The Ballet-girl's day was a long one. It began with a rehearsal at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning on a bare, uninviting stage with the flats and the wings drawn away and a few rays of sunshine penetrating the mass of ropes, pulleys and bridges in the flies. To the accompaniment of a solitary violinist, the Ballet-master drilled the dancers, 'pretty trim-built girls, with sallow faces and large eyes -- the pallor that overspreads their features from cosmetics and late hours'. Perhaps there was a general rehearsal, with orchestra and scenery, to follow. Practice-costume was by no means the rule in those days of long, wide skirts. 'It is curious to see them rehearsing their grand pas in their walking dresses. they divest themselves of their bonnets and shawls; and sometimes tie a handkerchief, gipsy fashion, over their heads. Then they begin -- sinking down and crossing their hands on their breast; bending back almost to vertebral dislocation; wreathing their arms; and the like. . . . You will observe, too, that they have all kept their gloves on: it appears to be a point of etiquette amongst them to do so.'
After the rehearsal, the Ballet-girl had two or three hours to herself before returning to the theatre by six o'clock to prepare for the evening performance. With a nod to the stage-door keeper and a quick glance at the letter-rack, she ran up the stairway to the dressing-room, which she shared with five other girls, and where she had a compartment to herself on one of the dressing-tables, with her own looking-glass and wash-basin, powder-dabbers and pots of rouge. When the call-boy's voice was heard through the door, there was a hurried rush to take up their positions. Some climbed the staircase to be attached to the hooks of the 'travellers', some descended below the stage to make their entrances through trap-doors, some collected in groups in the wings, while others, not required until the next act, made their way leisurely to the Green Room.
Usually they were all dressed exactly alike, but if one were singled out to wear some additional decoration on her costume, or to perform slightly different steps, with what rapture was this mark of favour received! For it was a sign of progress in a career that was a ceaseless struggle. 'If the management permits her to wear a wreath of her own purchasing whilst her sister fays go without one, she has achieved another great position, and dreams of one day equalling Carlotta Grisi. For upon enquiry you will find that Carlotta is the real pet of the ballet.'
Between the acts, there was a great flurry and bustling, a swarm of scene-shifters coming on with the wings and the flats for the next scene, the stage-manager giving his last-minute instructions ('with the addition of a little swearing'), the property-man busily seeing that all was in order, and a few privileged well-dressed gentlemen lounging in the wings and flirting with the coryphées.
When the performance was over, if no watchful mother or attentive sweetheart was waiting for her, the Ballet-girl stole quietly out of the stage-door and, her shawl drawn closely about her, made her way quickly homeward, stopping perhaps at the late shop for a bottle of ginger beer and one of those tempting pies that lay steaming in the open window. And once home, she undressed quickly and climbed into her bed, for the day had been long and exacting and there was another rehearsal the next morning. 'With the music, the stage, and the lights still haunting her senses, she falls asleep; and perhaps dreams that she is a second Taglioni, and that foreign gentlemen, the likes of which have never been seen in Leicester Square, are dragging her from the theatre to the hotel, in her own carriage.'
Victorian Ballet Girl: the Tragic Story of Clara Webster by Ivor Guest. 1957. Pages 35-7. [With quotes from Albert Smith's The Natural History of the Ballet-Girl. 1847.]
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
A memory of Le Spectre de la Rose with Nijinsky and Karsavina
As I have already said, my sister, four years my senior, was with me. She had come to the capital partly to see me, partly to visit family friends, who were entertaining her with all the lavishness of Russians of position in the Imperial régime. It was through one of these friends that the tickets for the special performance of Le Spectre de la Rose came -- and we were asked if we would care to go to it. My sister's hostess and her husband apparently did not wish to see Fokine's work -- they said something about not liking new-fangled things, which I did not understand.
Of course we accepted joyously. It was the accepted thing that if one was in Petersburg one missed no possible opportunity of seeing the ballet -- especially when one normally lived, as my sister and I did, in an inaccessible province in the far south. I could not understand why anyone should decline to go; it was like refusing cream cakes or those delicious sugar candies that were sold in the wonderful shops on the Nevsky Prospekt. That was the childish thought that sprang to my mind, and I remember it with astonishing clarity. It is an indication of my boyish normality and of my utter immaturity.
The performance was given in a small semi-private theatre, which a rich landowner had built for his own amusement, and began with some divertissement that I cannot recall, beyond that it was of the type I had seen even at my age, a hundred times before. And then at last came Le Spectre de la Rose. The small orchestra played the opening bars of Weber's Invitation to the Waltz, a piece that was unknown to me though it was famous all over Europe. The curtains slid back.
As though drawn by some magnetic force, I leant forward and glued my eyes to the stage. Bakst's décor fascinated me. The tall window with its lace curtains tied back with ribbons, the canary in its cage, the furniture that was like nothing I had ever seen before and looked as though it had come from some other, remote world -- all this was a miracle, and I experienced an odd feeling of fear that the curtains might close and I should never see it again.
But fear vanished, even the décor grew dim, when Karsavina appeared, the rose in her hand. It was impossible to believe that she was flesh-and-blood. She was a feather, and the stage was there not to support her but to limit her movement so that the audience could see her. I do not pretend that I knew what she was trying to express -- or, rather, was expressing with the utmost conviction to older and more formed minds; I knew nothing at my age of the poignancy of a young girl returning from a ball bewildered by her first encounter with love and gallantry, of which the rose she carried was a souvenir. That did not matter. Karsavina danced as I had seen no one dance before. I was enthralled, absorbed, barely aware of myself any longer.
She sank into the chair and fell asleep. My trance was momentarily over and I wanted to cry out and tell her that she must never, never stop dancing . . . but already I was too well schooled in the discipline of the ballet. I waited, expectant, eager.
For what seemed to me eternity, the stage was occupied by none but the sleeping Karsavina. Then, magically, Nijinsky was there. He had entered by that famous leap which caused so much controversy and was opposed by some on the grounds of "athleticism in the ballet" so that, for a time, the superbness of Karsavina and the glory of the ballet as a whole were forgotten, and people went to see Le Spectre de la Rose for the leap alone.
I could add nothing to that discussion if I wished to stir again the old embers, which I do not. No doubt, as a boy, I should have remembered that before all else. But I was barely conscious of it. All I knew was that Nijinsky was on the stage, wafted there by some magical aid that had nothing to do with everyday human muscles. Nijinsky danced, as lightly as Karsavina, yet differently. This time, perhaps because of his costume of rose petals, I had no difficulty in following the book. He was the rose itself come to life and dancing just like fallen rose petals dance when the soft summer breeze lifts them into the air.
Before I had been entranced. Now I was bewitched. My whole world was that small stage on which spirits moved. Karsavina awoke and joined the spirit of the Rose. The pain of my delight was almost unbearable. And at last Nijinsky left. Out of a memory more than forty years' old, a memory based on a child's experience, I defy all the books and all the critics. He did not leap. He was wafted out of that open window by a zephyr. Since that time, in Italy, in France, in English gardens, in a hundred places where roses grow, I have seen petals caught by a small eddy of wind and gently borne aloft out of sight; and never have I failed to think of Nijinsky and the Spirit of the Rose. If others assert that Nijinsky leapt, then for them, to their eyes, he did; but for me, the middle-aged man who looks back on it through the eyes of a small boy, Nijinsky was puffed away by the slightest, most caressing of winds.
Charm of Ballet by George Borodin [George Sava]. 1955. Pages 30-2.
Of course we accepted joyously. It was the accepted thing that if one was in Petersburg one missed no possible opportunity of seeing the ballet -- especially when one normally lived, as my sister and I did, in an inaccessible province in the far south. I could not understand why anyone should decline to go; it was like refusing cream cakes or those delicious sugar candies that were sold in the wonderful shops on the Nevsky Prospekt. That was the childish thought that sprang to my mind, and I remember it with astonishing clarity. It is an indication of my boyish normality and of my utter immaturity.
The performance was given in a small semi-private theatre, which a rich landowner had built for his own amusement, and began with some divertissement that I cannot recall, beyond that it was of the type I had seen even at my age, a hundred times before. And then at last came Le Spectre de la Rose. The small orchestra played the opening bars of Weber's Invitation to the Waltz, a piece that was unknown to me though it was famous all over Europe. The curtains slid back.
As though drawn by some magnetic force, I leant forward and glued my eyes to the stage. Bakst's décor fascinated me. The tall window with its lace curtains tied back with ribbons, the canary in its cage, the furniture that was like nothing I had ever seen before and looked as though it had come from some other, remote world -- all this was a miracle, and I experienced an odd feeling of fear that the curtains might close and I should never see it again.
But fear vanished, even the décor grew dim, when Karsavina appeared, the rose in her hand. It was impossible to believe that she was flesh-and-blood. She was a feather, and the stage was there not to support her but to limit her movement so that the audience could see her. I do not pretend that I knew what she was trying to express -- or, rather, was expressing with the utmost conviction to older and more formed minds; I knew nothing at my age of the poignancy of a young girl returning from a ball bewildered by her first encounter with love and gallantry, of which the rose she carried was a souvenir. That did not matter. Karsavina danced as I had seen no one dance before. I was enthralled, absorbed, barely aware of myself any longer.
She sank into the chair and fell asleep. My trance was momentarily over and I wanted to cry out and tell her that she must never, never stop dancing . . . but already I was too well schooled in the discipline of the ballet. I waited, expectant, eager.
For what seemed to me eternity, the stage was occupied by none but the sleeping Karsavina. Then, magically, Nijinsky was there. He had entered by that famous leap which caused so much controversy and was opposed by some on the grounds of "athleticism in the ballet" so that, for a time, the superbness of Karsavina and the glory of the ballet as a whole were forgotten, and people went to see Le Spectre de la Rose for the leap alone.
I could add nothing to that discussion if I wished to stir again the old embers, which I do not. No doubt, as a boy, I should have remembered that before all else. But I was barely conscious of it. All I knew was that Nijinsky was on the stage, wafted there by some magical aid that had nothing to do with everyday human muscles. Nijinsky danced, as lightly as Karsavina, yet differently. This time, perhaps because of his costume of rose petals, I had no difficulty in following the book. He was the rose itself come to life and dancing just like fallen rose petals dance when the soft summer breeze lifts them into the air.
Before I had been entranced. Now I was bewitched. My whole world was that small stage on which spirits moved. Karsavina awoke and joined the spirit of the Rose. The pain of my delight was almost unbearable. And at last Nijinsky left. Out of a memory more than forty years' old, a memory based on a child's experience, I defy all the books and all the critics. He did not leap. He was wafted out of that open window by a zephyr. Since that time, in Italy, in France, in English gardens, in a hundred places where roses grow, I have seen petals caught by a small eddy of wind and gently borne aloft out of sight; and never have I failed to think of Nijinsky and the Spirit of the Rose. If others assert that Nijinsky leapt, then for them, to their eyes, he did; but for me, the middle-aged man who looks back on it through the eyes of a small boy, Nijinsky was puffed away by the slightest, most caressing of winds.
Charm of Ballet by George Borodin [George Sava]. 1955. Pages 30-2.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The self-sacrifice of dancers
As long as we continue to regard dancers as special beings, a breed apart, we condemn them to the status quo -- to their eternal childhood. If we insist on their childlike charm and innocence at the expense of an adult relationship to the world of work, love, family, and friendship, it is they who will pay for our pleasure. And as long as dancers accept this self-image, forfeiting the rights most professionals fight for and enjoy -- the right to respect, to financial remuneration, and to have at least some outside fulfillment -- the price they pay will be inordinately high.
In Europe, dancers fare better because ballet is forced to play by society's rules. Ballet may create a magical world on stage, but dancers know that there is nothing magical about low pay and poor working conditions, sacrifice and injury. They've learned how to fight to protect themselves. There are some American dancers who have also learned that lesson. They are the superstars who insist upon high salaries, a measure of control over their working lives, a great deal of security, and even more respect. The difference between Europe and America is that across the Atlantic star dancers are not singled out: When dancers are truly protected, all are protected equally.
Off Balance: the Real World of Ballet by Suzanne Gordon. 1983. Page 215.
In Europe, dancers fare better because ballet is forced to play by society's rules. Ballet may create a magical world on stage, but dancers know that there is nothing magical about low pay and poor working conditions, sacrifice and injury. They've learned how to fight to protect themselves. There are some American dancers who have also learned that lesson. They are the superstars who insist upon high salaries, a measure of control over their working lives, a great deal of security, and even more respect. The difference between Europe and America is that across the Atlantic star dancers are not singled out: When dancers are truly protected, all are protected equally.
Off Balance: the Real World of Ballet by Suzanne Gordon. 1983. Page 215.
The power of Mathilde Kschessinska
On April 15th I appeared in the other ballet I had inherited from Legnani, La Camargo, a work in three acts and five tableaux in Louis XV style, by Saint-Georges and Petipa. It was responsible for another clash between Prince Volkhonsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres, and myself. Legnani had performed the Russian dance in a Louis XV style costume, whose billowing skirts, supported by hoop petticoats, hindered her movements and robbed the dance of all its charm. Legnani was certainly an excellent dancer, but she paid far less attention to costume than I did. I knew perfectly well that in these clothes I would look ugly, on account of my small size, and that I would also find it quite impossible to execute the Russian dance in the way I wished to do it. It consists of imperceptibly subtle touches, which contribute its value. I had therefore given my reasons to the wardrobe-keeper, adding that I would naturally put on the presribed costume, but without the tiresome hoops, whose absence would anyway not be noticed under the billowing skirts. My remarks, wholly justified as they were, were doubtless misrepresented to the Director to appear a mere whim. In any case, my observations were disregarded and I was again told that I must put on the hoops without fail. I then received the impression that someone was trying to pick a quarrel with me on a trifling excuse.
Just before the performance began Baron Koussov, Theatre Manager in the Imperial Theatres, entered my dressing-room and insisted once more in the Director's name that I should put on the hoops. The disagreement had now gone on for some time, and the public, who knew all about it, was impatiently waiting the outcome of "the affair". The outcome was that I categorically refused to put on the hoops and danced without them! If it had not been for the publicity given to the quarrel, nobody could ever have known if I was wearing the hoops or not.
The next day when I arrived at the theatre for rehearsal I read on the Administration's notice board: "The Director of the Imperial Theatres fines the ballerina Kschessinska [so many rubles] for an unauthorised change in the costume prescribed by regulation for the ballet La Camargo". Bearing in mind my salary and position, the fine was so small that it was clearly meant to provoke and not to punish me. I could not submit to such an insult without taking steps to put it right. I had no other resource but to apply once more to the Tsar, begging him to have the fine remitted through the same channel. And now a notice went up on the board: "The Director of the Imperial Theatres hereby orders a remission of the fine imposed on the ballerina Kschessinska for an unauthorised change in the costume prescribed by regulation in the ballet La Camargo." Following this incident, Prince Volkhonsky felt that he should not remain at his post and handed in his resignation However, his prestige and independence did not suffer as a result.. He left in July 1901 and was succeeded by V. A. Teliakovsky.
Dancing in Petersburg: the Memoirs of Mathilde Kschessinska. 2005. Pages 81-2.
Just before the performance began Baron Koussov, Theatre Manager in the Imperial Theatres, entered my dressing-room and insisted once more in the Director's name that I should put on the hoops. The disagreement had now gone on for some time, and the public, who knew all about it, was impatiently waiting the outcome of "the affair". The outcome was that I categorically refused to put on the hoops and danced without them! If it had not been for the publicity given to the quarrel, nobody could ever have known if I was wearing the hoops or not.
The next day when I arrived at the theatre for rehearsal I read on the Administration's notice board: "The Director of the Imperial Theatres fines the ballerina Kschessinska [so many rubles] for an unauthorised change in the costume prescribed by regulation for the ballet La Camargo". Bearing in mind my salary and position, the fine was so small that it was clearly meant to provoke and not to punish me. I could not submit to such an insult without taking steps to put it right. I had no other resource but to apply once more to the Tsar, begging him to have the fine remitted through the same channel. And now a notice went up on the board: "The Director of the Imperial Theatres hereby orders a remission of the fine imposed on the ballerina Kschessinska for an unauthorised change in the costume prescribed by regulation in the ballet La Camargo." Following this incident, Prince Volkhonsky felt that he should not remain at his post and handed in his resignation However, his prestige and independence did not suffer as a result.. He left in July 1901 and was succeeded by V. A. Teliakovsky.
Dancing in Petersburg: the Memoirs of Mathilde Kschessinska. 2005. Pages 81-2.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Karsavina speaking of Nijinsky
He [Nijinsky] was very musical and we felt. . . I should say we were tuned together, knowing each other, never bothering, sometimes even slightly improvising the movement. But off-stage he was uncommunicative, and not very articulate. I remember we had once a misunderstanding and that was in Giselle when we revived it on the stage of the Paris Opéra, where it hadn't been given for a very long time, and Diaghilev attached very great importance to it. I remember he came to fetch me in my dressing room and, as Russians do, made the sign of the cross on me and led me from my dressing room on to the stage, and said, 'Let's go and re-create Giselle in the Paris Opéra.' At rehearsals I did it as others did it before me, taking the style in which the gestures were not quite conventional but the old kind of pantomime. and when we rehearsed, Nijinsky just stood and did nothing and it was very disconcerting, it put me off. So I talked to Diaghilev about it and he said to me, 'Now leave him, he will get it right, you will come to understand each other. He doesn't talk much, but he writes reams and reams of paper just on that part. He thinks it. He was just thinking the part in his head.' And finally at the performance it did come together very well, in harmony.
Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond. 1997. Pages 93-4.
Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond. 1997. Pages 93-4.
Leighton Lucas speaking of Diaghilev
Tell me about discipline in the company. Was it strict?
Oh, very strict, very strict indeed. There was one thing that always amused me very much. I noticed that when after a rehearsal or a class we'd all change, the last man out always bowed to the room before we shut the door. This I liked very much. It's a formal gesture. Every time Diaghilev came in to visit a rehearsal or a class, we all had to stand up, and mistakes were not only frowned upon, they were verboten. We were not allowed to make mistakes, although I must quote an example of this. Pulcinella, Stravinsky-Pergolesi. The most beautiful, beautiful work. We did the first performance of that at the Paris Opéra and we had been rehearsing, as the ballet used to rehearse for months and months on this one work. There were four little Pulcinelli, of whom I was one, and we were all dressed in huge white gowns with black wooden masks over our faces, so we were completely anonymous, and little red hats designed by Picasso. By the first performance of this work we knew it, we were bored, we knew it so well, and came the moment we four little Pulcinelli were doing our dance, and for the briefest second I hesitated. My mind wandered -- is it right or left turn -- and before I had thought about it I had done it the right way and forgotten it. And when I left the theatre that night, my name was on the board. Lukin rehearsal tomorrow morning, Pulcinella. And for two hours the next morning I had to go through this dance until I went screaming mad, to make perfectly sure I never did such a thing again. Diaghilev was in front of every performance, and he had seen this and his ire worked to such an extent to think that anybody in his company could make a mistake. This was the sort of standard we were set.
Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond. 1997. Page 209.
Oh, very strict, very strict indeed. There was one thing that always amused me very much. I noticed that when after a rehearsal or a class we'd all change, the last man out always bowed to the room before we shut the door. This I liked very much. It's a formal gesture. Every time Diaghilev came in to visit a rehearsal or a class, we all had to stand up, and mistakes were not only frowned upon, they were verboten. We were not allowed to make mistakes, although I must quote an example of this. Pulcinella, Stravinsky-Pergolesi. The most beautiful, beautiful work. We did the first performance of that at the Paris Opéra and we had been rehearsing, as the ballet used to rehearse for months and months on this one work. There were four little Pulcinelli, of whom I was one, and we were all dressed in huge white gowns with black wooden masks over our faces, so we were completely anonymous, and little red hats designed by Picasso. By the first performance of this work we knew it, we were bored, we knew it so well, and came the moment we four little Pulcinelli were doing our dance, and for the briefest second I hesitated. My mind wandered -- is it right or left turn -- and before I had thought about it I had done it the right way and forgotten it. And when I left the theatre that night, my name was on the board. Lukin rehearsal tomorrow morning, Pulcinella. And for two hours the next morning I had to go through this dance until I went screaming mad, to make perfectly sure I never did such a thing again. Diaghilev was in front of every performance, and he had seen this and his ire worked to such an extent to think that anybody in his company could make a mistake. This was the sort of standard we were set.
Speaking of Diaghilev by John Drummond. 1997. Page 209.
Balanchine and story ballets
Then too, without story ballets he [Balanchine] didn't have to buy scenery, which was good because he didn't have any money. He was kind of a free man. He could do what he wanted. I always had the feeling that he wanted to choreograph with nobody bothering him. He decided to do his style and didn't care about scenery and costumes. When he came to New York he changed everything. He was smart when he saw he could do this. Balanchine made a tremendous revolution.
Roman Jasinski: a Gypsy Prince from the Ballet Russse by Cheryl Forrest and Georgia Snoke. 2008. Page 235.
Roman Jasinski: a Gypsy Prince from the Ballet Russse by Cheryl Forrest and Georgia Snoke. 2008. Page 235.
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