A ballet, just like an opera, should be staged using the actual score and not an "imaginary one". Furthermore, in the choreographic world the approach to ballet music is still rather like the approach to a '"semi-finished" product at a factory, that is not deserving of any particular respect. . . . Respect for the composer's work should be the first commandment for interpreters, be they choreographer, producer, conductor or designer. No distortions of the composer's text must be allowed; that is a rigid rule. And, of course, the ballet cannot be an exception in this instance. [fragment from an unpublished letter from Shostakovich]
"The Golden Age: The True Story of the Première" by Manashir Yakubov in Shostakovich Studies edited by David Fanning. 1995. Pages 203-4.
Friday, May 6, 2011
A Description of Crown Prince Rudolph's Deterioration
From the autumn of 1883, ever since he had been officially residing in Vienna, the Crown Prince had been gratifying his sexual passions without restraint. Before long, being satiated with amorous intrigues which had a more or less romantic aspect, he went completely off the rails and plunged into the lowest depths of vicious debauchery.
On several occasions he had the idea of forcing the Archduchess Stephanie to accompany him on what he called "nights out." It gave him a sadistic pleasure to show her all that was most squalid and sordid in Viennese night life. This was really his exquisite stroke of revenge upon Spanish etiquette, upon the hieratic ceremonial of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. The Archduchess agreed to go there, "just for once." In order to escape recognition, she went attired as the wife of an ordinary citizen.
"I was unable to conceal my surprise when I noticed how little the heir-apparent troubled to keep to his disguise. My amazement increased still more when we visited together the cafés-chantants and other dubious places in Vienna and the outlying parts. It was difficult enough to breathe the vitiated atmosphere, poisoned by fumes of garlic, rotten meat, wine and tobacco. However, we remained seated at bare and greasy tables until the first streak of dawn, in the company of cabmen who were playing cards, whistling and singing. Dancing was, always going on. Girls would keep jumping on tables, and seemed never tired of putting themselves in the same vulgar sentimental postures, to the accompaniment of a wretched orchestra that likewise seemed never tired of playing.
"I was willing enough to be amused, but the visits to these dens disgusted me altogether. They were not only vile, but utterly boring into the bargain. I could not understand what pleasure the heir-apparent was able to find in it all."
In the month of February, 1886, Rudolph contracted a serious and mysterious illness, alarming enough to prompt the despatch of an urgent summons to the Empress to return to Vienna. Elizabeth was then at Miramar, on the point of leaving for a cruise. A casual encounter had infected him with venereal disease. On the 1st March, in order to hasten his cure, the doctor prescribed a long stay in the island of Lacroma, opposite Ragusa, where his wife was to keep him company.
But Stephanie had hardly arrived at Lacroma before she, in her turn, fell seriously ill. "For weeks I was confined to bed and my sufferings were terrible. The doctors, summoned from Vienna and from Trieste, diagnosed peritonitis. By orders from above, strict secrecy was maintained regarding my state of health, and the doctors were pledged to silence. My sister, Louise of Coburg, hastened to my bedside, and did not leave me...." Two months later she had recovered.
* * *
From this time onward, Rudolph's life entered upon a new phase. All who came in contact with him were struck by the physical and moral transformation which he had undergone. He nearly always looked utterly exhausted, with a dry skin, a livid complexion, trembling hands, and restless and burning eyes. He passed through strange alternations of sorrow and of anger. He was either in a state of loquacious excitement or of sullen silence.
From chance remarks that escaped him, it became apparent that he was utterly and completely disillusioned. The splendid visions that had buoyed him up but a short time before, for the regeneration of Austria, now seemed to him but foolish and absurd fancies.
To conjure away his gloomy thoughts and his perpetual lassitude, he began secretly resorting to the dangerous antidotes of morphia and of alcohol, whence he derived a few daily hours of consolation and exaltation, but, under this regime, his organic deterioration proceeded apace.
Tragic Empress: The Story of Elizabeth of Austria by Maurice Paléologue. (1939). Pages 101-3.
On several occasions he had the idea of forcing the Archduchess Stephanie to accompany him on what he called "nights out." It gave him a sadistic pleasure to show her all that was most squalid and sordid in Viennese night life. This was really his exquisite stroke of revenge upon Spanish etiquette, upon the hieratic ceremonial of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. The Archduchess agreed to go there, "just for once." In order to escape recognition, she went attired as the wife of an ordinary citizen.
"I was unable to conceal my surprise when I noticed how little the heir-apparent troubled to keep to his disguise. My amazement increased still more when we visited together the cafés-chantants and other dubious places in Vienna and the outlying parts. It was difficult enough to breathe the vitiated atmosphere, poisoned by fumes of garlic, rotten meat, wine and tobacco. However, we remained seated at bare and greasy tables until the first streak of dawn, in the company of cabmen who were playing cards, whistling and singing. Dancing was, always going on. Girls would keep jumping on tables, and seemed never tired of putting themselves in the same vulgar sentimental postures, to the accompaniment of a wretched orchestra that likewise seemed never tired of playing.
"I was willing enough to be amused, but the visits to these dens disgusted me altogether. They were not only vile, but utterly boring into the bargain. I could not understand what pleasure the heir-apparent was able to find in it all."
In the month of February, 1886, Rudolph contracted a serious and mysterious illness, alarming enough to prompt the despatch of an urgent summons to the Empress to return to Vienna. Elizabeth was then at Miramar, on the point of leaving for a cruise. A casual encounter had infected him with venereal disease. On the 1st March, in order to hasten his cure, the doctor prescribed a long stay in the island of Lacroma, opposite Ragusa, where his wife was to keep him company.
But Stephanie had hardly arrived at Lacroma before she, in her turn, fell seriously ill. "For weeks I was confined to bed and my sufferings were terrible. The doctors, summoned from Vienna and from Trieste, diagnosed peritonitis. By orders from above, strict secrecy was maintained regarding my state of health, and the doctors were pledged to silence. My sister, Louise of Coburg, hastened to my bedside, and did not leave me...." Two months later she had recovered.
* * *
From this time onward, Rudolph's life entered upon a new phase. All who came in contact with him were struck by the physical and moral transformation which he had undergone. He nearly always looked utterly exhausted, with a dry skin, a livid complexion, trembling hands, and restless and burning eyes. He passed through strange alternations of sorrow and of anger. He was either in a state of loquacious excitement or of sullen silence.
From chance remarks that escaped him, it became apparent that he was utterly and completely disillusioned. The splendid visions that had buoyed him up but a short time before, for the regeneration of Austria, now seemed to him but foolish and absurd fancies.
To conjure away his gloomy thoughts and his perpetual lassitude, he began secretly resorting to the dangerous antidotes of morphia and of alcohol, whence he derived a few daily hours of consolation and exaltation, but, under this regime, his organic deterioration proceeded apace.
Tragic Empress: The Story of Elizabeth of Austria by Maurice Paléologue. (1939). Pages 101-3.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Story of a ball costume designed by Bakst
The second ball was even more brilliant than the first, though the guests were less numerous they were more select. All the ladies were in coloured wigs -- it was the first introduction in Petrograd of this new fashion, and the effect created was marvellous.
The Schouvalov mansion was graced by numerous members of the Imperial Family, eager to witness the novel sight of elegant women in evening attire wearing their hair in all the colours of the rainbow.
The Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was not present -- the Countess had omitted to invite her.
I am reminded by this ball of an incident which occurred recently to a very smart rnember of Petrograd society. Last season she went to a fancy-dress ball in a costume designed by Mr. Bakhst the painter à la mode and the arbiter of ladies' fashions. No one ever understood what the costume was intended to represent; it was a costly and amazing mixture of myrtle-green and cobalt-blue. The lady had the shape of a turnip, pointed at the top and getting very wide at the hem of the short skirt, from under which peeped two daintily shod feet, the legs being clothed in silk bladder-shaped trousers. A blue wig, green gloves and costly gems completed the costume. Green roses were painted by M. Bakhst on the higher part of the lady's arms, but truth compels one to add that the heat of the ballroom sadly affected this over-modern art production, the paint melted on the warm skin and trickled down in ugly green streaks.
Russian Court Memoirs by B. Wood. [1917?]. Pages 262-3.
The Schouvalov mansion was graced by numerous members of the Imperial Family, eager to witness the novel sight of elegant women in evening attire wearing their hair in all the colours of the rainbow.
The Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was not present -- the Countess had omitted to invite her.
I am reminded by this ball of an incident which occurred recently to a very smart rnember of Petrograd society. Last season she went to a fancy-dress ball in a costume designed by Mr. Bakhst the painter à la mode and the arbiter of ladies' fashions. No one ever understood what the costume was intended to represent; it was a costly and amazing mixture of myrtle-green and cobalt-blue. The lady had the shape of a turnip, pointed at the top and getting very wide at the hem of the short skirt, from under which peeped two daintily shod feet, the legs being clothed in silk bladder-shaped trousers. A blue wig, green gloves and costly gems completed the costume. Green roses were painted by M. Bakhst on the higher part of the lady's arms, but truth compels one to add that the heat of the ballroom sadly affected this over-modern art production, the paint melted on the warm skin and trickled down in ugly green streaks.
Russian Court Memoirs by B. Wood. [1917?]. Pages 262-3.
The Mariinsky, circa 1910
The Ballet was given every Sunday and Wednesday in the Marinsky Opera House, nearly all the stalls and boxes being taken by abonnements, which were themselves not always easy to obtain as they were very often hereditary and handed down from father to son. For the Opera one could sit in any part of the house one liked, but for the Ballet no lady could sit anywhere but in a box, and it was also considered highly unseemly to remain sitting in the box during the entr'acte, so, directly the curtain went down, everybody retired to the little ante-room at the back of each box where one could smoke and talk and receive the visits of young men who had been sitting in the stalls.
When I shut my eyes I can still feel the individual atmosphere of that huge theatre, the scent of ambre and chyprc, of chocolates and cigarettes, the faint smell of heating, of leather and of the age-old dust raised by hundreds of dancing feet. I can visualize the white and blue and gold of the decorations, the four tiers of boxes, the dim far-away gallery, the parterre of stalls crowded with artists, musicians, young diplomats, officers in brilliant uniforms, old bald-headed Generals. Now and then, defying convention, a young girl would lean from a box to smile a greeting at some young man below, a few old men, grouped together in earnest discussion, would for once not be talking politics but would be arguing about the technique of some dancer's step, shaking their heads mournfully as they agreed that the true art of choreography was deteriorating, and that the last ballets lacked the beauty of the older productions. Fat ladies of the merchant classes munched chocolates brought to them in beribboned boxes by portly men with smooth faces, outside in the foyer young girls and boys from the gallery seats would walk solemnly round and round, watched by some anxious mother, sitting eating cream cakes and drinking weak sugared tea.
Then the orchestra would come trooping back, a bell would shrill loudly, people would hurry along the corridors, the doors of the boxes would open and shut, there would be a rustle and a stir as the lights slowly faded out and the great curtain went up once more on the land of "Make Believe".
The Dissolution of an Empire by Meriel Buchanan. (1932). Pages 24-5.
When I shut my eyes I can still feel the individual atmosphere of that huge theatre, the scent of ambre and chyprc, of chocolates and cigarettes, the faint smell of heating, of leather and of the age-old dust raised by hundreds of dancing feet. I can visualize the white and blue and gold of the decorations, the four tiers of boxes, the dim far-away gallery, the parterre of stalls crowded with artists, musicians, young diplomats, officers in brilliant uniforms, old bald-headed Generals. Now and then, defying convention, a young girl would lean from a box to smile a greeting at some young man below, a few old men, grouped together in earnest discussion, would for once not be talking politics but would be arguing about the technique of some dancer's step, shaking their heads mournfully as they agreed that the true art of choreography was deteriorating, and that the last ballets lacked the beauty of the older productions. Fat ladies of the merchant classes munched chocolates brought to them in beribboned boxes by portly men with smooth faces, outside in the foyer young girls and boys from the gallery seats would walk solemnly round and round, watched by some anxious mother, sitting eating cream cakes and drinking weak sugared tea.
Then the orchestra would come trooping back, a bell would shrill loudly, people would hurry along the corridors, the doors of the boxes would open and shut, there would be a rustle and a stir as the lights slowly faded out and the great curtain went up once more on the land of "Make Believe".
The Dissolution of an Empire by Meriel Buchanan. (1932). Pages 24-5.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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