear in modern works have tended to become more like those they wear off-stage. There are companies that use classical technique but do not have a single tutu in the wardrobe.

Also, as designs became simpler, lighting grew more ambitious. Jean Rosenthal in America first introduced effects with low side lighting picking out the individual dancers from surrounding darkness; others branching out from her discoveries have made stage lighting an art of its own. Revealingly, when Rauschenberg was artistic director for Cunningham one of the things he took great care of was the lighting, rather than more obvious aspects.

Modern Ballet by John Percival. 1970. Page 128-131