An Ambassador's memory of Mathilde Kschessinska -- 1916

Thursday, April 27, 1916.

This evening, at the Marie Theatre, Tchechinskaïa was dancing Gisela and Paquita, masterpieces of old-time choreography, the conventional and acrobatic art in which the genius of the Fanny Elsslers and Taglionis once triumphed. The archaic character of the two ballets is heightened by the defects and qualities of the principal interpreter. Tchechinskaïa is entirely without charm, feeling or poetry; but her formal and cold style, the tireless vigour of her pivoting, the mechanical precision of her entrechats and the giddy agility of her pirouettes make all the enthusiasts wild with delight.

During the last interval I spent a few minutes in the box of the director of the imperial theatres, Teliakovsky, where the prowess of Tchechinskaïa and her partner, Vladimirov, was being celebrated in terms of rhapsody. An old aide-de-camp of the Emperor said to me with a subtle smile:

"Our enthusiasm may seem somewhat exaggerated to you, Ambassador; but Tchechinskaïa's art represents to us, or at any rate men of my age, something that you don't perhaps see."

"What's that? " He offered me a cigarette, and continued in a melancholy tone:

"The old ballets, which were the joy of my youth -- somewhere about 1875, in the reign of our dear Emperor Alexander II., alas! -- presented us with a very close picture of what Russian society was, and ought to be. Order, punctiliousness, symmetry, work well done everywhere; the result of which was refined enjoyment and pleasure in perfect taste. Whereas these horrible modern ballets -- Russian ballets, as you call them in Paris -- a dissolute and poisoned art -- why, they're revolution, anarchy ! . . ."

An Ambassador's Memoirs by Maurice Paléologue. 1923-5. Vol 2. Page 242.