Then as now, one of the secrets of the Paris Opera Ballet's success was its ballet school, which put its students, long nicknamed les petits rats, through the kind of tough regime needed to prepare them for a career on the stage. Some petits rats from that time would later become famous: Roland Petit as a choreographer, Juliette Gréco as a singer and Jean Babilée, just twelve when he entered the school in 1935, as one of France's great postwar dancers, famous above all for his soaring leaps. "I loved the work," he recalled decades later, "all the girls around me, appearing as an extra in operas. It was marvelous." In 1940, as the Wehrmacht approached Paris, he left for a family farm in the south of France, accompanied by his friend Petit. But while Petit soon returned to Paris, Babilée instead joined the Ballet de Cannes, where, now seventeen, he was given lead roles in Les Sylphides and Le Spectre de la rose. In early 1942, he decided to return to Paris and, too old for the ballet school, he was auditioned by Lifar and accepted into the corps de ballet.
Babilée nonetheless knew he was taking a risk: he had borrowed his stage name from his mother, but the name on his identity papers -- Gutman -- was that of his Jewish father. Inside the Palais Garnier, he was soon reminded of that. "One day in the dressing room we all shared, someone painted a large yellow star and the word Juif on my mirror," he said. "I purposefully ignored it, but it stayed there for three days. Then one afternoon the school's dresser saw it and said, 'Aren't you ashamed of yourselves, boys?' And he wiped it off."
More dangerous were the German patrols, not least because the Nazi Kommandantur, or commander's office, was in the place de l'Opera. "Once I was stopped and asked for my papers," Babilée remembered. "The German saw 'Gutman' and asked, German? I nodded and he let me go." He had a narrower escape during the mass roundup of Jews known as the rafle du Vel'd'Hiv' in July 1942. He was staying in a cheap hotel on the rue du Sentier when he was awakened at six a.m. on July 16 by someone banging on his door.
"There was a huge Frenchman in a leather overcoat," Babilée recalled. "He asked for my papers, put them in his pocket and told me to get a blanket and a bag and go downstairs. I looked out of the window and saw a parked bus. I had no way out. I dressed and started going down the stairs slowly. I suddenly heard footsteps. The same guy was hurrying back up. 'Are these your papers?' I nodded. 'With this name, it's too dangerous. Go back to bed.' "
In early 1943, like hundreds of thousands of other young men, Babilée received a summons to work in Germany. The director of the opera, Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, refused him a certificate stating that he was on contract to the opera house. "He said Germany would do me good," Babilée related. A German doctor then rejected his claim to be excused on medical grounds. "I decided I would not go and would leave my papers at a friend's house," Babilée said. "As I came out of the métro, I saw two German soldiers at the exit. I turned and ran, I heard cries as they followed me. I jumped over the gate to the platform and got into a métro car as it was leaving. My coat caught in the door." The next day, he fled Paris and spent the rest of the war with the maquis in the Touraine region. After the liberation, he refused to return to the Opera Ballet and instead joined the new Ballets des Champs-
Élysées, which Roland Petit had just created. "I was disgusted with the Opera," he said.
And the Show went on: Cultural life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding. 2011. Pages 159-160.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The Court of the Last Tsar
The salaries of people employed in the imperial theaters -- the Mariinsky, the Alexandrinsky, and the Maly Theaters in St. Petersburg, and the Bolshoi and the Maly in Moscow -- including directors, dancers, teachers, and pupils, were also paid from the Civil List, as all were considered to be members of the Emperor's Household. At the end of every season, as Mathilde Kschessinska remembered, all of the pupils at the Imperial Ballet School and the dancers in the ballet itself received presents from the emperor. "In most cases," she wrote, "it consisted of a jewel in gold or silver, enriched sometimes with precious stones according to the class of gift and always bearing a crown or Imperial eagle. Male dancers usually received a gold watch. On the whole, these gifts were not particularly beautiful." The annual cost of funding the imperial theaters alone amounted to some 2 million rubles a year. Also included were the upkeep of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, the Alexander III Museum of Russian Arts, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
Thus the emperor's outlay each year was certainly enormous. According to the Romanovs in exile, Nicholas was lucky to survive from financial year to financial year, so strained were his resources.
The Court of the Last Tsar: Pomp, Power, and Pageantry in the Reign of Nicholas II by Greg King. 2006. Page 235.
Thus the emperor's outlay each year was certainly enormous. According to the Romanovs in exile, Nicholas was lucky to survive from financial year to financial year, so strained were his resources.
The Court of the Last Tsar: Pomp, Power, and Pageantry in the Reign of Nicholas II by Greg King. 2006. Page 235.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Stalin and ballet's Golden Age
In the storm of meetings, debates, and humiliating self-criticism that followed, Asafiev condemned Shostakovich's score for the ballet as "Lumpen-Musik" and Vaganova dutifully denounced The Bright Stream for having strayed from the "correct path" of art. Shostakovich retreated, and Lopukhov never made another important dance.
"Ballet Fraud" unleashed a panic. Dancers and ballet masters scrambled to interpret the official pronouncements and to create or revise their productions to suit Stalin's elusive tastes. As the Terror spread, dram-balets took on ever more ideologically strident tones and obvious themes. The stakes were high. Although dancers were spared the worst of Stalin's horrors, the sense of danger was acute and pervasive -- and not only for Lopukhov, whose past difficulties had made him an easy target. One morning in 1937 Vaganova arrived at the theater to find a note posted on the door stating that she had "resigned" her position as director; she quietly withdrew into teaching. The ballerina Marina Sernenova's husband (a high-ranking diplomat) was arrested and killed; Semenova was put under house arrest but eventually released (she was Stalin's favorite dancer). In 1938 Meyerhold's theater was shut down, and when he dared to speak out he was arrested, tortured, and shot; his wife was found stabbed to death in their home. Fear cast a pall over art, but the effect on dance was not always immediate or apparent. Whatever they were thinking at the time -- and we really don't know -- Ulanova, Chaboukiani, and many others continued to dance their hearts out. Artists who were there will tell you that, the Terror aside, this was ballet's golden age.
Apollo's Angels: a history of ballet by Jennifer Homans. 2010. Page 357.
"Ballet Fraud" unleashed a panic. Dancers and ballet masters scrambled to interpret the official pronouncements and to create or revise their productions to suit Stalin's elusive tastes. As the Terror spread, dram-balets took on ever more ideologically strident tones and obvious themes. The stakes were high. Although dancers were spared the worst of Stalin's horrors, the sense of danger was acute and pervasive -- and not only for Lopukhov, whose past difficulties had made him an easy target. One morning in 1937 Vaganova arrived at the theater to find a note posted on the door stating that she had "resigned" her position as director; she quietly withdrew into teaching. The ballerina Marina Sernenova's husband (a high-ranking diplomat) was arrested and killed; Semenova was put under house arrest but eventually released (she was Stalin's favorite dancer). In 1938 Meyerhold's theater was shut down, and when he dared to speak out he was arrested, tortured, and shot; his wife was found stabbed to death in their home. Fear cast a pall over art, but the effect on dance was not always immediate or apparent. Whatever they were thinking at the time -- and we really don't know -- Ulanova, Chaboukiani, and many others continued to dance their hearts out. Artists who were there will tell you that, the Terror aside, this was ballet's golden age.
Apollo's Angels: a history of ballet by Jennifer Homans. 2010. Page 357.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The importance of hands -- José Limón
One of the most eloquent of the voices of the body is the hand. It is its function to give completion to movement and gesture. The hand is the seal upon the deed. A powerful gesture with the body cannot fully convince unless the hand is in accord with it, nor can a subtle, restrained one be completely so without having the hand in full consonance. The hand can be said to breathe like the lungs. It expands and contracts. It can project movements seemingly to infinity, or gather them back to their source within the body. It is a mouthpiece, a moderator. It has a brilliant range, capable of complexities and subtleties unequalled by other regions of the dancer's "orchestra." It is the abettor of all that the dancer intends. It is unthinkable, a dance without hands.
"On Dance" by José Limón in The Vision of Modern Dance edited by Jean Morrison Brown. 1979. Page 103.
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Score -- Shostakovich's View
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.
"The Golden Age: The True Story of the Première" by Manashir Yakubov in Shostakovich Studies edited by David Fanning. 1995. Pages 203-4.
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
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Irina Baronova.on Learning Swan Lake - 1933
Halfway through our season, Danilova became sick. The morning she informed Colonel de Basil she would have to take a few days off, he came in towards the end of our class and I observed him in earnest discussion with Papa Grigoriev by the side of the stage. The class over, they asked David Lichine and me to join them. Colonel de Basil told us that Danilova was indisposed, that the program was set for that week and could not be changed, and that he was asking me to help out and dance Swan Lake the next night.
'You must know it pretty well,' said Papa Grigoriev. 'You've watched every rehearsal and every performance.'
'Yes, but I've never rehearsed it.'
'David will rehearse with you all day today and tomorrow. So, will you do it?'
What a challenge! By now my mother had joined us, to discover what this little conference was about. Lichine stood in silence all this time, looking at the floor, but then all hell suddenly broke loose! David started screaming that he would not dance Swan Lake with someone only 'three inches higher than a chamber pot' (a Russian expression used to slap down a cocky youngster). I was only fourteen, but his comment was unfair. I burst into tears, Mama started screaming at Lichine, Colonel de Basil tried to pacify everyone, and Papa Grigoriev offered me his hanky.
At that moment Anton Dolin appeared -- at what must have looked and sounded like a Turkish bazaar. He approached us and asked what the matter was, so Colonel de Basil explained the situation. Dolin, looking Lichine up and down, exclaimed, 'I never heard such nonsense! I'll dance with Irina myself.'
Everyone looked happy except Lichine. I was overflowing with gratitude for Dolin's generosity, After his vote of confidence, I could not refuse the challenge. It was settled -- I was to dance Swan Lake the next night.
Dolin took me to his studio, having phoned ahead to ask his pianist to meet us there. We rehearsed all day. His partnering was a wonderful new experience -- he made it all so easy and let me into the 'secrets of the trade', as he laughingly called them. I was learning far more than just Swan Lake.
Irina by Irina Baronova. 2005. Pages 108-9.
'You must know it pretty well,' said Papa Grigoriev. 'You've watched every rehearsal and every performance.'
'Yes, but I've never rehearsed it.'
'David will rehearse with you all day today and tomorrow. So, will you do it?'
What a challenge! By now my mother had joined us, to discover what this little conference was about. Lichine stood in silence all this time, looking at the floor, but then all hell suddenly broke loose! David started screaming that he would not dance Swan Lake with someone only 'three inches higher than a chamber pot' (a Russian expression used to slap down a cocky youngster). I was only fourteen, but his comment was unfair. I burst into tears, Mama started screaming at Lichine, Colonel de Basil tried to pacify everyone, and Papa Grigoriev offered me his hanky.
At that moment Anton Dolin appeared -- at what must have looked and sounded like a Turkish bazaar. He approached us and asked what the matter was, so Colonel de Basil explained the situation. Dolin, looking Lichine up and down, exclaimed, 'I never heard such nonsense! I'll dance with Irina myself.'
Everyone looked happy except Lichine. I was overflowing with gratitude for Dolin's generosity, After his vote of confidence, I could not refuse the challenge. It was settled -- I was to dance Swan Lake the next night.
Dolin took me to his studio, having phoned ahead to ask his pianist to meet us there. We rehearsed all day. His partnering was a wonderful new experience -- he made it all so easy and let me into the 'secrets of the trade', as he laughingly called them. I was learning far more than just Swan Lake.
Irina by Irina Baronova. 2005. Pages 108-9.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Mukhamedov's audition at the Bolshoi -- 1970
And so to the final and most crucial test: an assessment of his musicality and his basic potential to be a dancer.
Yet again, ten o'clock in the foyer and another hour's wait, then follow the clipboard up two flights of stairs and change into trunks and singlet with nine young colleagues. Out of the changing-room, along the passage and back into the brightly lit ballet studio to face Golovkina. This time the boys all knew their fates would be sealed before they bowed farewell to her.
Golovkina's secretary asked each one what they would dance, and which piece of music they would require the pianist to play. Irek had prepared a solo, 'Chapaevtsi', to a traditional tune and confidently told the secretary so. He could scarcely believe his ears when he was informed that the pianist could not play it. 'Can you manage without music?' he was asked. 'No,' he mumbled in reply. 'Then you will have to dance to one of the tunes we are going to play,' they said.
Irek sat and waited his turn in a sweat of fear. He knew he could do 'Chapaevtsi', and do it well; everyone had told him so. He had never improvised, certainly not in public, since his five-year-old capers in hospital. What would he do? What would happen when they called his name?
One by one the boys were called to the piano to clap, run and jump in time to different rhythms, then to dance their solos. Luckily for Irek, they nearly all chose to dance to the same piece of music, a folk tune adapted by the composer Gliere from his ballet Red Poppy, called 'Yablochko, the sailor's dance.
Now it came to Irek, still in a state of shock. For him keeping time to changing rhythms was instinctive, achieved through feeling, not thought. The solo, though, was another matter. The music started, so he had to do something. The panic-stricken boy somehow managed to string together the steps he had watched the other boys do, improvising sequences he had desperately memorised as he waited his turn.
He sat down white and shaking. His first and most crucial audition, he felt, had been a fiasco. Rasheda, when he finally made it back downstairs to tell her the news, agreed. What a disaster!
They hardly considered it worth returning the next day to study the list of successful entrants, but they did. Which was just as well, because Irek Mukhamedov had won one of the eighty places on offer and was therefore accepted as a pupil of the Moscow Ballet School and would start his studies in September.
Anatoly Yelagin, Irek's first teacher at the school, was a member of the auditioning commission, and picked him out almost at once. 'He was a little boy, not very tall. When he came into the audition, he sat quietly on the chair and almost against my will I found myself looking at him. He made a very clear visual impression on me. He was a quiet and very balanced little boy.
'It's not possible to say that he had very good feet, and his build was slightly stocky, but when we asked him to dance something, they played the music and he improvised, and he danced so well that we said, "Yes, he must study with us."'
Irek Mukhamedov by Jeffery Taylor. 1994. Pages 16-17.
Yet again, ten o'clock in the foyer and another hour's wait, then follow the clipboard up two flights of stairs and change into trunks and singlet with nine young colleagues. Out of the changing-room, along the passage and back into the brightly lit ballet studio to face Golovkina. This time the boys all knew their fates would be sealed before they bowed farewell to her.
Golovkina's secretary asked each one what they would dance, and which piece of music they would require the pianist to play. Irek had prepared a solo, 'Chapaevtsi', to a traditional tune and confidently told the secretary so. He could scarcely believe his ears when he was informed that the pianist could not play it. 'Can you manage without music?' he was asked. 'No,' he mumbled in reply. 'Then you will have to dance to one of the tunes we are going to play,' they said.
Irek sat and waited his turn in a sweat of fear. He knew he could do 'Chapaevtsi', and do it well; everyone had told him so. He had never improvised, certainly not in public, since his five-year-old capers in hospital. What would he do? What would happen when they called his name?
One by one the boys were called to the piano to clap, run and jump in time to different rhythms, then to dance their solos. Luckily for Irek, they nearly all chose to dance to the same piece of music, a folk tune adapted by the composer Gliere from his ballet Red Poppy, called 'Yablochko, the sailor's dance.
Now it came to Irek, still in a state of shock. For him keeping time to changing rhythms was instinctive, achieved through feeling, not thought. The solo, though, was another matter. The music started, so he had to do something. The panic-stricken boy somehow managed to string together the steps he had watched the other boys do, improvising sequences he had desperately memorised as he waited his turn.
He sat down white and shaking. His first and most crucial audition, he felt, had been a fiasco. Rasheda, when he finally made it back downstairs to tell her the news, agreed. What a disaster!
They hardly considered it worth returning the next day to study the list of successful entrants, but they did. Which was just as well, because Irek Mukhamedov had won one of the eighty places on offer and was therefore accepted as a pupil of the Moscow Ballet School and would start his studies in September.
Anatoly Yelagin, Irek's first teacher at the school, was a member of the auditioning commission, and picked him out almost at once. 'He was a little boy, not very tall. When he came into the audition, he sat quietly on the chair and almost against my will I found myself looking at him. He made a very clear visual impression on me. He was a quiet and very balanced little boy.
'It's not possible to say that he had very good feet, and his build was slightly stocky, but when we asked him to dance something, they played the music and he improvised, and he danced so well that we said, "Yes, he must study with us."'
Irek Mukhamedov by Jeffery Taylor. 1994. Pages 16-17.
The Tsar and Sleeping Beauty
Modelled, albeit loosely, on French courtly entertainments of the seventeenth century, Sleeping Beauty may be interpreted as an apostrophe to the reigning monarch, expressed through the analogy of Florestan/Louis XIV. There are hints of magnanimity in the King's forgiving the misdeeds of his subjects, and he weathers the tribulations of destiny to emerge at the end having fulfilled his original task. One presumes that some such objective motivated Vsevolozhsky, the experienced courtier, in the choice of time and setting. And the ballet is filled with glorifications of the King, though if the Director truly sought to reproduce in some way the theatre of Louis XIV, there is surely something amiss in this portrayal: Lully and his collaborators forbade the inclusion of anything not flattering to Louis XIV. Vsevolozhsky's Florestan has an incompetent Master of Ceremonies and cannot even make sure that the laws of his kindgom are obeyed -- extraordinary breaches of etiquette if such a parallel were intended (especially considering how much of Russia was under martial law during Alexander Ill's reign). The Tsar, who reacted coolly to the new work, may well have thought that if Sleeping Beauty were somehow an allegory of his realm it was uncomplimentary, if not wholly undeserved.
Tchaikovsky's Ballets by Roland John Wiley. 1991. Page 149.
Tchaikovsky's Ballets by Roland John Wiley. 1991. Page 149.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The dance master's kit
The kit, otherwise known as the pochette (Fr. small pocket or small fiddle), or sordine (It. mute), was a pocket-size violin widely used in Europe by dance masters during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Praetorius refers to the instrument as a gar kleinen Geiglein mit dry Siiiten bezogen, off Franzosiscli Pochetto genant (very small violin with three strings, often called the French pochetto) and illustrates two examples, one shaped like a medieval rebec and the other like a narrow boat, that are captioned kleine Poschen/Geigen ein Octav hoher (small pochettes/violins an octave higher). Mersenne refers to the instrument as la Poche (the pocket) and depicts a boat-shaped version fitted with four strings with the lowest string tuned to G.
Because of the kit's slender shape, a dancing master could slip it into his jacket or waistcoat pocket while demonstrating a step and then quickly withdraw it to play a tune. They were made in a variety of shapes, like that of a boat, medieval rebec, miniature viol, viol, or viola d'amore, the latter equipped with sympathetic strings. Because the kit was the essential accouterment of court dance masters, they were often made of exotic woods, ivory, or tortoiseshell, and had elaborately carved heads, festooned outlines, and staved backs. They were equipped with short bows and often tooled leather cases. Despite the efforts lavished on their appearance, kits produced a muted sound.
Stradivari by Stewart Pollens. 2010. Page 136.
Because of the kit's slender shape, a dancing master could slip it into his jacket or waistcoat pocket while demonstrating a step and then quickly withdraw it to play a tune. They were made in a variety of shapes, like that of a boat, medieval rebec, miniature viol, viol, or viola d'amore, the latter equipped with sympathetic strings. Because the kit was the essential accouterment of court dance masters, they were often made of exotic woods, ivory, or tortoiseshell, and had elaborately carved heads, festooned outlines, and staved backs. They were equipped with short bows and often tooled leather cases. Despite the efforts lavished on their appearance, kits produced a muted sound.
Stradivari by Stewart Pollens. 2010. Page 136.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The pressure of performing live -- Deborah Bull
. . . the way a dancer feels as she steps out, alone, on an empty stage. That moment of no return – familiar to me from two decades spent dancing – when years of struggle and physical endeavour combine at a deadline that cannot be deferred; that sense of the world waiting to see whether you really can do it, well-wishers leaning in, eyes alight with hope, naysayers resting on their heels, arms folded across chests and knowing glances exchanged.
Harnessing the learning from years of failure to a single goal and summoning every ounce of emotional courage to dance the first step; the faltering start and then the gradual cresting of the wave as you realise you can do it – you’re doing it – and hardly daring to believe it lest the spell is broken; and then the moment of silence that follows your final flourish, launching a crescendo of applause which, however loud, can never compete with the roaring emotions in your head as the doubts, the hopes and years of wanting spin like the reels on a slot machine before they finally come to rest, three golden bars lined up in a row. You’ve hit the jackpot. You did it.
"The Truth About Ballet" by Deborah Bull in The Telegraph. (Wednesday 26 January 2011). Full article.
Harnessing the learning from years of failure to a single goal and summoning every ounce of emotional courage to dance the first step; the faltering start and then the gradual cresting of the wave as you realise you can do it – you’re doing it – and hardly daring to believe it lest the spell is broken; and then the moment of silence that follows your final flourish, launching a crescendo of applause which, however loud, can never compete with the roaring emotions in your head as the doubts, the hopes and years of wanting spin like the reels on a slot machine before they finally come to rest, three golden bars lined up in a row. You’ve hit the jackpot. You did it.
"The Truth About Ballet" by Deborah Bull in The Telegraph. (Wednesday 26 January 2011). Full article.
Henning Kronstam and musicality
Every dancer who worked with Kronstam mentions his extraordinarily sensitive musicality. Kronstam was not a musician; his musical training consisted of those two years of piano lessons in childhood. However, he had an instinctive sense of both rhythm and melody. Julian Thurber, one of the company's rehearsal pianists who played for Kronstam for more than twenty years (and with his wife, Ingryd Thorson, also a rehearsal pianist, is a concert musician in his own right) described one aspect of Kronstam's musicality: "There's a connection between breath and dance. You can dance with a fixed diaphragm, where you sort of hop around, and probably do it all right, but where nothing happens, or you can dance with a free diaphragm, where certain things happen, and where you remain up in the air for longer periods, and where certain movements suddenly become worth something. That is the breath, and that breath is also a musical thing. He would choose slow tempi to work with until he got the breath inside the movement, and then he would work it." Thorson spoke of Kronstam's way of responding to music and how this was linked to the action in a dramatic ballet. "He pulls the tempi back when you're rehearsing with him. Where James first feels the Sylph coming in the window, Henning hears the music and responds to that, so it's like the music comes first, and then the response comes, and then the feeling that something is there, and then he moves. He doesn't move on the music, which normally people do. It's a response."
Many Danish dancers refer to this as "dancing through the music." Lis Jeppesen described it as a natural rather than regimented musicality: "The whole corps doesn't have to be on the beat, like soldiers," and added: "In one sense, it is singing the dance. You have to hear the music, and what is the soul of the music and what is the melody. And then you have to transfer the melody to your movements. The other thing you do is to extend the movement out as long as you can before you go further, and that is the phrasing."
Henning Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer by Alexandra Tomalonis. (2002). Pages 453-4.
Many Danish dancers refer to this as "dancing through the music." Lis Jeppesen described it as a natural rather than regimented musicality: "The whole corps doesn't have to be on the beat, like soldiers," and added: "In one sense, it is singing the dance. You have to hear the music, and what is the soul of the music and what is the melody. And then you have to transfer the melody to your movements. The other thing you do is to extend the movement out as long as you can before you go further, and that is the phrasing."
Henning Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer by Alexandra Tomalonis. (2002). Pages 453-4.
An Ambassador's memory of Mathilde Kschessinska -- 1917
13 March 1917
At nightfall, I ventured out with my secretary Chambrun to cheer up some women friends who lived near and whom I knew to be extremely anxious. After a call on Princess Stanislas Radziwill and the Countess de Robien, we decided to return, as in spite of the darkness there was constant firing and, as we crossed the Serguievskaïa, we heard the bullets whistling past.
During a day which has been prolific in grave events and may perhaps have determined the future of Russia for a century to come, I have made a note of one episode which seems trivial at first sight, but in reality is highly significant. The town house of Kchechinskaïa, at the end of the Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt and opposite Alexander Park, was occupied by the insurgents to-day and sacked from top to bottom. I remember a detail which makes it easy to see why the residence of the famous dancer has been singled out by mob fury. It was last winter; the cold was intense and the thermometer had fallen to -- 35°. Sir George Buchanan, whose embassy is centrally heated, had been unable to procure coal, which is the essential fuel for that system. He had appealed to the Russian Admiralty, but in vain. That very morning Sazonov had definitely told him it was impossible to find coal in any public depot. In the afternoon we went for a walk together on the Islands, as the sky was clear and there was no wind. Just as we were entering Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt, Buchanan burst out: "Well, if that isn't a bit too thick!" He pointed to four military lorries opposite the dancer's house; they were laden with sacks of coal which a squad of soldiers was engaged in removing. "Don't worry, Sir George," I said. "You haven't the same claim as Madame Kchechinskaïa to the attentions of the imperial authorities."
It is probable that for years past many thousands of Russians have made similar remarks about the favours heaped upon Kchechinskaïa. The ballerina, once the beloved of the Tsarevitch and subsequently courted by two Grand Dukes at once, has become as it were a symbol of the imperial order. It is that symbol which has been attacked by the plebs to-day. A revolution is always more or less a summary and a sanction.
An Ambassador's Memoirs by Maurice Paléologue. 1923-5. Vol 3. Pages 229-30.
At nightfall, I ventured out with my secretary Chambrun to cheer up some women friends who lived near and whom I knew to be extremely anxious. After a call on Princess Stanislas Radziwill and the Countess de Robien, we decided to return, as in spite of the darkness there was constant firing and, as we crossed the Serguievskaïa, we heard the bullets whistling past.
During a day which has been prolific in grave events and may perhaps have determined the future of Russia for a century to come, I have made a note of one episode which seems trivial at first sight, but in reality is highly significant. The town house of Kchechinskaïa, at the end of the Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt and opposite Alexander Park, was occupied by the insurgents to-day and sacked from top to bottom. I remember a detail which makes it easy to see why the residence of the famous dancer has been singled out by mob fury. It was last winter; the cold was intense and the thermometer had fallen to -- 35°. Sir George Buchanan, whose embassy is centrally heated, had been unable to procure coal, which is the essential fuel for that system. He had appealed to the Russian Admiralty, but in vain. That very morning Sazonov had definitely told him it was impossible to find coal in any public depot. In the afternoon we went for a walk together on the Islands, as the sky was clear and there was no wind. Just as we were entering Kammenny-Ostrov Prospekt, Buchanan burst out: "Well, if that isn't a bit too thick!" He pointed to four military lorries opposite the dancer's house; they were laden with sacks of coal which a squad of soldiers was engaged in removing. "Don't worry, Sir George," I said. "You haven't the same claim as Madame Kchechinskaïa to the attentions of the imperial authorities."
It is probable that for years past many thousands of Russians have made similar remarks about the favours heaped upon Kchechinskaïa. The ballerina, once the beloved of the Tsarevitch and subsequently courted by two Grand Dukes at once, has become as it were a symbol of the imperial order. It is that symbol which has been attacked by the plebs to-day. A revolution is always more or less a summary and a sanction.
An Ambassador's Memoirs by Maurice Paléologue. 1923-5. Vol 3. Pages 229-30.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Mr. B Talks About Ballet by George Balanchine
When a person first comes into the ballet he should come and see, come and discover. If you take a person to see a great painting in a gallery -- to see a Michelangelo, for instance -- he might say, "So what? It's very boring, just a man standing there. What is good about it?" So you say, "You might not see anything in the beginning maybe, but look longer." And if he comes again and again and stares -- sure enough, the fifth or sixth time, he will see how beautiful it is, how the air becomes transparent and you can smell it; there is a glow -- the space, the hands, everything is fantastically beautiful. And he wants to see more.
It is the same at the ballet. Just come in and stare. Don't listen to anybody, especially not to so-called balletomanes. These slinky people belong to a circle of "connoisseurs" who follow a dancer not because she is good but because she is famous and they want to say, "I know her." Finally they go to her dressing room, she invites them to tea and they instantly become balletomanes. They are as ignorant as before and they have bad taste. These balletomanes breed bad taste and mediocrity.
The people who really appreciate ballet come and just look at it and if they don't understand, come back again.
George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb. 2004. Pages 200-1.
It is the same at the ballet. Just come in and stare. Don't listen to anybody, especially not to so-called balletomanes. These slinky people belong to a circle of "connoisseurs" who follow a dancer not because she is good but because she is famous and they want to say, "I know her." Finally they go to her dressing room, she invites them to tea and they instantly become balletomanes. They are as ignorant as before and they have bad taste. These balletomanes breed bad taste and mediocrity.
The people who really appreciate ballet come and just look at it and if they don't understand, come back again.
George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb. 2004. Pages 200-1.
Balanchine's childhood
George's first year at the theater school was an unhappy one -- later he often referred to himself as having been "stuck" there ("My parents stuck me in a ballet school when I was small"). The work was basic and mechanical: During the first year, students were not exposed to actual performances and had very little notion of what they were working toward and what the drudgery of repeated exercises might lead to. He was not successful in most of his academic subjects, receiving poor grades in everything but music and religion. And he had trouble making friends. In the early photographs of him, one can hardly miss a look of superiority, almost of disdain, certainly of wariness.
* * *
He was extremely lonely. On weekends and holidays almost all the other children went home, but his home was hours away, and apart from occasional day-trips to the dacha with Aunt Nadia, he was left in the school. Toward the end of his life he would tell Volkov, "On Saturday the school was deserted, for two days. It was sad and lonely to be left: You'd go to church and stand there for some time . . . . You had to fill time before dinner. I would go to the reception hall and play the piano. There was no one there, total emptiness."
* * *
In his second year, a passion for ballet was finally ignited in him: For the first time, as was usual for children at this point in their training, he was taken to the theater to participate in a performance. The ballet was The Sleeping Beauty. "I was Cupid, a tiny Cupid. It was Petipa's choreography. I was set down on a golden eagle. And suddenly everything opened! A crowd of people, an elegant audience. And the Maryinsky Theater all light blue and gold! And suddenly the orchestra started playing. I sat on the cage in indescribable ecstasy enjoying it all -- the music, the theater, and the fact that I was onstage. Thanks to Sleeping Beauty I fell in love with ballet."
George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb. 2004. Pages 13-5.
* * *
He was extremely lonely. On weekends and holidays almost all the other children went home, but his home was hours away, and apart from occasional day-trips to the dacha with Aunt Nadia, he was left in the school. Toward the end of his life he would tell Volkov, "On Saturday the school was deserted, for two days. It was sad and lonely to be left: You'd go to church and stand there for some time . . . . You had to fill time before dinner. I would go to the reception hall and play the piano. There was no one there, total emptiness."
* * *
In his second year, a passion for ballet was finally ignited in him: For the first time, as was usual for children at this point in their training, he was taken to the theater to participate in a performance. The ballet was The Sleeping Beauty. "I was Cupid, a tiny Cupid. It was Petipa's choreography. I was set down on a golden eagle. And suddenly everything opened! A crowd of people, an elegant audience. And the Maryinsky Theater all light blue and gold! And suddenly the orchestra started playing. I sat on the cage in indescribable ecstasy enjoying it all -- the music, the theater, and the fact that I was onstage. Thanks to Sleeping Beauty I fell in love with ballet."
George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb. 2004. Pages 13-5.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Working with the Ballets Russes
When Serge Diaghilev and the acclaimed Ballets Russes made a series of momentous tours to America in 1915, 1916 and 1917, publicity and promotion was managed by Edward L Bernays. Bernays is now an acknowledged pioneer of the concept of public relations and a man more recently described as the father of spin. For the Diaghilev tours he developed a highly successful publicity campaign, flooding American newspapers and magazines with images and stories about the company. He specifically promoted the company as one that was bringing disparate arts together, whose work and personnel could have an impact on the American way. His campaign was not without its flamboyant moments -- in one enlightened move he promoted the largely unknown dancer Flora Revalles by having her photographed in her costume as Zobéide in Schéhérazade with a live snake from the Brooklyn zoo draped around her neck.
Bernays found the experience of dealing with Diaghilev and his company fascinating, as he recalled his autobiography:
I had never imagined that the interpersonal relations of the members of a group could be so involved and complex, full of medieval intrigue, illicit love, misdirected passion and aggression. But while it happened I took it all for granted as part of a stimulating job. Nevertheless, my experience had a life long effect on me for it prepared me to understand and cope with the vagaries of men and women who lived in special worlds of their own.
"People, Patronage and Promotion: The Ballets Russes Tours to Australia, 1936-40" by Michelle Potter in Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume edited by Robert Bell. 2010. Page 183.
Bernays found the experience of dealing with Diaghilev and his company fascinating, as he recalled his autobiography:
I had never imagined that the interpersonal relations of the members of a group could be so involved and complex, full of medieval intrigue, illicit love, misdirected passion and aggression. But while it happened I took it all for granted as part of a stimulating job. Nevertheless, my experience had a life long effect on me for it prepared me to understand and cope with the vagaries of men and women who lived in special worlds of their own.
"People, Patronage and Promotion: The Ballets Russes Tours to Australia, 1936-40" by Michelle Potter in Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume edited by Robert Bell. 2010. Page 183.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)